It might seem like all of today's best webcams are packed with crazy features — 4K resolution, AI-powered tracking and focusing, giant sensors, and next-level color and level balancing. But not everyone is looking for a webcam that they can shoot an Academy Award-winning motion picture with — some people just want to look… good enough.

Elgato's Facecam Neo is designed for those people: It's a simple, budget-friendly webcam that records video at 1080p / 60 fps, and has a 1/2.9" CMOS sensor, an autofocus lens, and a physical privacy shutter. It's part of Elgato's Neo lineup, which is all about being easy — easy to use, easy on your wallet, and easy on the environment (it all comes in recycled packaging). The Facecam Neo has a fixed USB-C cable that can plug into your Windows PC, MacBook, or iPad, which already makes it more versatile than most webcams. It's simple, straightforward, and easy to use — and Elgato permanently slashed the retail price from $99.99 to $59.99, which makes it one of the best budget-friendly webcam options we've seen.

Design of the Facecam Neo

The Facecam Neo is a budget-friendly webcam that records in 1080p / 60 fps. It's a pretty standard-looking webcam, housed in a lightweight plastic chassis that measures 3.5 inches (88mm) wide by 1.6 inches (40mm) tall and is 1.3 inches (32mm) deep. The front of the webcam features the lens, which has a black ring around it denoting the specs, as well as a large white LED on the left side that lights up to indicate whether the webcam is currently streaming.

On top of the webcam, there's a small oval-shaped slider that controls a physical privacy shutter. It's not very fancy — it slides into place and has Elgato's circular "play" symbol logo debossed into it. The slider works well enough — it's smooth but has a little resistance, so I did find myself moving the webcam on my monitor when I went to open or close the shutter. This isn't a big deal, but it can be frustrating if you've spent time perfecting your webcam setup.

That said, the webcam is extremely lightweight — it weighs just 2.82 ounces (80g), not including the cable and stand, or approximately 3.1 ounces (88g) if you include the cable. The cable, which feels sturdy and is braided, is hardwired to the back of the webcam and is fairly stiff — in other words, this webcam is pretty easy to accidentally knock out of alignment even if you're not operating the shutter.

The Facecam Neo comes with a standard clamp-style monitor mount, which attaches to the bottom of the webcam via a standard quarter-inch threaded attachment point. The mount is designed to sit on top of your monitor and "clamp" itself against the back. It's a pretty basic monitor mount, but it does have a transparent front piece (so as not to interfere with the picture on monitors with thin or nonexistent bezels), and it allows for tilting (forward and back) and is detachable — more than I expected to see with a budget webcam.

Like the other products in the Elgato Neo lineup, the Facecam Neo is designed to be plug-n-play and it comes with just two items in the box: the webcam itself, which has a non-detachable 4.5-foot braided USB-C cable, and the detachable monitor mount.

Specs

Well-lit Performance of the Facecam Neo

Our fully-lit lighting scenario consists of lighting all around the subject — in front, behind, and overhead. It's similar to a very well-lit office with a window — there's quite a bit of light in front of me, coming from four monitors, a ring light, and a fill light. Almost every webcam performs well in this scenario, and the Facecam Neo was no different. It performed pretty well, picking up a lot of crisp detail closer to the camera (you can practically count the strands of my hair) and balancing color fairly well. It did struggle with light levels (many webcams do in this scenario, which is very bright), and some parts of the image, such as the keyboards on the desk behind me, are blown out.

The Facecam Neo does have HDR, which you can turn on using Elgato Camera Hub. That’s Elgato's free webcam companion software. It’s not required for this webcam, but does give you access to some useful settings, such as HDR, auto/fixed focus, and digital zoom.

With HDR turned on, the Facecam Neo did a better job of adjusting light levels, but it wasn't perfect. As you can see, HDR did a better job of lighting my face — though I'd argue it needs slightly more contrast. Also, the keyboards behind me are still a little blown out. But turning on HDR did improve the light and color balance, even before I started manually tweaking settings. Turning on HDR does drop the Neo's frame rate to 1080p / 30fps, but that probably won't be too much of an issue for the Neo's target audience. Nobody is really considering this webcam for semi-professional Twitch streaming, let alone fast-paced action shots.

Low-Light Performance of the Facecam Neo

The Facecam Neo did surprisingly well in our low-light scenario, which is essentially complete darkness — the only light source in this picture is one 27-inch monitor, at 70% brightness, with a dark wallpaper and a website with a lot of white space (the regular Google homepage) open on half the screen. While the image still looked very grainy — there's a ton of noise and artifacting in the darker parts of the picture — I was impressed with how otherwise balanced the lighting and color representation looked. It's obvious from this image that I'm not in the best lighting scenario, but I don't think anyone would guess I'm practically sitting in the dark.

Overexposed Performance of the Facecam Neo

Our overexposed lighting scenario consists of one 27-inch monitor (at 70% brightness, with a dark wallpaper and half the screen open to the Google homepage) in front of the subject, and bright lighting over and behind the subject. This is generally the worst lighting setup for any webcam, but it's also one of the most common lighting setups (albeit, not necessarily quite as extreme). After all, most people work and game in well-lit rooms, but do not set up lighting behind their screen (unless they have a reason to, e.g., streaming).

The Facecam Neo didn't perform nearly as well in the overexposed scenario as it did in our other scenarios. It struggled a lot with lighting the subject — and it still ended up overexposing light-colored objects behind me. The webcam did a slightly better job with just a little more light — I maximized the Google homepage on my 27-inch screen, and the sensor adjusted the light balance instantly. It managed to get a decent amount of light on my face, but the picture quality is still pretty shaky.

Features and Software of the Facecam Neo

The Facecam Neo, like the rest of Elgato's Neo lineup, is designed to be as plug-and-play as possible. (But let's be serious: most webcams are fairly plug-and-play — while all come with software for tweaking settings, none require said software for the camera to work.) The Neo's out-of-the-box performance is good enough that you don't need to download any software, but Elgato's Camera Hub is fairly robust for a webcam app.

Camera Hub lets you toggle off automatic focus, exposure, and white balance, giving you fairly detailed control over how the webcam handles light. You can switch between standard and high dynamic range (HDR) in the exposure menu, and you can also adjust the webcam's post-processing (noise reduction and anti-flicker). The software has a handy "Frame" feature, which lets you zoom and crop the picture (you can save four presets and click to switch between them for different angles/focuses). It also has a handful of built-in effects, including filters and green screen-style backgrounds/background blur.

Camera Hub is only available for Windows / Mac OS — the webcam works on other platforms, but you'll need to change any settings on a PC or Macbook. The settings do save directly to the device, though — you don't need to have the software installed or running for settings like manual white balancing or HDR to work.

The Facecam Neo does not have a built-in microphone, which is not too surprising — webcam mics rarely sound passable, let alone good, so they're mostly just a waste. The Facecam Neo does seem to be designed for portability — it's lightweight and USB-C compatible, so you can plug it into a laptop, Macbook, or iPad — and most portable devices have built-in mics anyway (not that these are great, but they're no worse than webcam mics), so even a terrible mic would probably be redundant.

Bottom Line

The Elgato Facecam Neo originally launched with an MSRP of $99.99 — $30 cheaper than the Logitech Brio 500, a 1080p / 30fps webcam that's similar in size — but not exactly cheap. But Elgato permanently dropped the price of the Facecam Neo by $40 — down to $59.99 — this past summer, and that price makes it much more enticing. You won't get the same picture quality in the Facecam Neo as you will in 1080p webcams with better sensors and lenses, such as the Elgato Facecam MK.2, but you will get decent performance in both well-lit and low-light scenarios.

There are cheaper webcams out there, but the Facecam Neo is a solid performer that works on multiple platforms — you can't get much better for $59.99.

At Computex 2025, Elgato has unveiled "Stream Deck Everywhere." This new initiative includes a handful of new projects—some minor, with others shaking up our expectations a bit. Perhaps the most exciting development is for the Virtual Stream Deck (VSD) application, which aims to bring Elgato's Stream Deck interface to a new range of devices.

A variant of the Stream Deck MK.2 is releasing with a new key switch option. This edition will be fitted with Scissor-Switch keys and is promised to provide a faster response time than regular membrane keys. These switches are very thin and don't have as far to move before they actuate, making them a highly responsive option for some. If you're not familiar with the Stream Deck MK.2, check out our review to see what it's capable of. Overall, we enjoyed our experience and gave it a rating of 4 out of 5 stars.

There's also a new network dock by the same name, Network Dock, that offers a hardwired network option for Stream Deck devices. It connects to the Stream Deck via USB and supports both PoE and non-PoE connections. Corsair, Elgato's parent company, confirmed that the IP address could be managed directly on the device.

The Stream Deck Module is another new product, this one is slated to provide a modular platform for DIY enthusiasts to build their own control systems. There are three varieties available in different sizes, including 6-key, 15-key, and 32-key. These are housed inside an aluminum chassis intended to easily drop into projects.

There are never enough keys to control your hardware and software and it always resorts to having a near-endless amount of key binds and shortcuts memorized to smoothly transition between functions and processes, and that's where Elgato's Stream Decks have cemented their place. Basically, these devices provide an ergonomic solution to needing more buttons by combining visual cues to LCD buttons that you can macro/assign to your favorite or needed functions and be able to select whatever you need with an easily identifiable button push.

If you're interested in today's deal, you can find the Elgato Stream Deck+ at Amazon for $169, saving $30 off the MSRP price of $199. The Stream Deck+ has 8 LCD buttons, an LCD touch strip, and 4 turnable dials. You can assign all manner of tasks and functions to these dials and buttons depending on what you would like the Stream Deck+ to control.

Our peripherals editor Sarah had the opportunity to review the Elgato Stream Deck+ and awarded the compact controller 4 stars. Adding new input types to the traditional Stream Deck, the Stream Deck+ introduces an LCD touch strip and dials for assigning to a multitude of your most used tasks. Things we liked about the Stream Deck+ included the new LCD touch strip making for easy navigation and the premium quality feel of the dials. Negatives included the bulkiness and size of the unit, lack of touch stip programmability, and not natively supporting Photoshop.

The Elgato Stream Deck+ features native support for streaming services such as OBS, Twitch, and Streamlabs, as well as optional plugins for a variety of other apps and services, so it's easy to setup macros for your favorite and most used functions.

Don't forget to look at our Amazon coupon codes for January 2025 and see if you can save on today's deal or other products at Amazon.

There aren't too many 1080p/60fps webcams. Don't get me wrong, some of the best webcams are 4K webcams that also record in 1080p/60fps, but they also cost $300 or so — if you want 60fps but you don't need 4K resolution, you can halve your expenses by picking up a 1080p/60fps webcam like the new Elgato Facecam MK.2. 

The Facecam MK.2 is Elgato's update to the original Facecam, which also features 1080p/60fps uncompressed video, a f/2.4 aperture fixed-focus lens, and an 82-degree field of view. The new Facecam MK.2 features a lower-profile redesign with a built-in privacy shutter, onboard memory, and 4x digital zoom. It also adds HDR and a couple of types of noise reduction, but otherwise image quality hasn't changed that much. It's definitely a nice update to the original Facecam, and its launch price of $149.99 is $50 less than the original Facecam's debut MSRP of $199.99 (however, the original Facecam is now going for $129.99).

Design of the Facecam MK.2

The Facecam MK.2 looks like a mix of the original Elgato Facecam and the 4K Elgato Facecam Pro (but closer to the Facecam).  The original Facecam measures 3.1 x 1.9 x 2.3 inches (79 x 48 x 58mm), and the new Facecam MK.2 is more of a flat rectangle (like the Facecam Pro), measuring 3.3 inches (84mm) wide by 1.5 inches (38mm) high by 2.4 inches (61mm) deep. The Facecam MK.2 weighs 3.17oz (90g) without the detachable monitor mount, which is slightly lighter than the original Facecam (3.38oz / 96g) — the webcam itself is very lightweight.

The Facecam MK.2 has the same overall aesthetic as the Facecam and Facecam Pro. It's housed in a boxy, black plastic chassis that looks and feels sort of cheap, but certainly contributes to its light weight. Elgato's arrow-in-a-circle logo is debossed on the top, and is printed in white on the right side along with the word, "Facecam." 

The back features a USB-C port near the bottom and venting to keep the Facecam MK.2 cool while it runs. The webcam gets a little warm when running but it wasn't anything to be concerned about.

The Facecam MK.2 has a built-in privacy cover that slides over the lens from the right side. Physical privacy covers are a must, in my opinion — not because I'm overly concerned about webcam hacks, but because it's far too easy to accidentally turn on your webcam in various apps and programs. It's also nice to see one that's built-in; the original Facecam had a detachable privacy cover, which is far too easy to lose, and the Facecam Pro had nothing. This privacy cover isn't particularly impressive, as far as privacy covers go: it's a little stiff to open and close, and it might be tricky to catch the little nub without nails. But it works well enough to cover the camera lens, which is all I'm really concerned about.

The Facecam MK.2 comes mounted on a detachable monitor mount clamp that's very similar to (but slightly smaller than) the Facecam Pro's monitor mount clamp. The clamp is simple, with a lip that hangs over the edge of the screen and a rubber-covered clamp that helps stabilize the mount on top of your monitor. It's not a particularly tight clamp, but it doesn't really need to be — this is a very light webcam, and should sit pretty securely on top of most monitors (so long as there aren't any earthquakes).

While mounted, the webcam can swivel and tilt forward (up to 90 degrees). If you'd rather use a different mount or a tripod, the mount easily screws off to reveal a standard 1/4-inch thread tripod mounting point. The mount measures 2.56 inches (65mm) wide by 2.03 inches (51.6mm) deep and weighs 1.71 ounces (48.5g), so it doesn't add much weight to the webcam.

Like its predecessor, the Facecam MK.2 connects via USB 3.0 (it comes with a thick, 6.5-foot / 2m USB-C to USB-A cable). It requires a USB 3.0 connection to record uncompressed video, but it doesn't require USB 3.0 to work — you can connect it via USB 2.0, it will just record in MJPEG format.

Specs

Well-lit Performance

The Facecam MK.2 records video in 1080p resolution at 60fps (and 30fps), which is the same resolution and frame rate as its predecessor, the Elgato Facecam. It also records video in 720p and 540p at 120/60/30fps. 

It has a fixed-focus Elgato Prime Lens with a focus range of 30 - 120 cm (11.8 - 47.2 inches) and a f/2.4 aperture. It has a focal length of 24mm and a diagonal field-of-view of 84 degrees, and sports a 1/2.5" Sony Starvis CMOS sensor.

I take all webcam test photos in my home office, which gets virtually zero natural light. (And as usual, I took these in the middle of the night so there was absolutely zero natural light.) For my well-lit scenario, I have a ring light, a key light, and four monitors (three 27-inch, one 34-inch) in front of me, an arching floor lamp overhead, and two desk lamps behind me. 

The ring light is set to 35% brightness at 3600K, and the key light is set to 15% brightness at 4100K. My three 27-inch monitors are set to display white screens and my main 34-inch monitor has the Windows 11 Camera app open on one half of the screen and the default Google homepage open on the other half. Trust me, this is plenty of light, and most older webcams tend to read this setting as overexposed. I take all photos using the Windows 11 Camera App.

The Facecam MK.2 performed fairly well in this scenario, with decent auto-exposure and auto-white balancing. I was surprised to see that the Facecam MK.2's auto-exposure actually skewed toward underexposed rather than overexposed, because I'm used to seeing the opposite. The auto-white balance isn't perfect and trends a little toward the warm side, but it's not too bad — and a little too warm is usually better than a little too cool when it comes to skintones, anyway. The Facecam MK.2 offers the detail you'd expect from a 1080p webcam, though the image is noisier (and therefore a little less detailed, especially if you look at the books in the background) from the lower exposure.

The Facecam MK.2 has a couple of software/processing settings that make a difference in image quality, including noise reduction (set to medium by default) and HDR. The webcam has two types of noise reduction: spatial "2D" noise reduction, which looks at surrounding pixels to determine what is noise, and then smooths over that graininess, and temporal "3D" noise reduction, which uses pixel data over multiple frames to determine what is noise. 

2D noise reduction looks softer/smoother and loses more detail, while 3D noise reduction retains more sharpness. In the case of the Facecam MK.2, there are three levels of noise reduction — "low," or 2D only, "medium," or 3D only, and "high," or 2D and 3D together (you can also turn it off).

Noise reduction reduces noise at the expense of detail (by smoothing over noisy parts of the image). I was surprised at how noisy my well-lit images were with noise reduction turned off — if you zoom in on the first image above, you can see a lot of noise and graininess, especially on my sweatshirt. This improves a little with medium (3D) noise reduction, and a lot with high (2D and 3D) noise reduction, but you do end up losing some detail in the last photo.

HDR, on the other hand, is turned off by default on the Facecam MK.2. HDR (high dynamic range) on a webcam isn't the same as HDR on a display — HDR on a webcam is a capture process that involves combining multiple exposures of the same shot for a more evenly-lit image that shows detail in both dark and light areas without under- or over-exposing the rest of the picture. 

SDR vs HDR is perhaps best represented by my French bulldog, who has a brindle coat with darker and lighter areas. In the first photo, which has HDR turned off, you can see some of his coloring but he's mostly pretty dark. 

In the second photo, with HDR turned on, you can see more dimension in his coat. However, the image also seems to have lost some detail and is much noisier and fuzzier. So... that's not great. While I did find that turning on HDR made a difference, I mostly preferred this webcam in SDR.

Low-Light Performance

To test a webcam's low-light performance, I turn off all of my lights (ring light, key light, overhead light, desk lamps), as well as my three 27-inch monitors — leaving my 34-inch monitor as my only source of light.

The Facecam MK.2 actually performed pretty well in this scenario: there's a little too much light on the subject (me), but at least the subject is lit, and there's some attempt at lighting the background as well. 

The image is fairly noisy, but that's what I expect to see from any webcam's low-light photos (the Logitech Brio 500 is an exception — Logitech's RightLight 4 technology is definitely doing some heavy lifting here). The Facecam MK.2 also did a good job with color balancing here — the slightly warm-leaning auto-white balance seems to be what's making me look more alive in this image, despite being illuminated by a single computer monitor.

Overexposed Performance

The last lighting test scenario I use is an overexposed lighting scenario. I turn off (almost) all of the lights in front of me: the ring light, the key light, and my three 27-inch monitors, leaving just my 34-inch monitor turned on as well as the lights behind and above me. This simulates a fairly common overexposed scenario, because most people don't place bright lights (or a window) behind their screen. 

The Facecam MK.2 performed... not as well, in this scenario. Ideally, a webcam will light both the subject and the background adequately without blowing the background out too much in an overexposed setting. While the Facecam MK.2 did manage to light my background without blowing it out, it didn't do the best job of lighting me — and let's face it, most people are more concerned about the subject over the background in this case. 

The Brio 500 does a good job of lighting both the subject and the background with only some minor overexposure in the background, which is very forgivable given how well the subject is lit. The Dell Pro Webcam (WB5023) does blow out the background quite a bit, but at last the subject is well-lit.

I tried turning on HDR to see if that might help boost the webcam's foreground lighting, but it didn't seem to do much. It did slightly improve contrast (especially in darker areas), and turn down some overexposure from around the light sources, but otherwise lighting largely stayed the same.

Features and Software

The Elgato Facecam MK.2 can be configured with Elgato's Camera Hub software, which offers fairly detailed control over exposure and image, a handful of processing effects that you can toggle on and off, and a framing section with four customizable presets so you can quickly switch between different shots. It does have onboard memory so you can save all of the settings directly to the hardware, which is a pretty unique feature for a webcam.

The Camera Hub lets you adjust exposure using shutter speed and ISO, as well as color temperature, contrast, saturation, and sharpness. You can also toggle HDR and adjust noise reduction (low, medium, high, and off). In the framing section, you can zoom, pan, tilt, and set presets so you can switch quickly between scenes. You can also turn off the Camera Hub's image preview option, which means you can continue to use the app to adjust settings while the webcam is active in another program.

The Camera Hub software also has a handful of AI features, some of which require the Nvidia AR SDK. These include backgrounds and blurring (basically what you'll find in any generic video conferencing app), as well as AI-powered face tracking and Nvidia's weird eye contact feature.

The Facecam MK.2 doesn't have a built-in microphone, which isn't too much of an issue — built-in mics on webcams are usually mediocre at best.

Bottom Line

If you're looking for a webcam that records 1080p/60fps uncompressed video (or 720p/120fps, for some reason), the Elgato Facecam MK.2 is a pretty good option — and it's well-priced at $149.99. The Razer Kiyo Pro also records 1080p/60fps uncompressed video, but it's a few years old now (though it's currently on sale at Amazon for $89.51 — down 55% from its retail price of $199.99).

If you don't need 1080p/60fps uncompressed video, however, the Facecam MK.2's image quality is mostly on par with (and, in some situations, below par with) that of the Logitech Brio 500 — which features a better built-in privacy shutter and better overexposed lighting performance, records video in 1080p/30fps, and is currently on sale at Amazon for $88.01, down from its retail price of $129.99.

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From the Elgato Stream Deck line to the Loupedeck Live, macro / control decks for streaming, creative work and productivity are a big deal. Now, Cooler Master is getting into the market with its MasterHUB, which offers a unique twist. You put it together yourself, snapping your choice of modules onto a magnetic / pogo-pin backplate. 

We had a chance to check out the MasterHUB at Cooler Master's Computex 2023 demo suite and were impressed with both the build quality of the components themselves and how easily they snap on and off of the magnetic base. The 6 x 4-inch Flexbase base plate connects to your PC via Thunderbolt (USB-C) so it has plenty of bandwidth, though it's unclear if it would work on a non-Thunderbolt port.

The modules include:

• Touch Display: 8-inch, 1280 x 800 screen that can be a secondary monitor or house various touch controls. 
• Scrolling Wheel: Has two scrolling wheels that look and feel like the volume controls you'd find on a media keyboard.
• Dial Module: has three small dials with backlights.
• Dial Encoder module: Has a 1.3-inch dial with an IPS display on it you can use for displaying custom images. Offers fine-grain control for precise movements.
• 15-Key Display module: Includes 15 customizable keys with displays on each (we didn't see this in person).
• Slider module: This has five sliders you'd use for something like adjusting volume levels.
• Two smaller display modules: We also saw a stout wide display module and one that took up about half the base.

The Flexbase appears to have connectors for up to six small, square modules. Wider or taller modules could take up two, four or all six slots. 

A Cooler Master rep said that the company plans to sell MasterHUB both in a series of sets for particular use cases and as individual modules. The company showed off two particular sets: a Video Editor kit, which has the dial module, volume sliders, video encoder and a wide touch screen, and the Photo Editor kit, which has a taller touch screen, the scrolling wheel module, the video dial and the dial module.

The MasterHUB uses Cooler Master software on your PC to help you configure it and make the most of it. You'll be able to not only set custom macros for creative applications such as Photoshop and Premiere, but also control and view the status of your CPU, GPU, RGB lights coolers. Cooler Master touts the Scrolling Wheel module specifically as good for controlling your fans, pumps and lighting. 

There's no word yet on when the MasterHUB is coming to market and what it will cost. However, it looks like when it does, it will be giving Stream Deck and Loupedeck a serious run for their money.

If there’s one thing the Raspberry Pi is good for, it’s adding features to hardware that weren’t there before. That seems to be the case here with this Raspberry Pi project created by a maker known as Mad Patter over on Reddit. Using one of our favorite SBCs, the Raspberry Pi Zero W, Mad Patter has managed to make their dual Stream Deck setup completely wireless. With it, you can connect to the Stream Deck rig without a cable in sight (they’re tucked underneath with velcro, along with a battery pack).

According to Mad Patter, they like to use Stream Decks for automating workflow throughout the day. Having one within reach is very useful but not so much with cables in the way taking up valuable USB ports. After playing around with a Pwnagotchi, a Pi Zero-based AI project that uses wireless to interface, Mad Patter decided the Stream Deck could use a little wireless functionality as well.

The project consists of two Stream Decks, a Stream Deck MK.2 and a Stream Deck XL. These two are mounted together in a custom 3D-printed stand ordered from Etsy. The stand has plenty of room underneath the Stream Deck boards, which Mad Patter decided would be the perfect place to put a Pi Zero W into the picture.

The Pi Zero W mounts easily underneath while providing plenty of room for a few extra components. It also includes a 4-port USB hub as well as a 10,000 mAh power bank. Mad Patter explains that the power bank should, in theory, last for up to 20 hours, but this may be a generous estimation as the battery life has not been tested with the setup yet.

The Pi Zero W is running Raspberry Pi OS along with a network USB server application called VirtualHere. This allows users to connect to the Stream Deck setup over the network as if they were connected to the machine. A client is required for the target machine to connect to the system. An alternative application was considered called USBIP, but VirtualHere was chosen for its Mac support.

Overall, this is a wonderfully clever project and we appreciate the work put into making it. If you’d like to recreate it or just get a closer look at how it goes together, check out the original project thread shared to Reddit, and be sure to follow Mad Patter for any future updates. 

Razer is all about streaming and content creation these days (who isn’t?), and it seems to be targeting Elgato directly with its latest streaming deck. In fact, when I first saw the new Razer Stream Controller X, I thought Razer had ditched its partnership with Loupedeck and turned to Elgato (but then I realized that wouldn’t really make sense, as Elgato is owned by semi-rival gaming company Corsair). But doesn’t the new Stream Controller X look an awful lot like the Elgato Stream Deck MK.2? 

This is Razer’s second collaboration with Finnish streaming deck maker Loupedeck — and while the first Razer Stream Controller (launched July 2022) was little more than a reskin of one of Loupedeck’s existing consoles, the new Stream Controller X looks like a brand-new product. (Well, brand-new-ish, since it looks a lot like Elgato’s MK.2.) The Stream Controller X is a small, chunky deck with 15 tactile LCD buttons. It’s powered by Loupedeck’s software and it comes with a detachable magnetic stand and a swappable magnetic faceplate, and is available now for $149.99.

Design of the Stream Controller X

The Stream Controller X looks a lot like the Elgato Stream Deck MK.2, from the 15 tactile LCD buttons to the swappable magnetic faceplate. It’s not an exact replica, however — the Stream Controller X is slightly smaller, measuring 4.37 inches (111 mm) wide by 3.17 inches (80.7 mm) deep. It’s 1.18 inches (30 mm) tall at its highest point without the stand and 3.1 inches (78.9 mm) tall with the stand. For comparison, the MK.2 measures 4.6 inches (118 mm) wide by 3.3 inches (84 mm) deep, and is 1 inch (25 mm) tall without the stand (3 inches / 76 mm with the stand). 

The Stream Controller X has a listed weight of 0.39 pounds (177 g), but I’m not sure where this number came from, as my review unit weighed 0.32 pounds (147 g) without the stand or cable, 0.02 pounds  (200 g) with the cable but without the stand, 0.7 pounds  (317 g) with the stand but without the cable, and 0.81 pounds (369 g) with the cable and the stand. The MK.2, for comparison, weighs 0.32 pounds (145 g) without its cable or stand, and weighs 0.6 pounds (270 g) with its stand (but without its cable).

The Stream Controller X is housed in a sturdy, matte black plastic chassis with raised rubber feet and a rectangular cutout on its back to accommodate the device’s USB-C cable. Its faceplate, which is magnetic and can be easily swapped out, features the Razer wordmark printed at center-bottom, and has glossy accents surrounding the device’s 15 clear, plastic tactile LCD buttons.

The Stream Controller X can be laid horizontally on your desk (it’s slightly angled), or you can place it in the included v-shaped magnetic stand, which places the device at a 50-degree angle. The stand has a cutout for the device’s USB-C cable — which works, but probably could have been better implemented, as it does seem to put some stress on the cable. The stand itself is very sturdy — much sturdier than the flimsy piece of plastic included with the recent Loupedeck Live S — and the decksnaps into place very easily. 

The stand is pretty hefty, so I don’t think you have to worry about it sliding across your desk when you press a button. Apparently Razer/Loupedeck had this concern, however, so the bottom of the stand is lined with anti-slip microsuction tape.

In the box, the Stream Controller X comes with the removable magnetic stand and a 6.5-foot (2 m) coated USB-C to USB-A cable, as well as an instruction booklet (and, of course, a Razer logo sticker).

Specs

Buttons on the Stream Controller X

The Stream Controller X has 15 “switchblade” buttons — that’s right, Razer has finally figured out how to upcycle the remnants of its ambitious switchblade concept. (Actually, I’m pretty sure the company called the buttons on the first Stream Controller switchblade buttons as well, but these are much closer to the original switchblade design.)

The buttons are arranged in a three-row, five-column grid (just like the MK.2’s buttons), and each button measures 0.63 inches (16 mm) square. They’re tactile, unlike the buttons on the first Stream Controller, which are touch-sensitive with haptic feedback. I’m a big fan of tactile buttons on streaming decks, and these offer good feedback (they feel pretty similar to Elgato’s tactile LCD buttons on the Elgato Stream Deck+, though they’re slightly smaller).

The Stream Controller X’s tactile buttons lack the combined touchscreen functionality of the first Stream Controller. The touch-sensitive buttons on the first Stream Controller were essentially one large touchscreen, and you could navigate through the Stream Controller’s pages using swipe gestures over said touchscreen. 

On the Stream Controller X, the lower left and right corner buttons are dedicated to navigation (lower right only on the first page; lower left only on the last page). These dedicated navigation buttons cannot be reprogrammed, though their icons can be changed. So you don’t really get 15 programmable buttons on the Stream Controller X — you get 13 or 14, depending on the page. Loupedeck’s software supports up to 14 pages — minus the navigation, that’s still 184 programmable buttons, which is probably enough for most streamers. However, it is a little annoying that you can’t get rid of or even relocate these navigation keys.

Software of the Stream Controller X

The Stream Controller X requires Loupedeck’s software to run. (It also shows up as a module in Razer Synapse 3, but all that module does is kick you over to Loupedeck.) 

Streaming decks are all about customization, but don’t worry: the Stream Controller X isn’t a totally blank slate out of the box. It comes pre-loaded with a handful of presets, including four pre-made screens (featuring icons in Razer’s signature green) set up for streaming, social media, Twitch chat, and sound effects. You’ll still want to spend some time customizing the Stream Controller X to fit your specific needs, eventually, of course, but the pre-loaded content means you can start using the device immediately. 

Loupedeck is all about its dynamic profiles and workspaces, which are collections of tools (buttons) tied to specific applications or games. In “dynamic mode,” Loupedeck’s software automatically switches to app-specific profiles when you’re using that app — so the console is essentially whatever you need it to be at any given moment. Loupedeck features native profile/plugin support for several apps, with pre-made profiles for streaming apps (such as OBS, Twitch, and Streamlabs) and creative apps (such as Ableton Live, Final Cut Pro, VMix, and Adobe’s creative suite). 

This is all just a jumping-off point, of course — you can tweak these pre-made profiles in Loupedeck’s software, or you can create your own profiles and assign them to open with specific apps.

At the end of the day, profiles are just collections of button actions. You can program buttons with predefined actions (found in native or third-party plugins), or you can create your own custom actions using Loupedeck’s software. You can chain multiple actions together on one button using either the macro feature (pressing the button once causes all actions to be performed in sequence) or the multi-toggle feature (pressing the button once causes the first action to be performed, pressing it again causes the second action to be performed, etc; up to five actions can be multi-toggled).

Loupedeck’s software also features the Loupedeck Marketplace, which has additional free and paid assets from both Loupedeck and third-party creators. These assets include plugins, profiles, stream overlays, emotes and badges, presets and styles, icon packs, and sound packs. At the moment there are just two Razer plugins in the Marketplace, for the Razer Key Light Chroma and the Razer Audio Mixer.

The Bottom Line

The first Razer Stream Controller was just a Razer-branded Loupedeck Live. The Razer Stream Controller X technically isn’t just a Razer-branded Elgato Stream Deck MK.2 — but only because it’s not made by Elgato. Otherwise, it kind of... is. It really comes down to whether you prefer Loupedeck’s software and plugin support to Elgato’s (and Elgato’s tactile LCD buttons to Loupedeck’s haptic touch buttons), because the Stream Controller X is ultimately just Loupedeck’s software in an Elgato Stream Deck MK.2 with a Razer logo on the front. 

Okay, it’s not exactly the same. The Stream Controller X has a well-designed, sturdy stand, even if the microsuction tape is probably overkill. But the design is very close — I assume Razer is going to come out with swappable faceplates in the near future, but maybe it should have launched with those. That’s not to say I don’t like it, because I do. The Stream Controller X is a nice, compact size (but still very sturdy), its buttons are bright, crisp, and tactile, and Loupedeck’s native support for Photoshop is my personal deal-maker over Elgato’s Stream Deck software.

Considering how much gamers love extra, programmable keys and buttons on keyboards and mice, it’s surprising how few standalone macro/control pads exist — especially for streamers and gamers. The market is almost entirely dominated by two companies: Elgato and Loupedeck, but the competition is fierce. 

Elgato just came out with its new Stream Deck+, and now Loupedeck has officially launched its Live S console (which was first announced as an Indiegogo campaign in June 2022). With an MSRP of $179, the Live S enters Loupedeck’s lineup as its smallest and most affordable console from the company to date.

Design of the Live S

The Loupedeck Live S is the smallest macro pad in Loupedeck’s product stack, with a layout that’s (unsurprisingly) similar to the Loupedeck Live. The Live S isn’t much larger than my iPhone 13 Pro, measuring 5.91 inches (150mm) wide by 3.39 inches (86mm) deep, and 1.18 inches (30mm) thick.

It’s housed in a lightweight but sturdy-feeling matte black plastic chassis, and it weighs 5.92 ounces (168g). It comes with a detachable stand, which makes it very portable and easy to travel with (unlike the Stream Deck+, which has a fixed stand).

The detachable stand snaps along the back of the Live S, setting the device at a 35-degree angle. With the stand attached, the Live S is approximately 2.25 inches (57mm) tall. The stand is easy enough to attach and remove, but it’s made of very thin plastic — it feels easily breakable, especially if you are attaching and removing it frequently.

The Live S has a touchscreen divided into 15 touch-sensitive buttons, which are flanked on either side by analog dials (two, on the left side) and four tactile RGB buttons (one on the left, three on the right). The analog dials are covered in soft-touch, rubbery material with raised tactile ridges. The tactile buttons are small, round, and plastic, and are somewhat stiff when pressed.

The Live S comes with a 6.5-foot (2m) braided USB-C to USB-C cable, a USB-C to USB-A adapter, and a detachable stand in the box. 

Specs

Buttons and Dials on the Live S

The Live S has 15 touch buttons and four tactile buttons. The touch buttons are dynamic, responsive, and, while they do not offer tactile feedback like the LED keys on Elgato’s Stream Decks, they do offer haptic feedback when pressed — albeit, very mild haptic feedback. 

Because the touch buttons are actually just one touchscreen divided into 15 sections, the panel also accepts touch gesture input: you can swipe your finger horizontally across the screen to scroll through pages of buttons  (up to 14), and you can swipe your finger vertically to scroll through pages (also up to 14) of dials.

The Live S also has four tactile buttons — one in the lower left corner and three on the right side of the touch panel. The buttons are small and circular and have built-in RGB lighting that can be customized (from a menu of 24 preset color options) using Loupedeck’s software. 

Each button, except for the button in the lower left corner, has one layer of functionality (press). The button in the lower left corner has two layers of functionality (press and hold-down) — but only the first is customizable. Holding down this button switches to the Live S’s main profile; this cannot be changed. Loupedeck said in an email that programmable hold-down functionality in the other three buttons “might be available in future updates as we have it in the pipeline.”

The Live S has two notched tactile dials with push functionality. Although the Live S doesn’t have the same “dial stack” feature that the Stream Deck+ has, you can program up to 14 “dial pages,” which is basically the same thing (you’ll just have to swipe vertically to change dial functions). Loupedeck does natively support MIDI dial mapping, which lets you use it with MIDI-enabled instruments and digital audio workstations (DAWs). The Stream Deck+ doesn’t have native support for MIDI mapping (though there is a third-party Stream Deck plugin). 

The Live S doesn’t have a dial strip, like the Live does, to display the dials’ functions. There is an option to turn on “dial display” in the Live S’s settings menu. This option turns the touch buttons next to each dial into a display. However, it also disables these buttons’ touch functionality on all pages — even if it’s a page with no dial functions assigned.

Software of the Live S

The Loupedeck Live S requires Loupedeck’s software to run. The software is also where you can customize the device, either by creating your own custom actions and macros from scratch, or by using pre-made profiles, plugins, and other assets from both Loupedeck and third-party content creators.

Like other macro pads and stream decks, the Loupedeck Live S is extremely customizable. What’s nice is that it ships with pre-installed plugins and profiles, meaning it’s pretty usable out of the box (and you have some templates to work off of, if you’re brand-new to this type of device). Using the software, you can set up your own profiles and workspaces — profiles are for different scenarios or apps, while workspaces are toolboxes within each profile. Each workspace can have up to 14 pages of buttons and 14 pages of dials.

The Live S comes with several profiles and plugins pre-installed, including OBS, Twitch, Streamlabs, Spotify, Philips Hue, Ableton Live, VMix, Final Cut Pro, and several Adobe creative apps (Photoshop, After Effects Pro, Lightroom Classic, Illustrator, Audition, and Premiere Pro). Native support for Adobe apps is one of the big advantages Loupedeck still has over Elgato — while Stream Decks can be configured to work with Adobe products, Loupedeck’s premade profiles are significantly more convenient.

You can also access the Loupedeck Marketplace from within the Loupedeck software. The Marketplace has additional assets, including plugins, profiles, stream overlays, emotes and badges, presets and styles, and icon and sound packs from both Loupedeck and third-party creators. The Marketplace lets creators post both free and paid assets — functional assets (profiles, plugins, icons, etc) are mostly free, while assets like stream overlays and emotes are mostly paid.

The Bottom Line

The Loupedeck Live S is a good entry-level addition to Loupedeck’s lineup — it offers an impressive amount of functionality considering it’s nearly $100 cheaper than the Loupedeck Live. It’s also extremely portable, which makes it an ideal option for creators who frequently travel or move between workspaces.

That said, it’s also priced very close to Elgato’s new Stream Deck+ ($199), which has similar functionality, with touch, tactile, and dial input options. And Elgato’s device has a sturdier and more premium-feeling build. There used to be a larger gap between Loupedeck’s consoles and Elgato’s decks, but these two recent launches are surprisingly similar.

Loupedeck started out with a focus on photo editing; the first Loupedeck was designed for Lightroom. To that point, the Live S still offers a slight advantage for traditional creators, such as photographers, video editors, and music producers, thanks to Loupedeck’s native support for creative apps, like Adobe products and MIDI mapping. 

Elgato, on the other hand, has been gaming- and streaming-focused for years, and has an entire streaming ecosystem of capture cards, webcams, mics, lights, and more — all of which work seamlessly with its Stream Decks. Until the Stream Deck+, Stream Decks only had one type of input — buttons — but the Stream Deck+ adds both touch and dial input (and has four dials, versus the Live S’s two). Creators who are entirely streaming-focused may therefore find the Stream Deck+ easier to integrate into their workflow, especially if they have other Elgato (or Corsair) products. 

In short,the Loupedeck Live S is an excellent control pad, but it’s not a clear winner (or loser) against Elgato’s Stream Deck+.

Streamers, gamers, and senior editors at hardware-enthusiast tech pubs alike can all use an extra macro key — or eight. Streamers, especially, have a number of tech devices and programs that need to work together for their stream to come together — so it’s not all that surprising that streaming-oriented custom macropads from brands such as Elgato and Loupedeck are so popular.

Not to be outdone by the upcoming Loupedeck Live S, Elgato has dropped the latest iteration of its customizable streaming macropad — and this one has dials.

Until now, Stream Decks have been all about buttons — the original Stream Deck and its update, the Stream Deck MK.2, both have 15 buttons; the diminutive Stream Deck Mini has six buttons; and the behemoth Stream Deck XL has 32 buttons. Elgato’s newest Stream Deck+ still has buttons — eight tactile LCD keys — but it deviates from its predecessors by adding not one but two new input types: an LCD touch strip and four clickable, multifunction dials.

The Stream Deck+ is available now for $200, and features native support for streaming services such as OBS, Twitch, and Streamlabs, as well as optional plugins for a variety of other apps and services.

Design of the Stream Deck+

The Stream Deck+ is housed in a sturdy, solid black plastic chassis with the Stream Deck logo printed in white across the top. Unlike previous Stream Decks, such as the Stream Deck MK.2 and the Stream Deck XL, which have rectangular face plates, the Stream Deck+ has a square-shaped face plate that measures 5.4 inches (138mm) wide by 5.25 inches (133.4mm) tall.

The Stream Deck+ has a built-in stand, which places it at a 45-degree angle — the device will need approximately 4.3 inches (110mm) of height clearance on your desk. The stand measures 5.5 inches (140mm) deep and features Elgato’s logo embossed across the top, with rubberized, non-slip material covering the bottom. The Stream Deck+ is heftier than other Stream Decks — thanks, in part, to its built-in stand — and weighs 1 pound (465g).

The Stream Deck+ has eight programmable LCD keys, arranged in two rows of four, along the top;these are the same clear plastic tactile buttons seen on other Stream Deck models. What’s new on the Stream Deck+ are its LCD touch panel and four clickable multifunction dials, which are located below the LCD keys.

The LCD touch panel is 4.2 inches (108mm) wide and 0.5 inches (14mm) tall, and acts as both a display for/extension of the corresponding dials below it, as well as a way to navigate (via swiping) through Stream Deck pages. The dials look and feel great — they’re made of black machined aluminum and are tactile (notched) and textured.

The Stream Deck+ has a USB-C port on its back and connects to your PC (Elgato warns that this needs to be a direct connection — not through a USB hub) via USB 2.0. The Stream Deck+ comes fully assembled, with a braided 5-foot USB-C to USB-A cable in the box.

Specs

Buttons on the Stream Deck+

The Stream Deck+ has eight tactile buttons, each of which measures 0.75 inches (19mm) square, laid over one LCD screen (not eight separate screens). The buttons are made of clear plastic and have a glossy finish, and offer quiet tactile feedback as well as (programmable) visual feedback.

Buttons can be programmed to do a variety of things — open a program, perform a single action, perform a series of actions, toggle or adjust various settings, display information for everything from your system stats to the weather, etc. You can program buttons using basic actions included in the Stream Deck software (e.g. hotkey, open, multimedia, etc); for more functionality you can also download Elgato- and creator-made plugins in the Stream Deck store.

The Stream Deck+’s eight buttons might seem like a downgrade from the 15-button Stream Deck MK.2 or the 32-button Stream Deck XL, but there are several ways to add more buttons (virtually). You can have multiple Stream Deck pages (up to 10), which you can navigate through by swiping right and left on the touch strip. You can also program buttons as “folders,” which can be pressed to open up a subset of buttons. According to Elgato, you can create unlimited subfolders within folders — pressing and holding the return key will take you back to the top level.

Elgato’s Stream Deck software also lets you create multiple profiles for the Stream Deck+, each with its own 10-page set of buttons and dials. You can switch profiles manually — though you’ll need to program a key for profile switching. You can also assign profiles to open with specific programs, allowing you to have custom Stream Deck setups for apps such as OBS, Photoshop, or even different games.

Touch Strip and Dials on the Stream Deck+

The Stream Deck+ has an LCD touch strip and four clickable multifunction dials, which mostly work in tandem. The LCD touch strip acts as a display for the dials, and also mirrors some of the dials’ functionality for when the dials are set up in a “dial stack.”

The dials are programmable, but they’re not quite as flexible as the buttons — though this may change if Elgato opens up the dial side of its Stream Deck software to third-party plugins. Dials can be programmed with hotkeys, and can also be programmed to adjust the Stream Deck+’s brightness level, multimedia settings (volume, etc.), and webcam settings through the Camera Hub — if you’re using an Elgato webcam such as the Facecam Pro.

Dials can also be programmed with a “dial stack,” which just lets you stack multiple dial features onto one dial — and cycle through them by clicking the dial. Because you lose the click functionality of dial features in a dial stack, that functionality is mirrored in the touch strap — you can tap the section of the touch strip above the corresponding dial to activate the click function. (This is the case regardless of whether the dial has a dial stack — at the moment, the touch strip’s functionality cannot be programmed separately from the dials.)

Software of the Stream Deck+

The Stream Deck+ requires Elgato’s Stream Deck software to function. The software has two main parts — the programming screen, which is where you can program buttons and dials and set up and assign profiles; and the store, which is where you can download and install plugins, icons, music, and sound effects from Elgato and third-party creators.

Programming the Stream Deck+’s buttons and dials is largely performed through drag-and-drop, though you can also right-click buttons to create folders or multi action stacks, and right-click dials to create dial stacks. Buttons can be programmed with visual feedback — different icons and/or titles to indicate on/off/toggle status. Dials also feature visual feedback, but it’s not customizable (yet).

The LCD touch strip’s background can also be customized, using either a preset background from Elgato’s background library or your own image.

The Bottom Line

We’ve been waiting for Elgato to add more than just buttons to its Stream Deck lineup — and the Stream Deck+ adds a touch strip and dials. If you’re already part of Elgato’s streaming ecosystem, there’s no question that the Stream Deck+ will make an excellent addition to your setup — it works perfectly with Elgato’s webcams, microphones, and lights. 

The Stream Deck+ is designed to work well with most streaming setups. However, if you’re looking for a macropad that can double in a creative setting, you may want to first check the Stream Deck plugin store to see what’s supported. The Stream Deck+ notably doesn’t feature native support for Photoshop (though you can do some programming to get it there), while Loupedeck does.

If you’re serious about streaming, you need a webcam that’s serious about streaming — and what’s more serious than streaming in 4K at 60 frames per second (fps)?

Okay — maybe that’s a little too serious. It’s definitely too serious for anyone who’s not a streamer, since most web conferencing software caps resolution at 1080p or lower, and 60fps can be problematic for bandwidth. But for the professionals who want to take their streaming to the next level, there’s Elgato’s new Facecam Pro.

Designed to compete with the best webcams on the high-end, the Facecam Pro is a 4K webcam that captures video in 4K/60fps — the world’s first; other 4K webcams, such as the Insta360 Link, max out at 4K/30fps. The Facecam Pro also sports a large Sony STARVIS CMOS sensor and a premium autofocus lens, and has a wide 90-degree field of view. It’s definitely not for everyone, but for the right content creator it’s pretty damn powerful (it also draws a lot of power — more on that later). The Elgato Facecam Pro is available now for $299. 

Design of the Elgato Facecam Pro

The Elgato Facecam Pro borrows much of its design from the Elgato Facecam, which is the brand’s 1080p streaming webcam introduced about a year ago. The first Facecam was pretty large for a 1080p webcam, and the Facecam Pro is...larger.

The Facecam Pro is housed in a boxy plastic chassis measuring 4.6 inches (116mm) wide, 3.1 inches (79mm) deep, and 1.5 inches (38mm) tall. The chassis features some unexciting branding and has vents at the back for heat dissipation. The plastic doesn’t exactly scream “high-end,” but it feels sturdy enough and weighs very little (8.47oz/240g) — making the Facecam Pro slightly more maneuverable when it’s sitting on top of a monitor.

The Facecam Pro comes with a detachable monitor mount, which attaches via the webcam’s tripod attachment mounting point (standard size — 1/4-inch). It’s a pretty basic L-shaped mount, with rubberized backing and tilt adjustment (90 degrees). I do think the Facecam Pro is too big to be elegantly mounted on most monitors — period. But I have no complaints about the mount, which kept the webcam perfectly stable atop my main 27-inch monitor.

The Facecam Pro also comes with a USB-C to USB-C cable, which plugs into a USB-C port at the back of the chassis. This webcam requires a certain amount of power to work, so you’ll need to plug it into a USB-C port or perhaps a USB 3.1 port using an adapter.

The Facecam Pro does not come with a physical privacy cover/shutter...but it should. No webcam, but especially no offensively high-def 4K webcam that streams at 60fps, should not come with a privacy cover. (Also, the first Facecam had a lens cap, so I’m not sure what Elgato was thinking.) 

Elgato Facecam Pro Specifications

Well-lit Performance of the Facecam Pro

My home office gets almost no natural light, but I have plenty of artificial light. My “well-lit” lighting setting includes a dedicated ring light, a dedicated key light, four desktop monitors (three 27” and one 24”), an arching floor lamp for background light and a desk lamp for fill. There’s also some ambient RGB lighting from my desk, PC, and various peripherals. It’s a bright, evenly-lit setting with a busy, colorful background; webcams usually struggle with adjusting auto-exposure and auto-color balance, as well as auto-focus.

In my well-lit scenario, the Elgato Facecam Pro managed pretty well using its default settings — not incredible, especially when compared to a webcam with wizard-level AI processing such as the Insta360 Link, but fine for a quick setup. The Facecam Pro handled auto-exposure adequately, though the resulting image was perhaps a little too evenly-lit and flat-looking overall. It struggled with auto-white balance, however — images leaned very warm, even after I adjusted the temperature of my lights to be much cooler. 

Luckily, this was easy to fix with a few manual adjustments in Elgato’s Camera Hub software.

Low-Light Performance of the Facecam Pro

To test the Facecam Pro’s low-light performance, I turned off all of my lights and three of my monitors — leaving just one 27-inch monitor as a light source. The Facecam Pro did not perform very well in this scenario with default settings, and produced an extremely grainy image. I managed to tweak the image into something acceptable, but it was still pretty grainy..

The Facecam Pro performed pretty well in this setting, considering. It managed to light both the subject (me) and the background — unlike the Insta360 Link, which very dramatically left the background in darkness. Also, while the graininess isn’t great, the only real alternative is some kind of software-based smoothing like we see in the Logitech Brio 500, which isn’t really any better.

Overexposed Performance of the Facecam Pro

To test the Facecam Pro’s performance in an overexposed setting, I turned off all lights except for the floor lamp and desk lamp behind me, as well as three of my monitors. (This is actually a pretty common lighting scenario because people generally try to avoid having a lot of light behind their monitors.) 

The Facecam Pro performed okay in this scenario, though it did a much better job with the background than it did with the subject. I found it difficult to tweak the webcam’s settings for this one, and I couldn’t find a combination that satisfied me. That said, this is the type of lighting situation that’s much more likely to come up in a non-professional webcam setup — and very unlikely to come up in a professional one. So it’s not too much of a ding for the Facecam Pro, which isn’t aimed at most webcam users. 

Features and Software of the Facecam Pro

For the most part, the Facecam Pro works okay out of the box. But you don’t spend $300 on a webcam for “okay.” 

I’m not a big fan of peripheral software in general, and I usually find webcam software particularly offensive. Elgato’s Camera Hub, however, is an exception — not only does it offer detailed control over things like exposure, focus, and white balance, it also has some handy features to help streamline (haha) the streaming experience.

Camera Hub has several sections for adjusting the Facecam Pro’s image, including exposure, white balance, and picture, with more detailed controls in each section. I’m a big fan of the exposure section having controls for shutter speed and ISO instead of generic nonsense like “gain.” The same thing goes for the white balance slider listing temperature instead of vaguely indicating warmth.

There’s also a framing section that lets you narrow the webcam’s 90-degree FOV and frame your image. This section has four customizable presets, which you can use to quickly switch between different “scenes” while you’re streaming. It’s not quite a multi-cam setup like the Logitech Mevo where you can switch between cameras, but the Facecam Pro’s wide FOV and detailed zoom allows for a decent amount of creative freedom.

Bottom Line

The Elgato Facecam Pro is aptly named — it’s definitely designed for professionals. While it didn’t blow us away in some of the standard webcam scenarios, it’s also...not really a webcam for standard webcam scenarios. The Facecam Pro will definitely be a very powerful tool in the hands of the right person, but it’s not a purchase to take lightly.

Almost no non-professional needs or even has use for a 4K/60fps webcam; nor do many professional streamers. If you’re a creator who needs that smooth 4K video, the Facecam Pro is a no-brainer (it is, after all, the only webcam on the market that captures 4K/60fps). That’s not the only reason to buy it, however — the Facecam Pro is not only bundled with Elgato’s pro-level Camera Hub software, it’s also part of the Elgato streaming ecosystem, which means it will work with other Elgato streaming devices (such as the Stream Deck).

Of course, if you’re just a regular webcam user looking for a good webcam, this is not the webcam for you. A good 1080p webcam like the Logitech Brio 500 will do a better job of making you look good during early-morning Zoom meetings and late-night heart-to-hearts (and is less than half the price).

Elgato is one of the biggest names in the streaming world, and after its debut Wave:3 became one of the best gaming microphones you could buy, it was only a matter of time before it tapped into the higher-end XLR market. The time has finally come and the Wave DX is upon us.

Compatible with any XLR interface, but enhanced by Elgato’s own Wave XLR, the Wave DX brings with it an upgrade path that just wasn’t possible with the USB-based Wave line-up. It’s a microphone that can grow with your setup over time and connect to professional audio gear instead of just your USB port. It can be used with more than just your PC, and has good enough sound quality that streamers, podcasters, and YouTubers can all find it useful. 

At $99, it’s also surprisingly cheap, but don’t let that fool you. You’ll still need to spend extra on an audio interface to connect it to your PC, but if you already have one or are in the market for a wholesale upgrade from USB, this microphone is worth a look.

Elgato Wave DX Specs

Design of the Elgato Wave DX

The Elgato DX is the definition of minimalism, so don’t expect it to attract a lot of attention on stream. It’s an end-address microphone, so its rectangular body shotguns directly at your mouth. It’s solid black, finished with a matte coating so it won’t reflect light. Since it uses an XLR connection without phantom power, there’s no lighting. The only bit of trim to be found is a removable Elgato logo that can be swapped between sides when you switch the mounting bracket.

The same kind of minimalist design applied to the Wave:3 which we reviewed back in 2020. Even that mic had a bit of flair with its RGB lighting ring. The philosophy here seems to be strip back, fade into the background. It’s all about the content, man. (At least, that’s what I imagine this mic would say if it could talk.) 

That’s not to say it doesn’t have some tricks up its sleeve. Hidden inside its hardened steel shell is a dynamic microphone capsule selected in partnership with Lewitt Audio. Lewitt is a respected brand, and microphones are at the heart of all it does. Its products can be found in recording studios all around the world, are subject to numerous glowing reviews, and the team did a great job when they partnered with Elgato on the original Wave mics. It’s reasonable to expect good things when all history points to Lewitt knowing its stuff when it comes to microphones. 

For only $99, that expectation is handily met. I’ll dive deeper into specific sound characteristics in the next section, but Lewitt and Elgato have crafted a mic that manages to sound rich and full of presence while also sounding natural and detailed. Affordable microphones are often one-trick ponies — stage, broadcast, or instrument — but the Wave DX manages to cross those latter two boundaries with impressive ease.

Still, this is a dynamic microphone with most of the usual benefits and drawbacks. It has a compressed frequency response range of 50Hz to 15kHz. The condenser capsule in the Blue Yeti X extends that on both sides, coming in at 20Hz to 20kHz. The original Wave:3 is a bit less at 70Hz to 20kHz, but obviously the range the DX is able to capture is less. Elgato compensates for that with a tuning that emphasizes the treble more than competing dynamic mics, giving it a more natural, detailed sound.

And in truth, those frequency response ranges don’t mean a whole lot when you’re recording vocals. What you need to know is that the Wave DX makes your voice sound slightly crisp. There’s a pleasant edge, similar to what you hear on the Shure SM7B or the more affordable Rode PodMic. It’s not over-done. My voice didn’t sound crunchy in the same way it did with the PodMic. But there’s a slight  “radio voice” quality that’s very appealing.

Alongside the capsule, Elgato has implemented a built-in shock mount and pop filter. These are usually add-on purchases that drive up the bill, so it’s a pleasant surprise to find that the pop filter in particular is quite good. The shock mount lets through a bit too much noise, however, so you may still want to look for another solution there.

Returning to the outside of the mic, the chassis is peppered with a 360-degree grille except for a strip on the right side. You’ll still need to talk into the end of the microphone for the best quality, but you don’t have to be quite so spot-on to be heard well. Elgato knows streamers tend to move around a lot in their seats, so as long as it’s generally centered in front of you, your quality will be just fine.

The only other features are the rear XLR port and the mounting arm to attach to a stand, which isn’t included. The port is completely standard, but the mono arm is a pretty neat addition. Instead of connecting directly to the microphone, the mono arm screws into the stand. It attaches to the mic with its own adjustment knob, allowing you to angle the mic to meet your mount. Since there’s no external shock mount or u-bracket to contend with, you can make adjustments without bunching up the XLR cable in the middle of your content.

Broadly speaking, the Wave DX is a well-made microphone that does its job well, but it’s not perfect. Even though it’s made of hardened steel, I was surprised by how light the mic felt. It comes in just under a pound, less than half the weight of the Rode PodMic. The grille also has a bit of give when pressed on, and I have no doubt that it will dent easily if hit or dropped. It doesn’t feel cheaply made, but it lacks the tank-like quality of the PodMic.

Sound Quality on the Elgato Wave DX

The Elgato Wave DX offers a full-bodied, broadcast-style sound signature. As a dynamic microphone, its capsule applies a bit of crunch to the voice, giving it radio-like character while still maintaining high resolution, natural-sounding vocal capture. The sound is warm, so your voice has presence, but doesn’t sound dull or over-compressed. This makes it a good fit for vocal work, such as podcasts, voiceover, and of course, streaming.

Even though it has the unmistakable character and enhanced bass of a dynamic broadcast microphone, Elgato has tuned it to bring out a bit more treble detail. This lends a bit more airiness and natural timbre to the sound. Its tuning allows it to be a more versatile recording tool and better for recording instruments on music streams.

It’s worth comparing to the Rode PodMic here, because both mics retail for $99 and both are competing for your upgrade dollars. For tuning and character, the PodMic sounds great when recording vocals but struggles to make guitars and pianos sound completely natural (though you can address this a bit in post-processing). The Wave DX was able to record my acoustic guitar very well without any tweaks whatsoever. I might add a little reverb in my DAW of choice, Reaper, but I would have no hesitation using it to stream live music.

While Elgato’s claim that it can “pick up detail like a condenser,” might be slightly overstating things, it does act as an effective middle ground between the two microphone types. Condensers are still, in my opinion, king of the hill when it comes to clarity and natural tone, but the simple fact is that dynamic microphones are still going to be the best fit for most people due to their excellent noise rejection and insensitivity (PC fans, keyboards, and noisey roommates won’t be nearly as audible as a competing condenser). The Wave DX gives you a blend of both worlds: excellent noise rejection and enhanced clarity at an affordable price.

The integrated pop filter also works very well. I’m usually disappointed by in-built filters, but the Wave DX does a great job of blocking plosives. Even speaking very close to the mic, I wasn’t able to get it to distort with any kind of plosive test using normal speech. Peter’s peck of pickled peppers is safe with this one.

The built-in shock mount isn’t nearly as good. Small taps of the desk and minor bumps of the boom arm all make their way directly into the microphone. The Wave DX is compatible with aftermarket shock mounts that will do a better job, but you’ll need to remove the swivel mount to do so, which impacts how easy it is to position.

There is a bit of self noise to be aware of, but it’s not bad. Underneath your speech is a tiny amount of white noise. It’s typical to microphones at this price, and is easy to remedy with even a very minor noise gate or noise suppressor, but is still something to know about going in. It’s small enough that you might not even mind, but if you want total silence for voice-over work, a suppressor or gate will be necessary.

Have a listen to how it sounds below.

Software for the Elgato Wave DX

As an XLR microphone, the Wave DX does not connect directly to a PC and has no software of its own. It finds itself in a unique position, however, because the Wave line-up is known for its rich software effects and custom audio routing, so the name itself carries some expectation of customizability. Elgato also makes no secret of the potential of its Wave Link software.

The problem is that the actual microphone does not support any of these things because it cannot without a data connection. To access them, you’ll need to purchase the Wave XLR audio interface (another $160) or download third-party software to access VSTs with a competing audio interface.

Should you purchase the Wave XLR, Wave Link allows you to create custom audio channels with both real and virtual inputs. For example, for game streaming, you may want game audio and your Spotify playlist to mix with your microphone feed. Likewise, you can remove sources from specific channels without completely muting them in your own ears.

You may, for example, want to drop your Discord call from the Audience mix so you’re not broadcasting your strategy to the competing team (or have the world hear your friends get too blue). It’s very similar to what we saw with the GoXLR and the Beacn Mic and is a powerful production tool for a one-host streaming set up. If you don’t have a Wave XLR interface, Wave Link is inaccessible.

Available to all interfaces (and you’ll need at least one to use the Wave DX), are plug-ins known as VSTs. These can be loaded into your streaming or recording software to provide additional audio effects. Elgato has created its own easy-to-use Elgato EQ plug-in, but there are numerous others to add compression effects, noise suppression, and de-essing to remove sibilance for your recording.

These can be effective solutions to enhancing the sound of the microphone and tailoring it to your own voice, but they’re not as seamless or as user-friendly as I would like. When accessed from inside Wave Link, VST plug-ins open in additional windows, which feels a bit messy when you’re streaming. They also usually require at least some background knowledge to use them effectively. They tend to use audio lingo that may not be familiar and don’t always explain their settings well, if at all. Prior research will be necessary if you’re not already familiar with vocal effects.

Bottom Line

The Wave DX is a great microphone in a lot of ways. It sounds rich and full, perfect for vocal capture. It also gathers a generous amount of treble detail, so you can record instruments and still have them sound natural while not losing the noise rejection that makes dynamic mics such a good fit for untreated rooms and noisey environments.

But without the Wave XLR, it feels incomplete. Purchasing both together more than doubles the price, and triples it if you also want Elgato’s mic arm and XLR cable. Picking everything up as a bundle is much cheaper than buying them separately ($299 versus $379) but it still feels expensive.

The Wave DX has the benefit of growing with your setup over time, but if you don't see yourself adding external mixers or accessories, some of the best gaming and streaming microphones still come with normal USB connections. If you like the potential of the Wave Link software, and don’t mind the sound difference of a condenser, the Elgato Wave:3 is an excellent alternative that will save you big at checkout. For a USB choice with even better sound crafting, the Beacn Mic is also worth considering.

Even without its software, the Wave DX still offers impressive sound quality and versatile performance for the price. If you don't mind picking up some extras, it's worth a closer look.

When it comes to macro keyboards, Elgato’s Stream Decks usually come to mind. For many streamers, the highly-customizable input devices, complete with full-color screens under each key, are critical tools that allow them to perform complex actions in OBS  in just one step.

Loupedeck’s line of macro devices take the user well beyond streaming. Don’t get me wrong: Any macro keyboard, even a home-made Raspberry Pi one, can be used for other purposes than streaming — but how many have features integrated for video, photo, or even animation editing? Loupedeck’s consoles are built to work with Twitch, Adobe Suite, Ableton, Twitter, OBS, and music software such as Spotify right out of the box. 

I took a look at the three consoles in Loupedeck’s current lineup: the Loupedeck Live ($269), the Loupedeck+ ($279), and the Loupedeck CT ($549). Loupedeck also recently announced the upcoming Loupedeck S ($180), which is currently fully-funded on Indiegogo and is set to start shipping in the fall. Razer also recently announced its own branded version of the Loupedeck Live which is identical to the original but has Razer branding. 

Loupedeck Live

The Loupedeck Live ($269) is the smallest of Loupedeck’s current lineup and is geared toward streamers and content creators. It has 12 programmable touchscreen buttons, six tactile knobs, and eight tactile buttons (one of which is the dedicated home/back button). I don't know what it is about this black matte finish but dust LOVES it. Luckily there is a lock mode that turns off the touch screen and button functions so you can wipe off the console.

Just like the Loupedeck Live has a lock mode there is something called a Dynamic Mode where the buttons on the touchscreen will switch depending on the application running. I can have Photoshop and Premiere open at the same time, which is kind of overkill but sometimes necessary. My touchscreen buttons will change from photo editing to video editing just by clicking on Premiere. 

The Live has integrations with Twitch that can start a commercial break, welcome a new subscriber with a special sound effect, or simply stop and start your stream. Lined with three knobs on each side and eight round buttons at the bottom, the Live is suited to control volume, skip songs, and scrub through a video. 

It’s great for keyboard shortcuts in any program. For example, buttons can be created for copy and paste or activating full screen. The knobs on the side are called Rotating Dials. They have two functions, rotating infinitely with built-in notches and pressing in. This creates 12 functions out of these six knobs. The eight round buttons at the bottom are called the Workspace buttons, with the first one being the Home or Back button. These buttons help navigate between Workspaces or pages - which are a list of buttons that show on the face of the Loupedeck. There are two ways to move between pages; swiping or by pressing the round buttons to move on to the next page. 

This is the smallest of the Loupedeck consoles but still packs a lot of configuration power. With over 70 native programs supported in software, the  Live is great for any level of streamer, producer, programmer, or computer user — novice to intermediate. This is a piece of hardware that can grow with you if you’re just starting out. As an advanced streamer, I enjoy using the Loupedeck Live to try out new commands, engage viewers, and help streamline the process of streaming. It doesn’t take up too much room on your desk, measuring 5.9 inches wide by 4.3 inches deep, and 1.18 inches thick. It weighs about half a pound. 

The Loupedeck Live really helped me to get organized and categorize my movements and the processes I use to run one of my game streams. I can create one page, or a set of buttons,  for the beginning of my stream, swipe to the next page for the middle of my stream, and then go to a third page to wrap up my stream. And I can create duplicate buttons so I don’t have to switch back and forth between pages.

Once a live stream is over I can move on to post-stream activities, such as opening Adobe Premiere to start working on editing the footage. With the help of the Loupedeck Live’s Dynamic Mode, my pages or workspace change when I open up different applications. If I’d rather wind down instead of getting right to work, I can set up a page for that. I can create different profiles and call them things such as “Stream Junae Profile,” “Post-Stream Junae Profile,” or “Leisure Junae Profile.” And have everything I need within those profiles such as Spotify controls and buttons to launch my favorite games or open productivity apps such as Microsoft Word to write articles — it’s very intuitive.

Loupedeck CT

The $549 Loupedeck CT is made for creative professionals who do serious video or audio editing. The Loupedeck CT is the largest of the Loupedeck consoles (as opposed to the Loupedeck+, which is more of a deck than a console), measuring 6.2 inches wide by 5.9 inches deep and 1.18 inches thick. The Loupedeck CT has the same buttons and knobs as the Loupedeck Live, and adds a bottom section which features a large dial and 12 square tactile buttons.

The Loupedeck CT is bulkier than the Live, tipping the scales at 0.8 pounds, but I wouldn’t change a thing. The black matte finish attracts quite a bit of dust, but is also very easy to clean. The separation of the touchscreen buttons and tactile buttons so I don’t click a function I didn’t intend to use is a great design.

The dial is definitely an upgrade. Every button on the Loupedeck CT has some kind of feedback — haptic or tactile — except for the dial. Baby, when I tell you turning this dial is like spreading whipped butter on a piece of bread with sugar and cinnamon, believe it! It’s so smooth! The dial makes scrolling through web pages, scrubbing through editing timelines, selecting colors, and adjusting highlights and shadows a very smooth, enjoyable process.

The dial and buttons — like everything on Loupedeck’s consoles — are customizable. Adding these buttons relieves the need to create a shortcut function. The 12 buttons include inputs from a keypad, such as up/down, Fn, and Ctrl — no more pressing Ctrl +Z like a caveman! The buttons also include shortcuts such as Undo and Save.

Every button, knob, and dial on the Loupedeck CT is customizable and works fabulously in Dynamic Mode. Dynamic Mode allows you to switch seamlessly between programs and continue to use the Loupedeck CT without interrupting your workflow. For example, I can be using OBS and switch to Ableton, and the buttons and functions on the Loupedeck CT will change with me. If there are multiple people using the Loupedeck CT, you can create individual profiles for each person — or you can create profiles for different work and lifestyle modes.

Some macro keypads limit you to three pages of buttons, but the Loupedeck CT lets you create up to 10 pages of buttons (12 buttons per page). That’s over 100 button functions available on one profile.

It doesn’t matter how many (or few) buttons you have, the Loupedeck CT’s dial is definitely its stand-out feature. I use the dial in photo and video editing to get precise measurements that are easily overshot on a mouse, or that take too long on a keyboard. For example, if I want to turn up an effect to an exact number — such as turning the vignette to 62 — it’s difficult on a mouse, but I can use the dial to get there without having to make precise mouse movements.

The Loupedeck CT does everything the Loupedeck Live does — it’s easy to program it to work with streaming platforms such as OBS and Twitch, and to get it to play SFX for streaming without having to program them in StreamElements. I especially like that the Fn buttons can be placed on the keyboard, as this means less programming.

The Loupedeck CT lets me do all the things I need to do during a stream, and easily integrates with Twitch, Streamlabs, and OBS. But it’s in post-stream content editing where the Loupedeck CT’s jog dial really stands out. Because the Loupedeck CT is larger, heavier, and has a dial — which is potentially easier to damage — I wouldn’t feel comfortable traveling with this bulkier console. But if you can afford it the Loupedeck CT’s versatility makes it a powerful streaming companion.

Loupedeck+

If you want the feel of a professional editing deck like the ones they use in studios, get a Loupedeck+. With more than 40 buttons, knobs, and switches, the Loupedeck+ is largest in the series, measuring 17.8 inches wide, 8.2 inches deep, and 1.9 inches thick, and weighing about 1.5 pounds — it’s roughly the size of a typical PC keyboard.

Unlike the Loupedeck Live and Loupedeck CT consoles, the Loupedeck+ doesn’t have a screen. Instead, it’s got buttons on buttons on buttons, mixed with knobs, dials, and switches — this is an editing machine that editors and producers will love! The Loupedeck+ is advanced enough to do all of the intricate things you need to do in photo, video, and audio editing, and it’s simple enough for a beginner to use.

The press in functions on dials reset their values back to zero — useful if you’re trying to take something such as color saturation back to its default. The color switches make it easier to adjust the greens, blues, and reds for photo and video color correction. The dials make it easier to accurately control the levels of functions rather than trying to guess by looking at sliding bars.

Thanks to notches in each knob, values don’t increase too quickly. Although the buttons on the Loupedeck+ have printed labels such as Temperature, Tint, and Saturation, they’re still customizable — you can overwrite the default functions to perform whatever functions you like, though you’ll have to remember what you changed them to (or, I suppose, you could re-label them).

The Loupedeck+ has built-in level buttons that you can use for different levels of editing. For example, Level 1 could be the default settings button, Level 2 could be all color gradients, and Level 3 could be for adding extra effects. Again, each button is still completely customizable.

If you’re new to editing photos and videos, the Loupedeck+ might be overwhelming at first. I’m not new to editing, but I don’t think the Loupedeck+ is an ideal console for me because while I like to edit, I also like to stream and have shortcuts on my console that open up regular applications such as email. The Loupedeck+ is highly programmable, just like the other Loupedeck consoles, but it’s definitely designed for editing photos and videos. It’s the cheapest of the three Loupedeck consoles, but it’s still $249 — so you should only choose this console if you really like the layout (and don’t mind skipping a screen).

Which Loupedeck is the Best Choice for You?

If you do any streaming or want the deck for general productivity work, the Loupedeck Live and CT are for you. The Loupedeck+ is mainly for professional photo and video editors who will use its dials for the purposes they have printed on them.

The Loupedeck Live and the Loupedeck CT integrate with with Twitch, Adobe Suite, OBS, Spotify, and about 70 other programs, while the Loupedeck+ supports Lightroom Classic, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop with Camera Raw, After Effects, Audition, and Aurora HDR. They’re all highly customizable and can control volume and launch any shortcuts you want. If you want to create a shortcut that a program doesn't have, you can use the Loupedeck software to create a custom command.

The consoles also have the ability to save various profiles, either for different use cases or different users. The touch screen ability on the Loupedeck Live and CT allow you to swipe between screens or select actions, such as opening OBS. All models have Dynamic Mode, which means they can switch button functions and screens automatically as you move between different programs (e.g. OBS and Photoshop).

Another satisfying feature of the Loupedeck consoles is the haptic feedback you get as you touch the screen, rotate the buttons, or press in the buttons. The dial on the CT rotates smoothly, with no notches, no feedback, and no push in feature. The dial also has a mini LED screen so it’s unexpected to have multiple functions. Even the Control Dial on the Loupedeck+ has notches and pushes in creating another button function. On both the Loupedeck CT and Loupedeck+ the square buttons seem to contain blue switches.

For streamers and general productivity users, the Loupedeck Live is the best choice, while the Loupedeck CT is best for streamers who also do some video editing. The Loupedeck+ is for heavy video and photo editors.

I prefer the Loupedeck CT, as a content creator who streams and also dabbles in video editing. I’m mainly a writer, so I can setup profiles to streamline my writing process — the same goes for video editing. I’m an intermediate-level video editor, so the programmable Loupedeck shortcuts help a lot as I don’t yet have my video editing app’s menu and keyboard shortcuts memorized.

The Loupedeck consoles don’t cut my writing time in half, but they do cut down on how much time I spend digging through software menus, which is very nice. The Loupedeck+ is a different beast that’s somewhat above me — I don’t consistently edit photos or videos at that level, but it’s nice to know the options are there if I ever want to go deeper.

Corsair has taken the wraps off its first laptop. The popular PC gaming components and peripherals company has some experience in desktop design but has taken its time to put together a laptop it deems worthy for its pirate sails logo. Today, the Corsair Voyager A1600 AMD Advantage Edition launches, with up to an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS (8C/16T) processor and Radeon RX 6800M GPU, built into a slim (0.78 inches thick) chassis with a 16-inch QHD+ IPS screen with up to 240 Hz refresh. Additionally, Corsair leverages its Elgato IP with a 10-Key Stream Deck shortcut bar, plus 1080p webcam and mic array to appeal to game streamers.

Buyers of the Corsair Voyager A1600 will be presented with two choices. The more powerful CN-9000004-XX SKU with AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS 8C/16T processor running at 4.8 GHz+, or the CN-9000003-XX with an AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS 8C/16T processor running at 4.4 GHz+. Both come with the very same configuration, except for their memory and storage quotas. The Ryzen 9 6900HS model ($2,999) comes with 64GB of DDR5 RAM and 2TB of PCIe 4.0 storage. Corsair's laptop with Ryzen 7 6800HS ($2,699) comes with half the RAM and storage. For a full dive into the tech specs, showing all the shared qualities and the differences, please check below.

With the above specs disclosed, now we can turn our attention to some of the qualities which might help make the Corsair Voyager A1600 laptop stand out from the crowd. First of all, it is an AMD Advantage laptop, which means the design uses a smart power-sharing methodology between the AMD CPU and GPU, which adapts to the task at hand. This works alongside other AMD technologies like AMD Smartshift Max and AMD Smart Access Memory.

With those CPUs and GPUs under the hood, the A1600 has plenty of power for resource-heavy applications and multitasking. Corsair assures that it has implemented an "advanced compact vapor chamber cooling system that evenly spreads heat," so the system shouldn't throttle and waste the potential of the processing power within.

The new Corsair Voyager A1600 is one of a growing breed of laptops with 16-inch screens. It offers a 2560×1600 (16:10) QHD+ IPS display with 240Hz max refresh, 3ms response time and support for AMD FreeSync Premium technology. We don't have any color, contrast or brightness specs, but Corsair touts "superb color accuracy."

Probably the next most important aspects of this design involve what old-timers might refer to as multimedia features. Corsair has leveraged its Elgato brand technology here with a set of 'S-Keys' just below the screen. There are ten of these keys for streaming, video-related, and custom shortcuts. Interestingly, the shortcuts are all accessible with the laptop lid closed. Other media-related goodies here are the streaming quality FHD webcam with Elgato Camera Hub software and an ambient noise-canceling microphone array. Built-in sound is provided by dual 20mm speakers with Dolby Atmos.

The keyboard uses mostly Cherry MX low profile switches, with membranes used for the less frequently typed half height keys. All the keys feature RGB backlighting, which is one of the many aspects of this laptop which can be customized via the company's iCUE software.

Corsair's port selection seems to be ample for the slim design, but focuses on Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C, so there's just one USB-A port, and you will have to have USB-C external monitors (or adaptors) if you wish to hook up to a big screen (or two).

It is good to see Corsair sail ahead with something different, not just a me-too white box laptop that has been rebadged. These laptops have been announced and outline specs provided, but there will be a hard launch in the summer when we should learn about availability, as well as full screen specs. We hope to put the Voyager A1600 through our full suite of tests in a full review at some point soon to find out if Corsair's first gaming portable is worthy of a spot on our best gaming laptops list.

When Elgato announced its new Stream Deck Pedal, the maker world said “Hey I can make one of those for less dollars.” And with that battle cry we reached for our trusty Raspberry Pi Pico (in our case Adafruit’s KB2040) and raided the box of switches to build our own alternative.

Elgato’s Stream Deck Pedal is a three pedal controller used to trigger actions during your streams. We are going to emulate this feature using three heavy duty switches, meant for guitar effects pedals and a Raspberry Pi Pico running Adafruit’s CircuitPython. With CircuitPython we can create a USB keyboard and assign keystrokes, even whole sequences of presses to a single button.

Once we’ve built and coded our Pico Pedal we will learn how to use it with OBS, ready for our next stream.

For this project you will need

• Raspberry Pi Pico
• 3 x Momentary guitar effects pedal push buttons
• Aluminum project box (6 x 4 x 3.5 inch)
• 4 x Male to male jumper wires
• Half breadboard
• Screw terminal (optional)
• Soldering equipment and heat shrink or crimped terminals
• Electric drill and stepped drill bit

Building the Pico Pedal

The circuit for this project is extremely simple. It uses three GPIO pins (2,3 and 4) and a common Ground (GND) connection. We connect the buttons to pins 2,3 and 4, then connect each button to a different GND pin on the Pico. All of the GND pins connect to a single GND, creating a common reference point.

Wiring and preparing the enclosure

Before we get into the details, here’s a word on safety. Soldering is a great skill to learn, but make sure that you are wearing suitable eye protection and that you solder in a well ventilated space. Drilling into plastic or metal will produce “swarf”, threads and bits of drilled material. Wear eye protection and double check your positions before you start the drill. Make sure that the enclosure is held firmly in place and always drill a pilot hole before drilling larger holes.

We chose to use momentary foot switches, commonly used in guitar pedals. They are designed to be stamped on and so stand the best chance of surviving the longest. Wiring is simple. They have no polarity, rather they make a connection when pressed. In this project they connect one side of the switch to a GPIO pin, pulled high using the Pico’s internal resistors to the other side which is connected to Ground (GND). By pressing the button we make the connection between the two sides, pulling the GPIO pin low and triggering a keypress.

We chose an alternative to soldering. Crimped terminals are a solder free method which uses friction to hold the wires in place. The crimps hold the wire inside a plastic sleeve. In the sleeve is a metal terminal. We squeeze the crimp using a tool and it locks the wire in place. The crimp terminal then slides onto the switch contacts. Crimps are quicker and easier than soldering, but they are an additional cost.

These switches need to be secured in a suitable enclosure. Typically we would use a plastic enclosure but unless we pay big money we are going to get flimsy plastic. Heavy duty ABS plastic cases can be found for around $10, but we opted for an aluminum enclosure, to match the industrial, heavy duty foot switch aesthetic. 

1. Measure three points on the lid of the enclosure and drill a pilot hole for each. We chose the dead center of the case as our starting point, then measured 5cm in both directions away from the center. In hindsight we would have moved further out, say 7cm and created a triangle of points instead of a line. 

2. Move to the side of the enclosure and drill another pilot hole for the USB lead.

3. Swap to a larger drill bit and enlarge all of the holes. Do this a few times before moving on.

4. Swap to a stepped drill bit and then enlarge the three lid holes to match the diameter of the foot switch buttons. In our case we had 12MM switches, so used a piece of tape to identify the step on the drill bit. 

5. Use a file to remove the sharp edges from the holes.

6. Use the stepped drill bit to enlarge the remaining pilot hole to match the size of the smallest end of your USB lead.

7. File the hole to remove any sharp edges. This is important for the USB lead as it will rub against the hole and may become damaged. 

8. Thread a suitable USB lead through the hole, connect to your Pico and add a large knot to act as strain relief. The knot will reduce the risk of the USB lead being accidentally removed.

9. Secure the button wires to the screw terminal as per the circuit diagram.

You should now have all three buttons connected to the Raspberry Pi Pico via the screw terminal. Do not close the lid until the code is tested.

Install CircuitPython and libraries

Installing CircuitPython is extremely simple and Adafruit has a fantastic guide on how to do this. Follow Adafruit’s instructions to install the latest version.

Our Raspberry Pi Pico now appears as a drive in the file manager. The drive is called CIRCUITPY and there we find a series of files and folders. Right now, we need to focus on lib. We need to download a ZIP file full of libraries, and install the correct files for our projects 

1. Download the latest bundle of libraries from the CircuitPython site.

2. Extract the files to your Desktop.

3. Copy the adafruit_hid folder from the extracted files to the lib folder on your CIRCUITPY drive. 

Coding the Pico Pedal

1. Open the code.py file found in the root of the CIRCUITPY drive in your preferred editor.

2. Delete any code in the file.

3. Import two libraries to enable GPIO access. The first, board is a basic means to connect to the GPIO pins, the second provides a means to control the state of the pins.

import boardfrom digitalio import DigitalInOut, Direction, Pull

4. Import four libraries to emulate a US layout USB keyboard and keystrokes.The USB HID ((Human Interface Device) library enables our Pico to become a keyboard. The remaining libraries configure the keyboard to use a US layout and to use keycode to send keystrokes.

import usb_hidfrom adafruit_hid.keyboard import Keyboardfrom adafruit_hid.keyboard_layout_us import KeyboardLayoutUSfrom adafruit_hid.keycode import Keycode

5. Finally import the time library. This library is used to add a pause to the code. This reduces the risk of accidental double keypressed (debounce).

import time

6. Create a keyboard object that will act as a USB HID.

keyboard = Keyboard(usb_hid.devices)

7. Set the layout to US.

keyboard_layout = KeyboardLayoutUS(keyboard)

8. Create a new object, one, to represent the first button on the pedal. This button is connected to pin 2 of the Pico.

one = DigitalInOut(board.GP2)

9. Using the one object, set the pin as an input, and pull the internal resistor up, so that the pin is high (on) at 3.3V.

one.direction = Direction.INPUTone.pull = Pull.UP

10. Repeat the process for a second input. This time the variable should be connected to pin 3.

two = DigitalInOut(board.GP3)two.direction = Direction.INPUTtwo.pull = Pull.UP

11. Repeat again for a third input connected to pin 4.

three = DigitalInOut(board.GP4)three.direction = Direction.INPUTthree.pull = Pull.UP

12. Create a variable, delay, to contain the amount of time that our code will pause for. Using a variable makes it easy to tweak the duration based on our requirements.

delay = 0.5

13. Create a loop to continually run our code.

while True:

14. Create a conditional test that will check the status of button one. If it is pressed, the button will connect the GPIO pin, 2 (which is True / HIGH), to Ground (GND) and change the state to False / LOW.

   if one.value == False:

15. Add a print statement to show that the button press has been registered. This is a debug step which can be omitted, but we find it useful to prove that the code is registering a press as it eliminates one thing to debug.

       print("Button 1")

16. Send a series of key presses. In our case we used CTRL + ALT + A, but you can change this to any key you wish and Adafruit has the list of all the keys you need.

       keyboard.send(Keycode.CONTROL, Keycode.ALT, Keycode.A)

17. Release the keys. By doing this with no delay we restrict the key combination to a single key press.

       keyboard.release_all()

18. Add a delay to reduce the chance of multiple keypresses. 

       time.sleep(delay)

19. Repeat the process for the second button.

   elif two.value == False:       print("Button 2")       keyboard.send(Keycode.CONTROL, Keycode.ALT, Keycode.B)       keyboard.release_all()       time.sleep(delay)

20. Repeat the process for the third button.

   elif three.value == False:       print("Button 3")       keyboard.send(Keycode.CONTROL, Keycode.ALT, Keycode.C)       keyboard.release_all()       time.sleep(delay)

21. Add an else condition to print “Waiting for button press” with a short delay before the loop repeats. The else condition is activated when no button is pressed.

  else:       print("Waiting for button press")       time.sleep(0.1)

Save the code to your Raspberry Pi Pico and CircuitPython will reload and run the code. Don’t close the case just yet!

Using Pico Pedal With OBS

Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is a remarkable free streaming tool. With OBS we can stream live to YouTube, Twitch and many other platforms. We can also record videos for later editing. OBS uses Scenes to create different camera angles, screencasts and other video inputs. 

We use a number of scenes for The Pi Cast, our weekly Raspberry Pi show. We have a scene for our front-facing camera, a scene for overhead cameras to show off a project, and a scene to show a stream of images or datasheets. To swap scenes we have a keypad programmed to move between them using shortcut keys. The Pico Pedal can be used in the same manner. You will need to have already created the scenes in order to create hotkeys for them.

1. Open OBS and navigate to Settings, found in the bottom right corner. 

2. Click on Hotkeys.

3. Scroll down to the scene that you wish to add a hotkey for. In our example we go to Face.

4. Click on the black box for Switch to scene.

5. On your Pedal press the button that you wish to assign to the scene. OBS will update to show that button press.

6. Click Apply and Ok to save the hotkey.

7. Repeat the process for the additional two buttons.

You now have the buttons of your pedal mapped to OBS, ready for your next stream. Now you can smoothly move from scene to scene without touching the keyboard.

Complete Code Listing

import boardfrom digitalio import DigitalInOut, Direction, Pullimport usb_hidfrom adafruit_hid.keyboard import Keyboardfrom adafruit_hid.keyboard_layout_us import KeyboardLayoutUSfrom adafruit_hid.keycode import Keycodeimport timekeyboard = Keyboard(usb_hid.devices)keyboard_layout = KeyboardLayoutUS(keyboard)one = DigitalInOut(board.GP2)one.direction = Direction.INPUTone.pull = Pull.UPtwo = DigitalInOut(board.GP3)two.direction = Direction.INPUTtwo.pull = Pull.UPthree = DigitalInOut(board.GP4)three.direction = Direction.INPUTthree.pull = Pull.UPdelay = 0.5while True:    if one.value == False:        print("Button 1")        keyboard.send(Keycode.CONTROL, Keycode.ALT, Keycode.A)        keyboard.release_all()        time.sleep(delay)    elif two.value == False:        print("Button 2")        keyboard.send(Keycode.CONTROL, Keycode.ALT, Keycode.B)        keyboard.release_all()        time.sleep(delay)    elif three.value == False:        print("Button 3")        keyboard.send(Keycode.CONTROL, Keycode.ALT, Keycode.C)        keyboard.release_all()        time.sleep(delay)    else:        print("Waiting for button press")        time.sleep(0.1)

Elgato has released the Stream Deck Pedal. This new tactile foot controller, with three hit zones, expands the Stream Deck range in an unexpected but welcome direction. Elgato demonstrates the Stream Deck Pedal in gaming, streaming, productivity, and hobby activities. As you might imagine, there are many foot control possibilities, and the software facilitates the use of a wide range of the usual Stream Deck functions, plus Multi Actions and Smart Profiles.

Sometimes a touch or button interface at hand level isn't the quickest and most intuitive thing for computer users. This is especially the case for those whose hands can already be very busy with a mouse, keyboard, etc., which makes using a foot controller very attractive.

Elgato's Stream Deck Pedal is pretty unadventurous, hardware-wise. The product maker says all the right things about the controller's heavy-duty construction, anti-skid feet, interchangeable pedal pressure springs, and grippy top surface, but in summary, it is just a trio of pedals in a line. The pedals aren't even analog (like a wah or volume pedal); they are simple switches.

However, simplicity is not a bad quality for something that you might operate with a big boot while out of sight. Furthermore, Elgato's experience and foundational work on button interfaces means that it has many smart features that make the Stream Deck Pedal useful in a wide range of situations.

Elgato highlights the usefulness of its new pedal in streaming content creation, gaming actions/shortcuts, presentation making, video editing, and working with the new Stream Deck Discord plugin for mute/talk/deafen and more. In addition, there are over 100 Stream Deck plugins available online to make your new foot controller very flexible.

Multi Actions can be used to string button press actions together and assign them to one pedal. You can stomp down to grab a screenshot, open a destination folder, and share it on Twitter, for example. Other tasks might be to smooth your audio or video production workflow.

Smart Profiles help alleviate the three-button limit here. Using the setup software, you can easily create, save and recall pedal layouts mixing single and Multi Actions. You might create Smart Profiles and Multi Action sets for different tasks you do on your computer – one for live streaming, and another for video conferencing, for example.

It is recommended you watch the intro and overview video for the new Elgato Stream Deck Pedal above to get a good feel for its capabilities.

The device measures 244 x 175 x 49 mm / 9.6 x 6.9 x 1.9 inches, weighs 930 g / 2.1 lbs, comes with four pedal spring tension sets, and connects to your computer via a USB Type-C port (with a USB Type-C to USB Type-A connector cable in the box).

Elgato is selling the Steam Deck Pedal today via the official product page linked in the intro for $89.99.

In a surprising move, Corsair, a maker of PC components and PCs, this week announced that it had acquired Kinoni's EpocCam, a program that transforms Apple's iPhone and iPad into a feature-rich wireless webcam that can be used to chat, collaborate, stream, and record video. The program will be used to boost Corsair's portfolio of Elgato-branded products for content creators. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

At times, it is strange to see hardware companies buying software assets, but a closer look at what Corsair is today may shed some light on the acquisition rationale. Corsair was established in 1994 to build enthusiast-grade memory modules. Eventually, the company branched out into other computer components, including NAND flash-based products, computer cases, PSUs, coolers, keyboards, and mice. With a broad product portfolio, Corsair transformed into essentially a gaming hardware company and even changed its name from Corsair Components to Corsair Gaming somewhere along the line. 

To strengthen its gaming business, Corsair took over Origin PC, a boutique PC maker, SCUF Gaming, a maker of controllers for PCs and consoles, as well as Elgato, a producer of solutions for professional game streamers, in the last couple of years. But to properly address the gaming market at large, Corsair needs not only competitive hardware but complete solutions consisting of many pieces. 

Corsair's Elgato has different kinds of live streaming equipment starting from video/game capture cards all the way to stream decks (which control the presentation) and even lighting. Elgato still does not have cameras and webcams, though. Instead of building its own high-end camera and/or webcam (which costs quite a lot) for a rather niche market, Corsair decided that it is easier to buy a program that transforms iPads and iPhones into webcams for game streamers. After all, modern smartphones have far better cameras and optics than mainstream webcams do.

The EpocCam app will continue to be compatible with Zoom, Skype, OBS Studio, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams and will allow anyone with an Apple Mac or a Windows PC to chat, stream, or record. Meanwhile, the latest version of EpocCam has been integrated into the wider Elgato ecosystem of content creation tools to suit professional game streamers better.   

Corsair is on the rise these days, partly because people who stay at home are more inclined to spend on gaming in general and gaming hardware in particular. According to The Esports Observer, the company went public and raised $118.6 million in September. Corsair sold 7.5 million shares at $17 a share, which put its market capitalization at $1.56 billion. A little more than a month later, Corsair's share price jumped to $24.9, and its market capitalization is now at $2.277 billion.    

Unfortunately, this smoking deal is sold out, but head to our Cyber Monday Tech deals page for more deals.

Here’s a Black Friday deal for everyone’s favorite, highly-wanted but not-quite-necessary desk accessory: the Elgato Stream Deck. Normally it retails for about $149, but Amazon’s thrown it on a Black Friday deal down to $99.99. Be quick though, because the deal will expire in less than a day -- or whenever inventory runs out.

Elgato’s Stream Deck is essentially a glorified Macro board, though calling it that is a disservice. Rather than coming with 15 simple macro buttons, it comes with 15 buttons, each having a little LCD screen below it that can display whatever you need it to.

All the buttons are customizable, and the unit is built to integrate into Twitch, Twitter, YouTube, and a whole host of other streaming and media platforms. Each ‘Macro’ can also be customized very extensively, making one key-press start a string of actions across multiple programs to streamline your workflow.

Most of us don't strictly need the Elgato Stream Deck, but it sure is nice to have and makes your desk look more interesting.

Nvidia today announced RTX Broadcast Engine, which it described as "a new set of RTX-accelerated software development kits that use the AI capabilities of GeForce RTX GPUs to transform livestreams," ahead of the annual gathering of the world's top streamers at TwitchCon 2019.

The company said that RTX Broadcast Engine utilizes the Tensor Cores found in its RTX GPUs to "enable virtual green screens, style filters and augmented reality effects" without requiring dedicated equipment. Those features could allow rising streamers to improve their production values without requiring a significant upfront investment that could easily be lost if they fail to find success in the somewhat unpredictable field.

Nvidia also partnered with Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) to make RTX Greenscreen available to all of the popular streaming app's users. The company plans to show off the green screen feature at TwitchCon 2019 and said it will debut in "the coming months." It's not yet clear when the other SDKs revealed alongside RTX Broadcast Engine--the aptly named RTX AR and RTX Style Filters--will be released to the public.

Developers have also brought support for the Nvidia Video Codec SDK (used "for fast, high-quality streaming") to three more apps. It's now integrated in the Twitch Studio broadcasting app that debuted in August, the Go Live feature used to stream via Discord and the Elgato Game Capture Software used to record 4K HDR content at 60 frames per second with the new 4K60 Pro MK.2 capture card.

More information about the RTX Broadcast Engine can be found on Nvidia's developer website. Devs can apply for early access to the SDKs now, and Nvidia will present its "RTX Greenscreen in OBS, new RTX Studio laptops and upcoming RTX games" at the OBS booth at TwitchCon. 

NZXT recently announced new streaming bundles for BLD, their custom build service, which adds the necessary hardware to make entering the world of streaming easier. With game streaming gaining popularity at a fervent pace, it was only a matter of time until we saw something like this. 

NZXT has created two streaming packages to sell with their BDL streaming PCs, the Essentials bundle and the Premium bundle. Each has gaming streaming essentials, with the Premium bundle adding a lot more to it for more advanced streaming with green screens and more.

The Essentials bundle includes the following:

• Blue Snowball (Microphone)
• Elgato Stream Deck Mini
• Logitech c922x Pro Stream (Camera)
• Streamlabs OBS (Software)

If bought as a standalone package, the cost is $199.99. When purchased with the NZXT BLD Streaming PC, that cost is $2,697.91, which saves users about $1.

The Premium Bundle includes a lot more goodies:

• Blue Yeti Pro (Microphone)
• Blue Radius II Shock Mount + Pop Filter
• Microphone Boom Arm
• Elgato Stream Deck
• Elgato Key Light
• Elgato Green Screen
• Elgato Game Capture HD60 Pro (Capture Card)
• Logitech x922x Pro Stream (Camera)
• Streamlabs OBS (Software)

The price on this package if bought alone is $1,099.99. If it is purchased with the BLD Streaming PC, that total becomes $3,597.91 (no savings).

NZXT’s BLD Streaming PC Specs

NZXT’s BLD Streaming PC that goes along with these streaming accessories has solid specifications. Alone, this configuration costs $2,498.91. 

The BLD Streaming PC allows users to choose up to three free games, specify the desired budget range and a 48 business hour turnaround to build and ship. Their BLD page has a “recommendation engine” that predicts FPS within 10 percent accuracy to guarantee gaming performance of each custom BLD PC for the games selected. This way, users are able to see their approximate frame rate with the hardware chosen, which is pretty unique in the custom build space. Each system carries a 2-year warranty.

The BLD systems and streaming accessories will be available in the U.S. and Canada between now and April 26. 

How to Set Up Your Streaming PC

NZXT this week also released a short video on how to setup your streaming PC. You can watch it below.

Streamers are the next big demographic tech companies are looking to chase. There have been too many announcements--Corsair buying Elgato, Logitech acquiring Blue Microphones, Razer introducing the Ifrit headset--in recent months to leave doubt about that. Today, the Streamlabs App Store opened up today, offering more evidence for just how lucrative it expects the streaming market to be.

Streamlabs offers a platform where streamers can set up custom alerts, sell their own merchandise and find a chatbot to at least attempt to manage the nigh-unmanageable entity known as Twitch chat. The company has already expanded that platform in recent months with the debut of Streamlabs OBS, which makes it easier for people to stream, as well as a partnership with Intel revolving around stream-ready PCs.

Now Streamlabs has revealed a new app store where streamers can find over a dozen apps "designed to help live streamers grow their channel." The apps range from music streaming tools and polling utilities to custom widgets and software that makes it easier to simultaneously stream to multiple platforms.

Streamlabs also established a $1 million developer fund to encourage devs to make software compatible with the Streamlabs OBS streaming app to put in the new app store. Right now the app store is invite-only, unlike the rest of Streamlabs' offerings, but it'll open up to more people in the future. The company said it went invite-only to start because it wants "to give the maximum amount of support to each developer, including custom API work if that is what’s needed to build a killer app."

People invited to use the app store will also be given a $15 credit to encourage them to check out the new software. More apps are expected to debut in late November, and with $1 million to hand out to additional developers, odds are good that more will follow in the coming months. Although that will of course depend on what kind of apps Streamlabs is looking for and what the approval process will look like.

Regardless, Streamlabs is making clear its belief that streamers will be a lucrative enough market to justify these expansions to its platform. While other companies are focused on hardware, it seems this one is determined to become the de facto software provider for everyone who wants their stream to stand out from the many, many others. Welcome to the fight to arm everyone in their battle for stardom.

Everyone used to be working on a novel. Now it seems like everybody wants to make a podcast, stream, or YouTube channel. All of those categories of content require a decent microphone, while video creators often need some kind of webcam. Logitech wants to be the main source of equipment for becoming the next viral sensation, which is why it acquired Blue Microphones for a reported $117 million in cash.

Blue is basically the purveyor of gateway audio equipment. Its microphones aren't the best in the market, but they are easy to set up and offer better sound quality than most of the entry-level competition. For years, the reigning advice to aspiring creators has been to buy a Blue Yeti, start your project and then graduate to higher-end microphones and other audio equipment if you find any success.

Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell said in a blog post that Blue's position in the creative market is exactly why his company wanted to snap it up:

“Logitech’s acquisition of Blue Microphones will accelerate our entry into a growing market and offers another way for us to help bring people’s passions (from music to blogging) to life. Joining with Blue is an adjacent opportunity for us – a new way to grow – with additional synergies related to our existing gaming, PC webcam and audio categories.”

Blue said in its announcement that joining Logitech makes sense from a product standpoint. Blue claims to sell the most popular mic used by streamers and said that Logitech sells the most popular webcam as well. Now, instead of having people buy that equipment from two sources, the companies will combine their efforts to make sure their products take up as much space on a podcaster or streamer's desk as possible.

Logitech isn't the first company to see the synergy between peripheral makers and streaming equipment companies. Corsair acquired Elgato earlier this year for the same reason, and NZXT announced today that it bought Forge, a "pioneer in creating tools for capturing and sharing PC gameplay." The distinction between "gamer" and "content creator" is disappearing; why shouldn't companies take advantage of that shift?

There was a time when livestreaming was novel in itself. Now, there are countless ways for people to customize their streams, whether it's with animations triggered by certain events or unique overlays, and the chances of a stream's audience growing without those add-ons is slim. Elgato's new Stream Deck Mini is meant to make it easier for people to streamline (heh) the way they manage the fiddly aspects of streaming.

Elgato released the original Stream Deck in 2017 with a similar goal. The primary differences between that device and its smaller sibling lie in the number of customizable LCD keys. The Stream Deck offers 15 keys you can individually program to switch between "scenes," activate sound effects, or perform other actions that would've relied on a bunch of keyboard shortcuts. The Stream Deck Mini has six.

The new Stream Deck Mini's reduced button count will limit its utility--although you can regain some of the lost functionality by assigning folders to keys--but it also means the device is much smaller. When you're already cramming a system, mousepad, keyboard, microphone and at least one monitor on your desk, chances are that cluttering it further with the original Stream Deck was a no-go for streamers with limited space.

Elgato said that since the original Stream Deck's launch in 2017 it has "continued support and has expanded Stream Deck’s functionality with new features, including a soundboard, GIF support, Streamlabs integration, smart profiles and much more." All of those additional features will also make their way to the Stream Deck Mini, further reinforcing the idea that button count and footprint are the only real differences.

The Stream Deck Mini is merely another product in Elgato's streaming lineup. Besides the original Stream Deck, the company also offers capture cards to allow streamers to broadcast from their consoles, as well as a collapsible green screen to make setting up custom backgrounds easier. (Elgato also made a Thunderbolt 3 dock, but that seems more like a traditional peripheral than something meant specifically for streamers.)

This portfolio makes Elgato a mainstay in the streaming market. It's no wonder, then, why Corsair decided to acquire the company in June. As more people hope to become the next big streamer, the lines between the gaming and streaming markets will probably continue to vanish. Why bother competing with an established brand when you can just gobble it up and reap the benefits of the work it's already put in?

Elgato said the Stream Deck Mini is available now from Amazon, GameStop and its online store for $100. The product is covered by a two-year warranty, and customer support will be available from both Elgato and Corsair (Elgato remains independent under the Corsair umbrella). So if the only things stopping you from picking up the Stream Deck were its size and price, well, it seems like the Stream Deck Mini was made for you.

Corsair has come a long way since its early beginnings as a memory maker. The moves it made to capture market share in the chassis, power supply and peripheral markets have paid off, and now the company is widening its focus to include the growing community of game streamers. Corsair today announced that it would acquire streaming accessory brand Elgato Gaming.

Corsair didn’t buy Elgato’s entire business and portfolio of products. It acquired only the Elgato Gaming brand and the products under that branch of the company, which include its lineup of internal and external capture cards, the Elgato Stream Deck, the Elgato Cam Link and the company’s portable, collapsible green screen. Elgato also makes Thunderbolt Docks, but it’s unclear if those are part of the Elgato Gaming brand.

Elgato also makes a line-up of connected home devices under the brand name Elgato Eve, which is not part of the Corsair acquisition. Elgato Eve will go on independently under the new name Eve Systems.

Corsair didn’t reveal many details about the deal. We don’t know how much Corsair paid for Elgato Gaming, and it’s unclear whether Corsair intends to keep Elgato Gaming’s workforce in place. Elgato is based in Munich, Germany, whereas Corsair is an American company based in Freemont, California. However, Corsair did say that Elgato Gaming would operate as a separate brand within Corsair, so it could leave the brand’s base of operations in Munich.

Update, 8/18/17, 7:20am PT: Elgato announced that the Cam Link and Green Screen are now available from its online store and will debut on Amazon in "the coming days."  Original article: 8/8/17, 11:10am PT:

Elgato Gaming released two new products today in an effort to make game streaming easier for first-time users and popular personalities alike. The Cam Link USB hub allows you to use any camera for face capture, and the new Green Screen is a small and portable panel that you can use for a clean background.

Most people use webcams for face capture because their USB connections, allow for an easier set up with their PCs. With the Cam Link dongle, you can connect any camera of your choice to it via an HDMI cable. The Cam Link then connects to your computer via a USB 3.0 port. According to the company, the connection allows for capture up to 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second with low latency. Any footage from the camera is stored on the computer’s hard drive.

The Cam Link also works in tandem with Elgato’s Green Screen. Rather than showing your face along with a small glimpse into your room, the Green Screen allows for a clean background so that viewers can easily focus on you in addition to the ongoing gameplay. The screen is stored inside an aluminum casing that is 64.76 inches (more than five feet) in width. You can pull the screen out of the tube to a maximum height of 70.87 inches, which is a little less than six feet. The casing also comes with a frame that ensures that the Green Screen is secure when propped up.

The Cam Link and Green Screen will cost you $130 and $150, respectively, when they launch later this month on August 18. You can pre-order the items now on Elgato’s online store or on Amazon.

Elgato is known in the gaming industry for its multiple products that can help you capture or stream game footage, but its latest piece of hardware is more focused on making it easier for streamers to manage multiple facets of the livestream show. With the Elgato Stream Deck, you'll be able to send out general tweets, activate your webcam, or switch programs with the press of a button.

In the past, most streamers, including myself, would have to use the Alt + Tab key combo in order to switch between different windows to send tweets, monitor the stream chat, or start the stream. With the Stream Deck, you'll be able to put these commands on the peripheral and assign one of the 15 buttons to a specific function. The buttons also include a small LCD screen that will give you a visual cue to signify that the assigned task was completed.

Out of the box, the Stream Deck is already compatible with multiple apps such as the Open Broadcaster Software, Twitter, and of course, Twitch. There are also a few pre-made icons for general tasks such as sending tweets or starting a stream, but you can also create your own icons to give it a more personal touch (pun intended). With the Stream Deck’s software, you can easily drag and drop commands to specific keys. However, it's not just limited to 15 functions. You can stack multiple assignments onto one button so that you have a “folder” for similar functions. All in all, Elgato said that you can have up to 210 “actions” within the 15-key deck.

If you want to get your own copy of the Stream Deck, you can order it through Elgato or Amazon for $150. It uses a USB 2.0 connection and is compatible with Windows 10 (64-bit) and macOS version 10.11 or later.

Elgato has introduced a new I/O device – the Thunderbolt Dock. This device, as its name implies, is a connectivity dock that connects to the host device through a Thunderbolt interface.

The dock features a handful of ports, including three USB 3.0 ports, a single HDMI 1.4 port, a Gigabit Ethernet port, a set of headphone and microphone jacks, and of course two Thunderbolt v.1 connectors. The device is powered through a 12 V AC adapter.

Packed in the box is the dock itself, a Thunderbolt cable, and of course the required power brick.

Pricing is set at $229.95, with availability expected soon.

Nine Thunderbolt Devices Feel The Need For Speed

Delivering up to 1 GB/s data of throughput and the ability to communicate over PCI Express externally, it's no surprise that Thunderbolt has the attention of enthusiasts today. Those same savvy buyers see that the technology still bears a prohibitively high price premium, though, and decry its lack of value. If you aren't yet familiar with Thunderbolt and want a low-level lesson on it, check out Everything You Need To Know About Thunderbolt.

Nevertheless, several Thunderbolt-based external storage solutions are now available with the potential to nearly double the peak performance of today's most popular interfaces. The question is: are vendors able to populate these enclosures with the right hardware to enable blazing-fast transfers?

Finding Its Place

We certainly understand if you're reluctant to spend extra money on a new and unproven connectivity standard that looks like it's being set up to replace USB. But take solace in Intel's insistence (for now) that Thunderbolt is meant to complement USB 3.0 and not replace it. Although the two interfaces appear at odds, they're decidedly ideal in very different ways and for equally disparate applications.

USB 3.0 does, for example, enable impressive performance across a bus rated for 5 Gb/s. However, its inefficiencies knock what, on paper, appears to be a 500 MB/s interface down far below that theoretical maximum. As an interface for storage, Thunderbolt's 10 Gb/s (1 GB/s) peak has no trouble nudging USB 3.0 from its pole position.

It's perhaps more accurate to think of Thunderbolt as the spiritual successor to the FireWire standard, aimed at users with high-end applications unable to compromise performance—and willing to pay top dollar for it.

And like FireWire 800, which was exorbitantly-priced when it debuted, today's Thunderbolt-based adapters cost more than $150 and require expensive cabling that isn't included. Intel says that it's committed to bringing down the cost of second-generation Thunderbolt controllers and cables, hopefully allowing the technology to dangle within reach of value-conscious customers sooner rather than later.

A large number of Thunderbolt-related product announcements at this year's Computex give us some indication that a flood of products should be emerging soon. But there are already dozens of Thunderbolt-based storage devices available. We gathered up nine and put them to the test.

Elgato Thunderbolt SSD 240 GB

Elgato is well known in the Mac world for its capture card products, and is now jumping into the storage market with the Thunderbolt SSD.

One significant limitation of this drive is that it hosts a single Thunderbolt port (a side effect of its Intel Port Ridge controller), which means you have to put the Thunderbolt SSD at the end of a daisy chain or use it on its own. This is an issue if you only have one Thunderbolt port and are already using a mini-DisplayPort adapter to drive a monitor; you're forced to choose between one device or the other. There is no way around that issue, as we haven't seen any mini-DisplayPort adapters with Thunderbolt pass-through.

The Thunderbolt SSD's thick aluminum case makes it rather hefty, but it's actually fairly simple inside. Aside from Intel's DSL2210 controller, you find an ASMedia ASM1061 SATA 6Gb/s controller on the PCB and an older SanDisk 3Gb/s 240 GB Ultra SSD. Based on SandForce's first-gen technology, SanDisk’s Ultra-series drives are functionally similar to OCZ's Vertex 2.

Elgato’s decision to use a SATA 3Gb/s-class SSD really impacts the device's benchmark results. As you can see, sequential read and write speeds top out at ~250 MB/s. But that's not all. Testing with incompressible data (SandForce's Achilles' heel) drops sequential write throughput to ~90 MB/s, making the Thunderbolt SSD ill-suited for working with multimedia files. Random reads and writes aren’t impressive either, unfortunately. SandForce’s first-generation controller logic performs rather poorly in those two disciplines, explaining why we see random access numbers peaking near 100 MB/s.

Upgrading the Thunderbolt SSD's internal drive voids its warranty. If you want to throw a faster SSD in there anyway, be aware that Elgato employs a tamper-resistant tar-sealed hex cap that discourages opening the case. In its stock configuration, this is a good example of a drive that lacks the composition to fully exploit the potential of Thunderbolt. And yet, after the cost of SanDisk's roughly $130 drive (in the 120 GB model), you're still paying close to $300 more to get 3 Gb/s performance in Thunderbolt trim.

G-Technologies G-RAID Thunderbolt 8 GB

G-Technologies is a subsidiary of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, which was acquired by Western Digital a few months ago. We're told there are no plans to discontinue Hitachi GST's products. But, should that occur, Western Digital will continue to honor warranty coverage, alleviating concerns over buying a G-Technologies device.

The G-RAID Thunderbolt is housed in a silver-colored MacBook Pro-like aluminum shell, with two ports located on the back for daisy chaining, along with a power switch and fan exhaust port. The combination of an active cooler fan and an aluminum housing seems fairly effective for dissipating the heat from Intel's Thunderbolt controller and the installed hard drives. At idle and during our streaming write tests, the unit remained cool, and we're happy to say its fan runs more quietly than the mechanical disks.

The two internal 4 TB 3.5” Hitachi Deskstar 7K4000 hard drives occupy three-quarters of the length of the unit, and both repositories are positioned near the front grill. Not all G-RAID Thunderbolt units feature the configuration we're reviewing today. G-Technology also offers 4 TB (2 x 2 GB) and 6 TB (2 x 3 GB) versions employing Hitachi’s Deskstar 7K2000 and 7K3000 family, respectively. All three capacities are rated for similar performance, so your only real decision is how much storage space you need.

Upgrading the installed hard drives on your own voids the warranty, so it may be wise to err on the side of caution and buy bigger if you anticipate a rapidly-growing library of music or videos eating up capacity quickly. There is no way to sneak around this restriction, as a tamper-resistant sticker hides one of the screws required to disassemble the chassis.  

Unlike the Elgato unit, G-Technology uses Intel's CV82524EF/L Thunderbolt controller, equipped with four channels, to facilitate support for daisy chaining. Also unlike the Elgato unit, the G-RAID Thunderbolt forgoes ASMedia's storage controller in favor Marvell's 88SE9182 SATA 6Gb/s solution.

There is no hardware-based RAID controller on-board. So, you have to configure RAID via software either in Windows or using OS X's Disk Utility. That's an important note, since G-Technology incorrectly claims that this device supports hardware-based RAID 0 on its product webpage.

Configured manually to operate in RAID 0 mode, the G-RAID Thunderbolt reaches sequential read speeds of ~325 MB/s, regardless of queue depth. Sequential writes, on the other hand, start out at ~270 MB/s and jump to 320 MB/s once there are sixteen concurrent operations.

Sequential write performance hangs steady at 155 MB/s in RAID 1, and sequential reads climb from 50 MB/s to ~160 MB/s.

LaCie Little Big Disk 240 GB

LaCie’s Little Big Disk (LBD) is available in four trims: 1 TB (2 x 500 GB, 5400 RPM), 1 TB (2 x 500 GB, 7200 RPM), 2 TB (2 x 1 TB, 5400 RPM), and 240 GB (2 x 120 GB, SSD). The 240 GB model, which is what LaCie submitted for review, is unquestionably the most interesting. It's the first Thunderbolt-based device we have seen with SSDs in RAID. That's perfect for pushing the interface's performance, providing the company picks the right drives.

LaCie touts the Little Big Disk as a "portable powerhouse," and SSDs drive that message home quite effectively. However, we do end up with critical feedback to pass along. Contrary to LaCie’s product photos, the Little Big Disk requires a separate AC adapter for daisy chaining because Thunderbolt, in its current form, does not supply enough power to run everything off of bus power.

Our enthusiasm is further dampened by the fact that LaCie chose to employ Intel’s 120 GB SSD 320. Don't get us wrong, we've found the SSD 320 to be incredibly reliable. It's just not a great-performing drive. You'd get better benchmarks results from any number of more modern 6 Gb/s-capable SSDs. But before you consider a do-it-yourself replacement, bear in mind that you'd be voiding LaCie's warranty. Four screws on the back of the drive are resin-coated, making it easy to tell if the chassis is opened.

All of LaCie's Little Big Disk models employ the same Intel CV82524EF/L Thunderbolt and Marvell 88SE9182 SATA controllers.

Queue depth appears to have no impact on performance, which is good news if you don't have one of those rigorous storage workloads needed to extract peak performance from many SSD-based products.

In RAID 0, sequential reads even out at ~470 MB/s, while writes peak around 250 MB/s. Using relatively low-capacity SSDs makes it hard to imagine a scenario where RAID 1 would make sense, but we generated those numbers anyway, if only as an interesting comparison to what RAID 0 does for throughput. And, as expected, when we limit the Little Big Disk to the capabilities of a single SSD 320, its sequential reads max out at ~250 MB/s, while sequential writes fall to ~125 MB/s.

Unfortunately, the SSD 320's random performance results are fairly modest, so the numbers we see aren't as spectacular as what you might otherwise expect from a modern SSD. The 4 KB random reads slowly climb from ~20 MB/s to ~130 MB/s, with no correlation to RAID configuration. We see that 4 KB random writes max out at 100 MB/s in RAID 0; RAID 1 achieves up to ~50 MB/s.

LaCie 2big 6 TB

LaCie’s 2big external RAID enclosure, featuring hot-swappable bays, is a much better option for enthusiasts looking for a little flexibility without jeopardizing warranty coverage. The 2big isn't a clear winner over LaCie's Little Big Disk in every way, though. It's larger and less portable, whereas the Little Big Disk leverages 2.5" drives to keep its form factor much more compact. But that shouldn't be a deterrent; the 2big accepts higher-capacity 3.5" storage and is deliberately designed to be stationary. If you need mobility, LaCie has more purpose-built solutions (like the Little Big Disk). 

As with pretty much all of the Thunderbolt-based products we're looking at today, the 2big isn't an inexpensive piece of hardware. LaCie's 4 TB model (9000191) sells for $600, or ~$0.15 per GB. Jumping to the 6 TB model (9000192) increases the price to $750, but reduces the cost per-gigabyte to ~$0.09. Fortunately, both available versions can be found online for a bit less.

Regardless of the capacity point, LaCie utilizes Seagate's 7200.14 Barracuda (ST3000DM001) family inside its 2big models. That's a respectable choice, as the 7200.14 happens to be a decent middle-of-the-road performer.

The 2big employs the same Intel CV82524EF/L and Marvell 88SE9182 configuration as the Little Big Disk, but it integrates beefier power circuitry to support 3.5" disk drives.

Expect to see sequential read results somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 MB/s from the 2 big in a RAID 0 configuration. Writes level off around ~290 MB/s.

Protecting your data with RAID 1 nearly halves those performance numbers.

Promise Pegasus R6 12 TB

Sporting six hot-swappable bays, Promise’s Pegasus R6 is the top dog when it comes to performance-oriented Thunderbolt-based storage solutions. Intel and its partners commonly use this device to demonstrate what the technology is capable of achieving, and the R6's high price makes it even more exclusive. The entry-level 6 TB (6 x 1 TB) model will set you back $1800, and the 12 TB version commands a $2500 price tag.

You get what you pay for, though, and the Pegasus R6 demonstrates its suitability in business-class environments with a serial port for uninterruptible power supply support at the back of the chassis.

Promise sent us its 12 TB Pegasus R6, employing six 2 TB Hitachi 72K300 hard drives (the 6 TB variant is equipped with Hitachi’s 7K1000.D series). The drive bays are well-designed, featuring sturdy aluminum face plates and large release buttons that make it easy to swap storage out in the event of a disk failure.

The picture above, turned upside-down for better clarity, shows the interior of the Pegasus R6, where we find a 250 W power supply driving a motherboard with PMC-Sierra’s PM8011 PCIe SAS 6Gb/s RAID controller. The PM8011 is actually an eight-lane controller. But because Thunderbolt only enables a PCIe x4 uplink, the other four lanes aren't used.

It's interesting that Promise populates the SAS controller with SATA-based hard drives, though not entirely surprising given the premium SAS-capable disks would have added. You can look at the daughtercard's connectors, though, and see the full SAS interface that accommodates SATA disks, too. SAS 6Gb/s and SATA 6Gb/s both enable similar data rates, so there's no concern over compromised performance. We think that Promise's decision to arm its enclosure with SATA storage was the right one. However, should the company wish to offer a version of its R6 with nearline SAS drives in the future, that could become a possibility.

The R6 supports RAID 0, 1E, 5, 6, 10, and 50. However, we're narrowing our focus to the three configurations we feel are most attractive on a device like this: RAID 0, RAID 1E, and RAID 5.

The R6 really stretches its legs when we measure sequential read performance in RAID 0. It falls just 50 MB/s short of the 1 GB/s barrier at a queue depth of 16! If redundancy is more important to you than blistering speed, RAID 1E operates effectively as three RAID 1 arrays, which is why sequential read performance falls to ~315 MB/s. RAID 5 is a fair compromise, enabling block-level striping with distributed parity. We see sequential reads top out around ~780 MB/s in that arrangement.

This is the only device we're reviewing with performance characteristics that look a little different under OS X than Windows, and there's a reason why. Originally, Thunderbolt allowed device I/O and display signaling to share bandwidth over both bi-directional channels. However, in the summer of 2011, Apple and Intel decided to put device I/O on its own channel in order to preserve the display's signal integrity under heavy workloads.

Prior to that, we were able to achieve close to 920 MB/s in RAID 0 on our 15” MacBook Pro. However, since we "upgraded" to a 13.3” MBP, our new results seem to suggest a ceiling around ~800 MB/s. Promise tells us it sees slightly better performance on PCs, but the delta should only be a few percent at most. Our numbers require more Mac-specific testing, since we don’t know whether it was the update or our system to blame.

Promise Pegasus R4 8 TB

The four-bay version of Promise's Pegasus is more affordable, offered in 4 and 6 TB configurations. You'll pay $1150 for the 4 TB R4 (versus $1800 for the entry-level 6 TB R6). Aside from its lower price and two-fewer drive bays, there's very little else distinguishing the R4 and R6 families. Promise even uses the same Hitachi Deskstar hard drives in them both.

Crack open the R4 and you find the same motherboard and power supply seen in the R6.

Eliminating two drive bays from the R6 does impact performance, though. In RAID 0, the R4's sequential reads top out at ~635 MB/s, representing a closet-to 33% drop from the R6. Sequential writes in RAID 0 only drop about 18%, from 635 MB/s to 535 MB/s.

RAID 1E and RAID 5 performance are mostly unchanged. The only exception is that sequential reads in RAID 5 peak at ~460 MB/s, about a 70% drop from the R6’s 780 MB/s.

Preview: Promise Pegasus R4 (SSD Version)

Promise plans to release an SSD-based version of the R4, but has not yet decided on a specific drive model to use yet. We are told that Intel's 240 GB SSD 520 is a strong contender due to the company’s stellar reputation for reliability and the zippy performance delivered by SandForce's second-generation controller.

Promise does not anticipate selling an SSD-based R6, stating the added cost of six SSDs would would push the price of the R6 beyond what the market will bear. We don't have an estimate for what the R4 with solid-state storage will cost, either, so we were forced to create our own estimate. Using the current 4 TB R4 as a baseline, we assume the 1 TB Hitachi 7K1000.D Deskstar hard drives are about $100 each, with the chassis and components totaling about $750. A single 240 GB Intel SSD 520 runs just north of $300, so a four-SSD variant of the current R4 could conceivably weigh in under $2000.

What this quad-SSD R4 variant might offer will depend on what you compare it to. Next to the R6, its benefits are likely to be limited. In theory, sequential performance should speed up by 5-10% (50-100 MB/s), while random I/O improves by an order of magnitude. Achieving better random throughput is important for certain applications that a hard drive-based solution simply cannot address. However, LaCie's Little Big Disk is more effective with its two SSD 320s than Promise's R4 armed with four SSD 520s when it comes to random performance.

The SSD-based R4's throughput matches what you can achieve using a hard drive-based R6. However, that performance gain costs lots of capacity. Even sporting 240 GB drives, the R4 tops out under 1 TB of space. That's nowhere near enough room for data-dense multimedia applications that chew up multiple terabytes.

Perhaps the characteristics of solid-state storage make this particular R4 more attractive, though. If you have production equipment operating in a vehicle, for example, or are constantly moving drives from one place to another, SSDs prove far more resilient against physical shock. They also run a lot cooler and use a lot less power.

Seagate GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt 3 TB

Seagate recently announced its Backup Plus, a refresh of its external GoFlex storage line-up. As described by Seagate, the company's new Backup Plus drives feature the Seagate Dashboard, a one-click backup interface supporting both Macs and PCs that also enables sharing and saving photos to and from popular social networking sites.

In concert with the Backup Plus introduction, we're also seeing a refresh of Seagate's product bundles, including the 3 TB GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt that includes a Backup Plus hard drive. Aside from new software features, however, very little changes. Seagate is still using its same generation of Barracuda 7200.14 disks. 

Don't feel like you have to wait for one of the new bundles to come out before making a purchase, though. If you look at the prices, it's a little cheaper buy the Thunderbolt adapter after grabbing one of Seagate's older offerings compatible with USB 3.0, for instance. In fact, you don't really even need a GoFlex hard drive to use with the Thunderbolt adapter. Because Seagate employs a standard SATA connection between the two devices, you could even drop a bare disk on the dock and it'd work. To prove our point, we even installed a Blu-ray drive onto the adapter.

Internally, the GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt Adapter consists of a motherboard hosting ASMedia's ASM1061 SATA controller and a PCI Express x1 slot. Intel's CV82524EF/L Thunderbolt controller is soldered onto an add-in card that drops onto the small board. Unfortunately, you can't yank out the x1 card and plug it into your PC. We tried, failed, and then asked. That's just not how it works.

Because we're measuring the performance of a single hard drive, the GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt's sequential read and write performance levels off at ~190 MB/s, regardless of queue depth.

Seagate GoFlex Ultra-Portable Thunderbolt 1 TB

Similar to Elgato's Thunderbolt SSD, Seagate's GoFlex Ultra-Portable Thunderbolt Adapter employs an Intel DSL2210 controller, meaning it can only be used at the end of a daisy chain or on its own. The good news is that it only costs $100, making the portable adapter a lot less expensive than the desktop version.

The Ultra-Portable Thunderbolt bundle is also in the middle of a product refresh. But it is worth noting that Seagate’s modular product formula simplifies an upgrade down the road. You can buy the storage now (in the form of a USB 3.0-equipped drive) and upgrade to Thunderbolt later when the technology stands to benefit you more.

Based on our performance numbers, it is frankly difficult to imagine buying the GoFlex Ultra-Portable Thunderbolt Adapter as an upgrade. Sequential read and write speeds top out around 110 MB/s, which is already roughly on par with the version sporting USB 3.0.

We can more easily imagine using this adapter in conjunction with a fast SSD, though. If you were attaching a solid-state drive to a desktop, you'd simply connect it internally to a SATA port. But most mobile systems don't give you that option. Thus, the GoFlex Ultra-Portable Thunderbolt adapter becomes an easy way to add a very fast 2.5” SATA-based device to a Thunderbolt-enabled notebook, while achieving near-native performance.

Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duo 6 TB

Like LaCie’s 2big, Western Digital’s My Book Thunderbolt Duo gives you the option to replace internal storage without invalidating its warranty.

We have some seen confusion surrounding Western Digital's cooling design, though. Some users complain about its plastic enclosure, claiming it runs too hot. But company representatives say that's by design. A small fan draws in cool air from the bottom of the unit, and convection serves to cool the internal components before venting out the top. This helps explain why the My Book Thunderbolt Duo's exhaust temperatures are routinely 10-15^o F higher than LaCie’s 2big, which also enjoys the benefit of an aluminum enclosure for dissipating heat. Its mechanism explained, the only drawback to Western Digital's design is that you can't stack drives on top of each other (or other components on top of a My Book).

Assurances from Western Digital aside, we stress-tested these drives with more than 100 hours of intensive write operations to try getting them to pop, and didn't see a single failure. Although they don't have the 2big's sexy aluminum enclosure, a plastic housing is less expensive to manufacture, reflected in the My Book Thunderbolt Duo's price tag.

Internally, Western Digital's implementation differs from LaCie's in that it employs ASMedia's ASM1061 SATA controller.

Sequential read and write performance tops out just over 240 MB/s in RAID 0 and 125 MB/s in RAID 1.

Test Setup And Benchmarks

When it comes to Thunderbolt and storage performance, A/V professionals should be particularly happy with the interface. As you've seen in our product spotlights, sequential throughput is quite often exceptional. By emphasizing the speed at which 128 KB blocks of data can be pushed through the interface, we got an accurate picture of how each submission is able to do its job.

It's not our intention to shun random-access performance entirely. However, none of these solutions are going to deliver impressive IOPS rates. If you don't believe us, check out the second page of Everything You Need To Know About Thunderbolt. A typical 3.5” rotating hard drive  is good for somewhere between 200 and 300 IOPS in random read/write workloads, which is less than 1 MB/s when you're dealing with 4 KB blocks. Even when you stripe six 3.5” desktop-class drives, the result is less than 10 MB/s of random reads.

That's not a problem with SSDs, which are capable of up to 80 000 IOPS, in the case of a Vertex 3. That's why we only presented random benchmark results for the SSD-based Thunderbolt solutions.

Thunderbolt is operating system-agnostic. But because Apple had a one-year head-start with the technology, more of its platforms are already equipped with the requisite controller hardware to support Thunderbolt. We ran our benchmarks on both Macs and PCs, achieving identical performance except where we noted otherwise. There are some PC-oriented problems tied to hot-plugging and daisy-chaining, but they don't affect performance, and Intel claims that it's working to help resolve them.

Installing vendor-specific SATA controller drivers delivered a ~1-3% performance boost compared to using Windows 7's generic ACHI driver.

Benchmark Results: Single File Transfer

Because Thunderbolt is so well-suited to the data-intensive needs of A/V professionals, we thought it fitting to measure the speed at which a 31 GB Blu-ray movie rip could be written to each device.

When it comes to raw sequential performance, a striped array communicating over Thunderbolt is formidable indeed. Promise's Pegasus R4 and R6 lead the pack, both units finishing the write task in 1:45. If you're willing to give up a lot of capacity in the name of solid-state storage, four SSD 520s in the R4 drop that completion time to 1:28.

LaCie’s 2big trails by only 10%, but it impressively outperforms the company's own SSD-equipped Little Big Disk. That shouldn't come as a surprise, though. According to Iometer, the 2big's hard drives outmaneuver the SSD 320s by ~15-25 MB/s in sequential read operations. There's a good lesson in there somewhere. Don't expect that, just because a device is armed with SSDs that it'll automatically move data around faster than an enclosure with hard drives.

Indeed, Western Digital's hard drive-based My Book Thunderbolt Duo matches the performance of LaCie's Little Big Disk, and the G-Technologies G-RAID Thunderbolt 8 TB follows behind by only a few seconds.

Even the performance of a single-drive Thunderbolt-based device should impress the folks who aren't interested in a multi-disk RAID enclosure, best illustrated by Seagate’s GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt Adapter’s small victory over the USB 3.0 version.

It's particularly notable that even a Thunderbolt link with multiple peripherals daisy chained onto it has sufficient bandwidth to enable full performance from downstream devices. Meanwhile, USB 3.0 slows down for every component added to a hub.

A quick breakdown of the single-drive observations:

• With a 3.5” hard drive, Thunderbolt proves faster than USB 3.0 by a small margin.
• With a 3.5” hard drive, the benefit of Thunderbolt compared to USB 3.0 increases as you add devices to the same interface.
• With a slower 2.5” hard drive, Thunderbolt performs about on par with USB 3.0. A daisy chainable device is needed to demonstrate an advantage.
• Regardless of the hard drive, Thunderbolt performs faster than FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 by huge margins.
• Do not assume an SSD in an external enclosure is going to be faster than hard drives.

Benchmark Results: Folder Transfer

We focused most of our attention on the performance of sequential transfers. However, not all sequential tests are the same. You might move a large move file 128 KB at a time. But a folder filled with different-sized files can still be moved sequentially using smaller blocks, too. The performance you see from such a mixture is not necessarily consistent with what we just saw writing a huge Blu-ray rip to each Thunderbolt device.

Testing our RAID 0-based enclosures, our rankings are largely the same as the previous page. The only exception is LaCie’s Little Big Disk, which outperforms the 2big, G-RAID Thunderbolt, and WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo.

Thunderbolt's benefits become clearer using single-drive devices with 3.5" disks. Moving a single file to the GoFlex Desk resulted in similar performance from Thunderbolt and USB 3.0. However, USB doesn't support command queuing. As a result, Thunderbolt takes a 22% lead when transferring bulk files. This is also an advantage when it comes to editing video, as data caching behaves similarly.

We see Elgato’s Thunderbolt SSD surge back because it's no longer getting hammered by incompressible data. Consequently, it matches the performance of Seagate's GoFlex Ultra-Portable (Thunderbolt or USB 3.0).

Thunderbolt: Faster Than USB 3.0; Three Winners Emerge

We know that Thunderbolt's maximum sequential throughput is close to the 1 GB/s mark, and Promise's Pegasus R6 has the unique distinction of saturating this new interface using six 3.5" hard drives. But it'd be wrong to assume that it takes $2000 to get the most out of Thunderbolt. Unlike USB, Thunderbolt was designed so that multiple devices can operate in parallel and still achieve their peak performance. You can get that same 1 GB/s from three or four peripherals doing 250 to 300 MB/s each.

This critically important advantage doesn't get enough attention. With USB, the interface bottlenecks performance, not the devices themselves. As an example, if you burn a DVD on a USB 2.0-based writer and write to a thumb drive, those conflicting operations could yield a useless coaster. Although USB 3.0 facilitates a lot more headroom, the technology is similar, and bottlenecks remain probable.

Thunderbolt alleviates interface limitations. Yeah, one LaCie 2big can "only" hit 350 MB/s in sequential reads. But a second 2big in the same chain can hit 350 MB/s, too. You can use those two drives, plus something like BlackMagic’s Intensity Extreme (a Thunderbolt-based external capture device used by professionals to edit 1080p content) and not have any of those three devices stepping on each others' toes. If that matters to your application, then spending money on high-end hardware probably isn't your top concern.

For everyone else, though, Thunderbolt does still face a big pricing problem. Even one 4 TB 2big at almost $600 reflects heavy mark-up. If you have room for a quartet of 1 TB disks inside your case, they'd only run about $360.

Those fat premiums will hopefully slim down over time. But even at a more attractive price, several of the devices in our round-up are haunted by other issues that call into question their utility. Elgato’s Thunderbolt SSD, for example, suffers from poor throughput because it employs an SSD based on SandForce's first-gen controller technology. That's fine for moving personal data around. But it's far less adept at handling encoded media files. Surely, a $420 price tag for 120 GB of capacity doesn't help. Seagate’s GoFlex Ultra-Portable Thunderbolt Adapter is only able to operate as an endpoint device. You can use it in a daisy chain, but you have to give up the potential for outputting to a display with a mini DisplayPort adapter.

Western Digital’s My Book Thunderbolt Duo competes directly with LaCie's 2big, but is hurt by slower drives. The thing is, the My Book Thunderbolt Duo costs $50 less than the 2big, which is a reasonable trade-off, so long as you're also able to accept the plastic case. They both offer notable value, earning LaCie's 2big 6 TB and Western Digital’s My Book Thunderbolt Duo 6 TB our 2012 Recommended Buy Award.

If you'd rather manage just a single Thunderbolt-based device (count us in), you can't ignore the incredible performance enabled by Promise's Pegasus R4 and R6. The SSD version of the R4 isn't final yet, but we're certainly impressed with our early preview.

Performance and value are still vital criteria, though. The least-expensive Pegasus R4 costs 33% less than the R6, and sacrifices the same margin of sequential read performance. However, both units serve up identical sequential write speeds, making the R4 a better value. That also earns Promise's Pegasus R4 our 2012 Recommended Buy Award.