First, it's worth noting that a lot of the parts I'm about to talk about are compatible with the Corsair Frame 4000D PC case our Jacob reviewed. Second, let's talk about the all-important aesthetics: there's a range of options for faceplates and, as they're largely tool-free, you can swap them out to your heart's content. However, the RGB Flow front panel features an additional cable that you'll need to feed behind the modular front panel I/O every time.

The faff of threading this wire behind the I/O module, plus the fact I thought the RGB Flow looks a bit like a Cylon, meant I swapped it out for some tasteful wood panelling pretty sharpish. Mounting the radiator in the front of the case also meant I wasn't going to get the most out of the 4000X's full glass front panel, or 'pixel glass' face plate either.

I aimed to build something that was business in the front, with the dark walnut face plate, and something of a party in the back, with at least some of my many Miku Hatsune figurines. To be honest, "But where will Miku sit?" dictates a number of my PC building decisions, and this build was no different. For example, internally you can choose between a full-size PSU shroud, or a compact version that proved the perfect perch for Miss Hatsune.

To rewind a bit, let's talk about that modular I/O front panel. You can customise this and entirely swap it out. The MX-style green mechanical switch under the power button can be replaced for something more to your liking, and you've got a choice between a front panel with an audio jack, two USB Type-A ports, and one USB Type-C port—or an I/O module with only USB Type-C ports. I'm an old head, so I held on to my USB-A front ports.

Returning to the bigger picture, both the front and side panels can also be swapped out to dramatically change the look of the case too. Unlike the face plate, these aren't completely tool free panels. Instead, the top and side panels are held in place with a number of thumb screws. That's a fine compromise that balances both a secure attachment with easy-enough-detachment, though I do miss being able to pop off panels like I can on my Hyte Y40 at home.

But while we're on the subject of disassembling this customisable PC case, allow me one complaint: I hate reading digital manuals. My big box o' bits came with many smaller boxes, one of which featured a QR code on the underside of the lid. This takes you to a clearly labelled, nicely laid-out digital manual that I still hated scrolling through on my phone.

The rub is this: to check my understanding, it's way easier to flip back and forth through a physical booklet rather than scrolling up and down on a screen. Also, if I lose the physical manual, then that's my own fault—but if the digital manual disappears one day, that's out of my hands in every sense.

Anyway, manual gripes aside, the side panels also only come in black and white, making for limited colourways with other build possibilities. You could opt for a flat steel side panel, thereby rendering your PC yet another boring black (or white) box, but where's the fun in that? Another panel design lets you mount the Corsair Xeneon Edge LCD Touchscreen inside. While that would offer one more stage for my favourite Vocaloid, I wasn't about to drop another 200 bucks on this accessory—even if it does come in a fetching 'Atomic Purple'. Instead, I went for a typical fishtank look with a tempered glass side panel.

The Frame 4000X offers plenty of other options for laying out hardware, though it's less of a switch up inside compared to outside. Even Frankenstein's monster still needs a heart, lungs, and a digestive system, after all. Still, the case supports Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, ATX, and E-ATX motherboards. You've also got multiple Motherboard tray options—this includes both the very sturdy, very premium Elite motherboard tray, plus the RapidRoute 2.0, a holey-moley design that makes it easier to zip tie your cables wherever you need. The back of the case features plenty of velcro cable management straps, so I stuck with the standard steel tray.

The inside of the case is pretty spacious, with room to support both a 360mm radiator installed up top, as well as one in the front of the case. The Infinirail system also makes it easy to customise the internal support brackets to fit whatever cooling system you're working with.

Speaking of support, this case also features a height-adjustable anti-sag bracket for your GPU. Unfortunately, I only had a small form factor graphics card to hand for this build, so I wasn't able to make the most of this feature. Not to worry though, because Miku was able to pick up the slack from her perch upon the PSU shroud.

Vocaloid brain rot aside, does any of that mean I was able to manifest my dream PC case with the Corsair Frame 4000X? Firstly, all of the bits I picked, including the case, totted up to about $170. So, it's definitely not the most affordable option, but that's the price of going all in on an ecosystem offering plenty of options.

You can push the price down by building on top of 4000D instead, but then you'll have to pay for parts that come with the newer case as standard, like that lovely full-tempered glass side panel. If that still sounds worth a go, you can configure your own Corsair Frame case here. Speaking of the 4000D, you can pick up a Corsair Vault version of this case in metallic purple for $130, so maybe I've found my dream PC case after all…

There's a lot to like about the newer 4000X's space, ease of access, and customisability. Much like the 4000D, you can strip the 4000X to the bare frame and then build it back up to be a PC case your way. But with so many removable parts, such a breadth of customisability options nearly became a bit of a nightmare for a scatter-brained PC builder like me.

In my infinite wisdom, I decided to remove the entire PCI backplate—despite the backplate's modular design encouraging you to unscrew only the select slats you need to secure your GPU. I realised my snafu way too late, and had to unscrew both the PSU shroud and the motherboard to get it back in place. Don't ask me why I took it out to begin with—just learn from my mistakes.

That embarrassing episode aside, I did enjoy my time building with this case. I'm also definitely intrigued by whatever Corsair has lined up for its customisable PC case ecosystem—what's holding me back from loving it right now, though, are the limited selection of colourways, and the pricing. But perhaps one day, sweet dreams will be made of this.

Welcome to your daily dose of doomcore, and no, I don't mean that peculiar genre of music. I mean the state of the PC gaming market. Not to be too much of a negative Nelly but things are not looking great out there.

You probably didn't need me to tell you that, but given I've been keeping my eye on the best deals for gaming PCs every week (minus holidays) for the past couple of years, I thought I'd share with you some more specific, cheerfully glum context. You're welcome.

Let's take a nice trip down memory lane to check out a couple of the deals I spotted for gaming PCs around this time last year.

Here we are: In an assortment I highlighted last September, an RTX 5060 Ti rig for just $1,000. Today, the cheapest we see any just-about-decent RTX 5060 Ti gaming PC retailing for, is about $1,200—this AVGPC Max for $1,209 at Newegg, for instance.

But that's not even half of it, because you'll notice the RAM in that $1,200 rig is DDR4, not DDR5. And if it wasn't DDR4, you could almost certainly expect such an RTX 5060 Ti rig to have just a single 16 GB stick of DDR5 in single-channel mode.

How about at the higher end? Well, there's this RTX 5070 Ti gaming PC I also highlighted last September. That was $1,900 for the whole package: RTX 5070 Ti, Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 32 GB of DDR5 RAM, and even a full 2 TB of storage. Y'know, back when we could recommend 2 TB of storage as a baseline for mid-range and higher rigs, while keeping a straight face.

And now? I think you know the deal. I actually struggle to find RTX 5070 Ti gaming PCs worth highlighting anymore—the GPU seems to be more lightly stocked than others. Currently, I've got a PC with the same base specs listed (on sale!) on our deals hub for $2,400 at Newegg. If you're okay opting for an RX 9070 XT instead, you can lower that to $2,099 at Walmart, which does net you a more recent X3D chip—our favourite, in fact—but you're also sacrificing 1 TB of storage.

More generally, I can tell you that after looking at gaming PC deals week-in, week-out for the past couple of years, pretty much every last bastion of hope for reasonable prices has now slipped away.

For quite a while and even until very recently, RX 9070 XT PCs held on to lower price tags while Nvidia PCs slipped out of stock, presumably because pre-shortage stocks were lasting longer as fewer AMD PCs tend to be scooped up by PC gamers than Nvidia ones. But recently I've noticed even the best deals on those seem to have slipped away. On the rare occasion there is one for a decent sub-$2,000 price, you're very lucky if it has more than 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage.

The lower end of the market is particularly dire. Before the memory crisis, there was quite an abundance of RTX 5060 gaming PCs going on sale for under $1,000, sometimes actually for well under this. This one I highlighted last October, for instance, cost just $749. It seemed to come with just a single 16 GB stick of DDR5 memory, but these days you're looking at almost $1,000 for the same thing, and that's if you're lucky (even deals like that are getting quite rare).

Lowest price per GPU

We've been measuring the lowest available price of each current-gen GPU since August 14, 2025.

Lowest pricing (Price, $)

Week

Nvidia RTX 5080Nvidia RTX 5070 TiNvidia RTX 5070Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GBNvidia RTX 5060 Ti 8 GBNvidia RTX 5060Nvidia RTX 5050AMD RX 9070 XTAMD RX 9070AMD Radeon RX 9070 GREAMD RX 9060 XT 16 GBAMD RX 9060 XT 8 GBIntel Arc B580Intel Arc B570

Lowest pricing Data

Timestamp (Week)	Nvidia RTX 5080 (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5070 (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5060 (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5050 (Price, $)	AMD RX 9070 XT (Price, $)	AMD RX 9070 (Price, $)	AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (Price, $)	AMD RX 9060 XT 16 GB (Price, $)	AMD RX 9060 XT 8 GB (Price, $)	Intel Arc B580 (Price, $)	Intel Arc B570 (Price, $)
1	1100	780	550	430	368	300	250	700	600	N/A	370	280	260	230
2	1099	750	550	430	340	300	250	700	600	N/A	370	270	260	230
3	1000	750	524	430	370	291	250	700	550	N/A	370	280	250	230
4	1000	750	546	430	345	296	250	695	550	N/A	370	280	250	230
5	1000	749	481	430	340	300	250	670	600	N/A	350	270	250	230
6	929	749	499	379	340	289	240	670	600	N/A	350	270	250	230
7	999	750	520	430	350	299	240	650	550	N/A	350	270	250	230
8	980	749	500	430	342	299	250	650	550	N/A	350	270	250	200
9	999	750	500	430	323	299	250	650	560	N/A	350	270	250	220
10	989	730	480	430	340	299	250	600	550	N/A	360	270	250	210
11	990	699	489	400	320	280	230	600	550	N/A	340	250	250	200
12	989	730	500	400	320	279	220	600	530	N/A	350	275	250	200
13	1000	750	527	420	342	279	220	600	530	N/A	350	280	250	200
14	1000	750	540	420	313	279	220	600	530	N/A	370	280	250	202
15	1000	749	499	430	350	279	200	600	530	N/A	380	288	240	202
16	1100	750	499	430	350	270	200	620	530	N/A	380	288	240	202
17	1230	750	549	430	330	260	235	660	580	N/A	390	310	250	200
18	1268	829	540	450	330	290	240	700	580	N/A	390	310	250	200
19	1380	899	549	450	330	299	240	720	580	N/A	400	310	260	200
20	1350	1000	620	520	330	299	240	720	600	N/A	440	310	290	200
21	1365	950	620	520	351	299	260	730	590	N/A	440	350	290	250
22	1365	950	620	520	360	299	260	730	630	N/A	400	346	300	250
23	1290	950	630	520	360	340	260	730	630	N/A	440	346	300	250
24	1290	950	625	520	360	340	260	730	620	N/A	440	346	300	250
25	1250	950	630	550	360	349	260	730	610	N/A	440	346	300	250
26	1260	950	604	550	360	349	290	730	610	N/A	440	340	300	250
27	1290	950	640	570	360	349	290	730	630	N/A	440	340	300	250
28	1250	900	630	515	390	349	290	720	620	N/A	440	346	290	250
29	1290	990	636	500	390	349	290	710	620	N/A	449	350	290	250
30	1290	990	630	500	390	330	290	710	620	N/A	440	350	290	260
31	1290	990	599	500	380	330	290	670	620	N/A	440	350	290	260
32	1290	990	599	515	380	310	290	710	620	N/A	430	360	290	260
33	1290	980	599	490	400	349	290	710	600	N/A	430	360	290	260
34	1270	980	599	550	380	349	290	710	620	N/A	440	360	290	260
35	1290	900	599	550	380	350	290	700	600	N/A	430	360	304	260
36	1250	980	599	550	370	340	290	700	600	550	440	360	300	260
37	1250	980	599	570	370	340	290	700	600	550	440	350	304	250
38	1250	980	599	570	370	340	290	700	600	550	440	350	304	250
39	1250	920	599	570	330	340	290	700	600	500	400	360	298	250
40	1250	955	599	565	330	340	290	700	600	500	430	360	291	260
41	1250	900	560	560	330	339	290	700	600	500	430	360	290	250
42	1250	950	550	570	380	350	290	690	635	550	450	360	290	260
43	1290	1030	755	650	420	359	299	720	650	500	470	370	310	260
44	1479	1088	763	780	420	N/A	299	720	650	500	470	400	310	260
45	1550	1150	800	773	389	359	299	730	630	530	460	360	310	260

There is no area of the gaming PC market that isn't now feeling the impact of the global memory shortage. That much I am now certain of. Pre-shortage stocks seem to have run thoroughly dry and system builders and manufacturers are having to up their prices to keep up with ever-increasing memory and storage costs. Not to mention climbing GPU costs (which do themselves, after all, contain memory).

The thing is, people are still going to want to buy gaming PCs. Which means that apart from the most budget-constrained people who will be priced out of the market completely, prospective PC gamers are unfortunately going to have to start adjusting their pricing expectations.

I often witness the sentiment that gaming PC deals these days—say, $1,500 for a decent RTX 5070 gaming PC, or $1,200 for a decent RTX 5060 Ti one—are not good ones. And obviously this is true considering the historical market. But those are unfortunately 'good' deals given the market today. It sucks, but it is the reality of the market right now.

And there doesn't seem to be a lick of difference we can make, at least not while the AI boom rages on and continues to hoard computing silicon in its servers. Happy 2026, everyone.

The result has been comedic, off-putting, and for some, just what they've always desired. The image above, which has been dubbed "Claude Strife" (I don't know who made the joke first, but I'll give it to Brian Bucklew), apparently demonstrates DLSS 5 at extreme settings.

Unlike the DLSS we're used to, which harnesses machine learning to upscale low-res graphics without deviating too much from the source material, DLSS 5 attempts to improve on the artwork it touches with AI image generation that provides similar results to using the word "photorealism" in a prompt for an AI image model.

I'm not 100% sure that the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth screenshot above is a genuine example of DLSS 5—when I attempted to trace its origin I hit a dead end at a deleted Reddit thread—but it looks quite similar to other images that have come out of experiments with the tech. Stylized characters are clearly not the best use case for it.

The DLSS 5 implementation floating around can also have an aging effect on characters, intensifying skin texture, the separation between cheek and jaw, and dialing up the dourness of expressions that might otherwise come across as neutral.

But there are lots of other examples of DLSS 5 in action that, from a certain perspective, look fine or good. When the settings are tweaked just so, it can make a Starfield character with flat, untextured skin look much more human, for instance. You can see many more examples in the RenoDX Discord channel.

Plenty of people in that channel are delighted by the results they're getting and seeing from others, but of course there's also a ResetEra thread aghast at the whole thing. As with most things, opinions are divided.

It doesn't help that I'm coming to it with pre-existing negative feelings about generative AI, but I land in the 'not in my house' camp for now.

Even where DLSS 5 does turn a flat-looking face into something with volume and texture, it has a distinct AI-generated look—like photos of models taken with studio lighting have been stretched over all the faces and bodies. I can't separate it from the Grok-generated images creeps post on X, or any other off-putting examples of AI slop.

How are you receiving the tech?

Dave Plummer, former Microsoft Engineer turned YouTuber turned guy who really wants you to know he made Task Manager, has just released Task Manager OG, and it works on Windows, Linux, and Mac. Plummer says he wrote a 107-page spec, fed it to Claude, and then partly vibe-coded this new program while his kid was getting surgery.

"By the time he was out of the hospital, I had a rough app working. But then he started bleeding internally, needed emergency surgery and a blood transfusion. Happy to say he's all better now—but suffice to say I had the rest of the week to tinker as he healed."

Now, with much better hardware than users had back in the '90s, Plummer wanted a Task Manager that would "push the limits." The sequel software animates at 60 Hz and provides data like mouse tracking and a summary page. It is also, by default, covered in neon and very high contrast, which Plummer says, "My autism leads me to embrace."

My first thought upon downloading it was 'damn, this is really ugly'. My second thought was 'this app does not need visual bloom'. Good start then?

On top of that, the reading in Task Manager and Task Manager OG are simply different. My Chrome tabs came in at close to 11 GB on TMOG and just above 8 GB on Task Manager. Slack registered 1 GB on TMOG and 500 MB on Task Manager. These are pretty significantly different readings. Interestingly, both Task Manager and TMOG gave the same overall memory usage stats. Task Manager said 68%, and TMOG said 21.7 GB, which is around 68% of the 32 GB in my rig.

By default, Task Manager OG hogs up slightly more resources than the Task Manager pre-installed on my machine (around 120 Mb of memory versus 105 MB, and 3-4% of CPU usage versus just under 1%), but turning off high-frequency visuals does cut the CPU usage down to around 2-3% for me. That means, either way, TMOG is more intensive than Task Manager. To be fair, Plummer does say as such in his announcement, though the irony isn't lost on me that one would replace Task Manager with something that hogs more resources.

I then went into the performance tab, which shows your CPU, memory, and GPU running, alongside your internet. TMOG has added CPU power and thermals modules, which Task Manager doesn't. But CPU power failed to show CPU power and thermals gave a consistent 16.9°C (62.42°F ), but fails to say what is being measured. That temperature is lower than the room the PC is in, so it's likely not actually reading anything.

HWinfo was capable of grabbing CPU power readings and all kinds of temps, so it seems unlikely the issue is a hardware one here.

The CPU performance tab does have tracking on different cores, plus clock speed, which is a level of default granularity I like, but also something available Task Manager by simply right-clicking on CPU and then hitting "Logical Processors."

Though I'm not a fan of the TMOG look in its default mode, you can change colours and bloom—that done, I actually quite like the layout. I can understand why a power user might want access to CPU, GPU, and memory performance on one page, alongside thermals and power usage. As well as that, the CPU overview has a neat function where the start of the graph is measured in seconds and the end of the graph in much longer intervals. This means you can get a second-by-second readout, but also a decent long-term one on the same graph.

As of right now, a lot of the app's most unique features are only available to those who have the paid pro version, but you can't actually get pro yet, as the software is still in beta. Pro gets you a large HWinfo-style readout of power and frequency over your whole computer, plus a readout of installed apps, a layout of connected apps alongside their versions and estimated size, plus a disk space reader. There's also a set of benchmarks.

But alas, you can get pretty much everything here from a combination of Task Manager and the likes of Hardware Info. Mac has its own version of Task Manager too, and Linux has the likes of Htop and NVTOP to do the same job. TMOG seems to be more about convenience rather than offering something other apps can't, and of course there's that funky colour scheme too. There's part of me that wants to cynically point at the whole 'vibe coding' thing and say 'well, could have guessed that', but also this is a beta program that admits to being a beta program. Mistakes and errors are to be expected.

One thing I do like about TMOG is that, looking at Plummer's Twitter, they do seem to respond positively to feedback and want to implement changes based on what users like. That's certainly a boon, and something Microsoft gets a lot of flak for with its own apps.

Whether or not the pro mode will be worth the money is anyone's guess, but you can't buy it yet even if you wanted to. All I can say is I'm good with plain 'ol Task Manager and HWinfo for now.

According to the Financial Times, citing "two people with knowledge of the matter", YMTC told investors that it wants to be the leader in the market (ahead of Samsung and SK hynix) by the end of 2027. That's a pretty bold claim considering it would need to more than double its current market share.

According to Counterpoint Research, YMTC holds a 13% market share, while NAND memory leader Samsung holds 29%. In fairness, though, YMTC does appear to be building up its infrastructure to handle growth.

In April, it was reported that YMTC was aiming to more than double its wafer production. It would do so by building two additional foundries and finishing the build of a third foundry that was already under construction.

NAND memory is a very lucrative business right now. In the first quarter of 2026, NAND flash memory makers earned $46 billion in revenue, which is over 3.5 times what they made in the same quarter last year. NAND memory is only getting more expensive, and data centers are mopping it all up to train AIs and store all that data. But YMTC has even had a win in the consumer market, seemingly putting its SSDs into some Lenovo laptops. That's something it may have struggled to do previously, if it weren't for memory and storage supplies being so limited.

YMTC is reportedly also planning to make moves in the DRAM memory market, but it has CXMT, a different Chinese memory brand, to compete with there. CXMT has managed to pull in a 7% market share in the memory business, which isn't loads compared to the 39% held by Samsung, the 26% SK hynix has, and the 26% that Micron currently enjoys, but is quickly and steadily increasing.

It seems like China has two major memory manufacturers coming more decidedly into the global market, and given their surprisingly substantial market shares, they're coming in swinging.

As for the SSDs that you and I may put in our PCs, the market is looking mighty rough. We round up the best cheap SSD deals every week, and a 2 TB drive will cost you at least $200 right now.

More supply is obviously a good way of tackling the memory crisis, but one has to hope the supply goes up at a quicker rate than the already substantial demand, or we won't see any of the benefit of this heightened memory production. Even Samsung reckons we're in for a 'severe' memory supply crisis next year, so things are looking bleak at least in the short-to-medium term.

Effectively, the new X2F CrazyLight is just the front half of a gaming mouse, including the sensors, switches, and battery. Pulsar is not the first to cut a gaming mouse in half (in fact, the G-Wolves HSK Pro V2.0 has been around for a while and is just 26.8 g).

It's not even the first very light gaming mouse from Pulsar, with the X2 CrazyLight Mini being 35 g, but it is the lightest ever Pulsar mouse, to my knowledge. And it manages to get that weight without going for the honeycomb shell that many other lightweight competitors go for.

According to Pulsar, the new X2F comes kitted with Pulsar's new SX2 sensor, which we don't currently have the stats for. The previous generation XS1 has a DPI of up to 32,000, a max speed of 750 IPS, and acceleration of 50 G. This is the sensor our Jacob Fox had his mitts on when he reviewed the X2 CrazyLight Medium and X3 Crazylight Mini. It also supports up to 8,000 Hz polling. I would assume the XS2 ups some of those stats.

For context, the Razer Viper V4 Pro, which we consider to be the best gaming mouse right now, has Razer's latest Focus Pro sensor and offers 50,000 DPI, with a max speed of 930 IPS, and acceleration of 90 G.

Alternatively, we think the Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike is the best competitive mouse right now, and its Hero 2 sensor offers a DPI of 44,000, a max speed of 888 IPS, and a max acceleration of 88 G.

Whether or not the X2F CrazyLight will be the best competitive mouse after its release on September 28 will likely be a combination of how good the sensor is, how well balanced the weight is, and, of course, its price. Unfortunately, we don't have information on any of those yet. Also, even within the competitive mouse scene, it's sure to be pretty niche, since you have to use a fully fingertipped grip to use these kinds of mice.

We haven't got hands-on, so it's hard to say much more, but the only critique I could levy from looks (other than 'where's the rest of the mouse?') is that you can already see the 210 mA battery, so it's a shame it's not hot swappable. A hot-swappable battery could allow for a smaller battery in the device itself, further reducing the weight, and it's just a great way of staying charged at all times. Though that would presumably add on extra weight, which might defeat the purpose for this kind of mouse.

The notion of chopping off half of your gaming mouse to improve speed definitely feels a bit niche to me, but the fact that multiple companies are doing it implies there are many more competitively minded people than I otherwise thought. Let's just hope they aren't in my games. I prefer the easy opponents I'm currently being put up against.

So GTA 6 officially slammed into our collective eyeballs last night with a full 26 minutes of pure gameplay (well, that and some cutscenes) and it has made us ever more desperate to get our hands on a proper PC build of the game.

But the hardware team has been poring over the released footage captured on a lowly PlayStation 5 and we've put our heads together to figure out what we think, and what extra bells and whistly things we want to see built into the eventual PC build of the game.

For right now, we have an admittedly beautifully looking game running at a peasant 30 fps frame rate, on a seven year-old Sony console. The top PC hardware of today is far beyond what the aging hardware inside the PS5 is capable of… even if right now the cost of admittance to the world of top PC hardware is inexcusably high. Who knows, maybe by the time GTA 6 is allowed to release on PC the RAMpocalypse will be over? Though that either means GTA 6 won't release on PC until maybe 2031 or the AI bubble pops sending us back into the economic stone age. Cheery thought.

Hard shadows, fluorescent lights, dingey hallways, sunlit expanses… the team at Rockstar are putting the PlayStation 5 to work in GTA 6. Though the first five minutes of extended gameplay make me feel as though I'll be adjusting the brightness on my TV to see what's actually going on.

As for the open world, I can spot some reflections and lighting that look like they're rendered in a pretty traditional way, rather than full RT. Look to the shiny floor in Lucia's apartment and the reflection of the windows, from the TV set, or the light coming through the blinds onto the kitchen countertop—we're not getting RT cranked to the max on PS5. Same goes for the storefronts we see Lucia holding up at gunpoint later in the gameplay trailer. Though the car chases look pretty lush out in the amber sun-lit tones of Vice City.

We're still trying to spot where effects are more faithfully reproduced out in the open world. We think we've maybe whittled it down to RT for reflections, used sparingly for cutscenes. Though it's definitely a challenge to make out with recorded gameplay going through YouTube's servers.

There do appear to be some RT reflections on the van, puddle, and window around the 16:40-16:50 mark. As Dave also pointed out to me, there's also a touch of what appears to be denoising in some places—on the rear of the van at, say, 16:10—but in other places, RT effects appear pretty low-key or non-existent. Like the molotov cocktail just moments before. A selective approach to balance the beauty of cutscenes and the demands of a massive open world? Makes sense, especially on the PS5's hardware.

With more firepower on PC, a few softer shadows wouldn't go amiss. Some indirect lighting, too, as the shadows look hard enough you could cut them with a knife at times. Presuming GTA 6 will follow in the footsteps of Red Dead Redemption 2 with DLSS support, we should get some help bear the brunt of the graphical load when it does launch on PC.

So, moody lighting, massively high contrast, and gorgeous vistas. It's impressive what can be achieved on this seven-year-old console hardware, no doubt about that; but with that in mind, I'm just more pumped for the PC version after watching this. GTA 6 looks like a game that has the potential to look absolutely stunning with more performance under the hood and when it's not curtailed by outgoing console hardware. It's screaming out for a cutting-edge GPU. It can't come to PC soon enough.

It's a confident move from Rockstar to just put up almost half an hour's worth of actual gameplay, and the lighting looks really quite striking… in stills. Every time I pause the trailer, I admire a little bit of the game's artistry, from its graffiti to the hair of its characters, and it makes the rundown nature of the first building really shine. How good that will be to play is a different matter, as the game's approach to realism does make those dark halls a little darker than I'd want, and without sufficient clarity to easily make out what's going on in an instant.

You can spot Rockstar's pretty incredible attention to detail in some reflections, like you can see Jason in the convex mirror at 12:09.

Rockstar's attention to detail can be a double-edged sword though, as things like the fire on the car at 16:04 looking a tad flat or the lack of an accurate viewfinder in the camera at 20:17 make the world feel a little more plastic. These aren't things I would traditionally even care about, but it's Rockstar's approach to its world that makes them feel a little off. Rockstar's history, plus budget, make it the realistic open world maker, so it has become its unique cross to bear.

In fairness, the game looks undeniably good to me. Rockstar has the reputation for engaging, immersive, and realistic worlds for a reason, and the clarity of textures, plus strong lighting, makes GTA 6 look even more immersive and realistic than its predecessor. Whether or not it's as engaging will have to wait until we have it in our hands.

In motion, it looks surprisingly choppy for an official gameplay trailer. There's notable slowdown right after Jason enters the building at the start, and there are plenty of little sections where the flow of the game is just interrupted. But alas, that's the game running on a PlayStation 5, and we PC gamers have the ability to run this game at higher frame rates, especially when we consider the array of upscaling and frame generation. And Rockstar will have some time between the console and PC release to fine-tune the game too. That's the one benefit of us having to wait.

I'll always jump at a chance to add a pretentious word to my writing, so how about this one: chiaroscuro. Or, the contrast created between light and shade. It's interesting to see how often Rockstar plays with the difference between brightly lit streets and dimly lit interiors, or stark shiny highlights set against moody backdrops.

At points, I almost want to adjust the settings of my Mini LED monitor. The apartment raid at 5.25 switches from a grimy, fluorescent-lit hallway into a candle-lit dwelling with plenty of atmosphere, but also creates the sort of black-on-grey, mushy tones that make me squint to see anything that isn't directly lit. This is likely made worse by video compression, but there are plenty of darker moments that I feel would be difficult to read on anything other than a high-end display.

However, some of the brighter scenes are downright stunning. The meeting scene at the rooftop bar is striking, and the lighting of the character models themselves stands out. The soft shadow on Lucia's right arm as she approaches the bar at 9.55, the highlights in the character's hair. I'll be honest, this is downright impressive for a crowded scene in an open world game.

Impressive enough that some of the lesser elements stand out. The fountain on the left shows some pretty flat water effects, with the two jets looking a little out of place. Similarly, the overblown cigar smoke at 11.13 seems to come from a different era, which is all the more apparent when the rest of the scene is so beautifully rendered.

Perhaps some of these more incidental effects might be improved in a PC release—and some of the possibly-ray-traced puddles and car reflections seem like they could do with a whack from the PC hardware headroom stick, too. There are plenty of reflections going on here, but I'm not totally blown away by the shiny stuff overall.

It's also fairly apparent that there's a lot of upscaling in use, as evidenced by the odd bit of shimmering and the occasional fuzzy edge. With some proper PC firepower keeping the frame rate up behind the scenes (and thereby less upscaling assistance), it's possible that things will sharpen up further.

A lot of work seems to have gone into the hair rendering, which is shown in many different styles throughout the footage. However, individual hair strands are something that upscalers can traditionally struggle with, and I think there's some clear evidence of that. Particularly around the three minute mark, where a character's dreadlocks are shown lit from behind by fluorescent lights. They bounce and twist with verve, but the fringes look a little blurred and messy, likely due to the upscaling struggling with the finer strands.

I'm picking out small details, though. Little things. Honestly, GTA 6 looks even better in motion than I expected, although I can't help but feel it's going to be very demanding even at lower settings. Prepare thy graphics card? Mine is already quaking in its boots.

My first reaction to the GTA 6 extended gameplay preview is to marvel at the fact Rockstar has achieved this level of open world detail on lowly PS5 hardware (not even PS5 Pro) and my second is to pine for the inevitably grandeur the PC version will deliver when the company deigns to release it.

I think it looks great, obviously the best-looking GTA ever made, and you can see all the visual hallmarks that set Red Dead Redemption 2 out as still one of the most beautifully realised game worlds you will see. But there are obvious places where the PC version is going to really sing.

The first of which is the level of upscaling Rockstar has had to employ to get this gorgeous world rendering even at 30 fps on a PlayStation 5. I would love to know the input resolution this game capture was operating at, because I get the feeling from some of the fizzing edges to the visuals that it is going to be low.

That's going to be the main thing the PC version will bring to the party—firstly more potential graphical horsepower with high-end GPUs, but also more mature upscaling options with DLSS and FSR really hitting their respective strides right now. You look at DLSS running in Ultra Performance mode at 4K and the visual fidelity, and more importantly the stability of the visuals, is pretty stunning, especially when you consider it's taking 921k pixels and turning them into 8.3 million pixels.

Love it or hate it, you're going to get some frame generation options for the PC release, too. By the time the game comes out all the GPU vendors will comfortably in their multi frame gen eras, and it's going to massively help on smoothing out the choppy gameplay you can see most especially at the start of the extended preview.

I would also be willing to bet there's going to be some heavy ray tracing, or even fully path traced options coming our way. At the moment, you can see what we suspect to be some use of ray tracing in the PS5 footage, but very sparingly considering everything else the hardware is being expected to render. That will inevitably be dialed up for the PC.

You may not like this, but I'm also pretty confident you're going to get some DLSS Neural Rendering when GTA 6 hits the PC, too. Having the PC version as a real showcase for all of Nvidia's features would be a real boon for the GPU maker AI company, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a ton of its developer relations team swarming all over Rockstar to get its AI filtering baked into the game.

But what about the first-person mode that made its debut in the PC release of GTA 5, will we see that making a comeback for this generation? We haven't seen it showcased in any of the leaks or preview gameplay, so it doesn't look like it's in the console release, but as the spiritual home of the FPS I could see it being another PC feature.

Whatever does or does not make it into the inevitable and inevitably delayed PC version of GTA 6, one thing this preview has done is made me pine ever more for the chance to throw an RTX 5090 at those visuals and see just how good it can look on the best gaming platform.

Max | RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB: was $1299 now $1209
The big caveat to this build is it's rocking DDR4 RAM and an older CPU, so bear that in mind. But setting aside the lack of upgradability, this PC is a great way to get a full 32 GB of RAM during a memory crisis, and with a decent budget GPU for this price range, given 2026 prices.

Key specs: Ryzen 5 5600X | RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB | 32 GB DDR4-3200 | 1 TB SSDView Deal

My kid sister's gaming laptop has finally died a death, so I'm on the hunt for a replacement prebuilt gaming PC. Unfortunately, her one ask was that I find something that will eventually be able to run Grand Theft Auto 6, but who knows what system requirements that will ask for. Instead, I've found a prebuilt that won't break the bank, and will be able to play at least the last few PS5 timed exclusives that came to PC.

Now, what I've found is still a bit pricier than I'd like to recommend to someone who has literally just moved out of our parents' place, but it's definitely a cost-effective way to score a whole load of RAM during the memory supply crisis. Without further ado, this AVGPC Max Series Gaming PC packs in 32 GB of DDR4, plus an 8 GB RTX 5060 Ti GPU for only $1,209 from Newegg.

In the midst of the RAMpocalypse, what good deals there are come with plenty of caveats, and this one's no different. As you'll know, DDR4 memory is far from bleeding edge, though it's still fine to game with. 32 GB of the stuff is nothing to sneeze at either, but it's also worth noting that all of this last-gen memory is also paired with a fairly old CPU.

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This prebuilt gaming PC features the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X which, though we really liked this CPU when it debuted in 2020, is hardly a spring chicken anymore. Basically, this isn't the most future-proof prebuilt you can buy, even with the 50-series card inside accounting for nearly half of the price.

Obviously, at this point, no one can guarantee what hardware will play well with the eventual PC port of GTA 6. However, my sister offered Marvel's Spider-Man 2 as another performance yard stick, and on this prebuilt I feel confident she'll be web-slinging with the best of them.

At the very least, this machine's 1 TB of SSD storage should offer lightning fast loads across New York. As for the bundled peripherals, I think I'll direct my kid sister to our best gaming mouse and best gaming keyboard guides instead, as I very much doubt the included keyboard and mouse will be worth typing home about.

To summarise, the AVGPC Max may not be bleeding edge, but it won't bleed your budget dry either. The CPU and DDR4 memory is older hardware, but the RTX 5060 Ti graphics card makes for a modern compromise.

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Blade 18 2026 - steal turns into steal of the century

One Redditor has seemingly got the PC hardware deal of the year by paying €2,433 (around $2,800) for a Razer laptop that currently sells for €6,600 (just under $7,700). Gaming laptops may be pricey right now, thanks to the memory crisis, but that would be a steal even pre-memory crisis. All they had to do was get incredibly lucky.

As posted by iiT2 over on the GamingLaptops subreddit, a European buyer bought a Blade 18, with 32 GB of memory, a 1 TB SSD, an RTX 5080, and an Intel Ultra 9 290 HX Plus. A mighty machine, but modest in comparison to what they were accidentally sent: A Razer Blade 18 with an RTX 5090, the same Intel chip, a 2 TB SSD, and 64 GB of memory. I put this new configuration together on Razer's website and found out the memory upgrade alone costs an extra €900 (around $1,050) more than the price they actually paid.

The user says, "I‘m done. I used up my luck for this timeline," and given they could have almost purchased three of their original configs for the price of the new one, I'm inclined to agree.

The Razer label and invoice do seem to match with both the machine and the original receipt, so that implies whoever labelled this rig at the Razer factory simply labelled it wrong. That means, inevitably, this would likely have gotten into the hands of some buyer somewhere. Just don't count on it happening again. This is an exceedingly rare mistake on Razer's part.

And what a laptop it is. We at PC Gamer are big fans of what Razer is putting out right now in the gaming laptop space. The most recent Razer Blade 16 got an 86% in our review, with our Andy saying, "It's still one of the best gaming laptops money can buy, but the massive price tag throws me for a loop."

We also really liked last year's Razer Blade 14, with its upgraded chassis, gorgeous display, and solid battery life. Razer Blade laptops are pretty expensive, even considering the memory crisis, but their build quality and design are undeniably solid. Plus, they're gorgeous to behold.

We don't technically know if the Redditor will get to keep this laptop, but given it seems to have been sent due to a mislabelling by the vendor selling it, I certainly wouldn't want to give it back. We also don't know if the original vendor would be aware of their mistake, unless informed.

One look at our roundup of the best gaming laptop deals will show you that gaming laptops are in a pretty poor place right now. Around $2400 will get you an RTX 5080 and 16 GB of memory, on sale, and that's because memory, storage, and even GPUs are on the rise price-wise, and unlikely to fall for some time. Luckily, iiT2 now has enough gaming horsepower to wait until the whole thing blows over.

We know that DLSS 5 is due to arrive with us in the autumn time, but that release date feels a lot closer, with specific files being picked out of an early access version of NBA2K27 and dropped into Remedy's Control (via Notebookcheck). The files in question have been found in the 2K ball-tossing title's PC version—which is currently playable for gamers who purchased the Deluxe or Ultra editions—and a modder from the RenoDX team has managed to inject it into Control with sliders.

And, while I'm likely to be pilloried for saying so, I'm kinda impressed with the changes and the level of… ahem… control you have over the visuals with the number of sliders at play in the mod. It's also impressive that this has been knocked together using an early DLL file from a completely different game and dropped into Control.

The mod has been released in the RenoDX Discord channel and offers up seven different styles, which seem to range from conservative to full-on yasification. So far it's just aimed at the character models, but given the suggested performance hit from enabling it, you are going to want to limit its reach.

Looking into the Reddit chats about it, people are suggesting drops on an RTX 5070 Ti that take Control from 71 fps to 35 fps. That's a big hit, though we are talking about a pre-release feature in a game that it's not (yet?) designed for. When ray tracing still gets a lukewarm reception due to its performance impact, yet another resource-hogging feature will likely struggle for traction even outside the AI antipathy in gaming.

And that's without taking into account the current ludicrous pricing situation for every Nvidia GPU from the fifth tier of its RTX 50-series and up.

There are various images of the lead character, Jesse Faden, but I think one of the most interesting is linked in the original X post, where the conservative preset is seemingly being used. The character model doesn't look markedly different, but as the sliders are adjusted, you can see how the filter is layered on without negatively impacting the original design or geometry.

Then there's another uploaded image where you can slide between the DLSS 5 on and off versions of the character model, where it's far more extreme. But still, I don't think it looks bad. If you'd given me that Faden model from the outset natively, I'd have marvelled at Remedy making such a detailed character, especially given the company's obvious desire for photorealism in its characters. It still obviously retains the geometry, but this is far more of the AI beauty filter fear that large parts of the gaming community are concerned about with this feature's release.

I think the fact this has all been pulled together from one DLL file taken out of an early access game is impressive, and makes me think that the instant DLSS 5 gets released, we're going to see a whole lot of these mods out there giving gamers access to all the controls for a whole bunch of games… whether those game developers like it or not.

And that's going to be a whole other debate.

One final thing to note is that the DLL file in question is noted as DLSSNR in the description, which suggests that DLSS 5 as the catch-all name for this AI game filter is going to change. Rebranding it as DLSS Neural Rendering feels far more suited to this feature, and might have led to less of a backlash at the start, where calling it DLSS 5 from the outset made it feel like this is just what the next version of DLSS is in its entirety.

Microsoft says, "Players have spent decades building their Xbox libraries. Some games were purchased on disc. Some were purchased digitally" It says its "goal is to make it easier for those libraries to move forward with players" and "this is part of our broader commitment to game preservation."

This program will begin to roll out for Xbox Insiders starting August 31 and will start with a few thousand titles. Effectively, the disc can be 'claimed' on an account, giving you access even when your disc is not in the disc tray. Interestingly, this also gives you access to the game via Xbox Play Anywhere and Xbox Cloud Gaming, which means you can play it from your phone or PC, complete with cloud saves.

The physical game will still function as normal, even after it has been added to your account. That means you can technically lend it to a friend. The license to add the game to your digital library is revocable, so if someone accidentally adds it to their account, you can remove it if you have the physical disc. This means it shouldn't have an effect on the preowned games market, as anyone who buys an already digitally claimed game can simply revoke the license.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced this new feature via their X account, and has since received almost 200,000 likes and over 24 million views as of the time of writing. This is to say the announcement seems to be going down well.

And Microsoft is in desperate need of that good PR. Just last month, it announced it would be laying off 3,200 people and dumping four studios in what it calls "the most significant restructure in Xbox history." This is before mentioning the criticism Microsoft was already getting from the BDS movement for ties to the Israeli government and military.

But one question does go unanswered here, and that is whether or not Xbox will continue supporting discs in the next generation. As I noted in my conversation with game preservation group DoesItPlay, consoles going all-in on digital games feels like more of a hot topic than our long disc-free PCs. Microsoft and Sony own the platform, and the stores to buy games on it.

Sony removing a disc drive means that the only way players can buy its games legally is through its own storefront. This gives Sony ultimate control over pricing, ownership, and DRM, and it's easy to understand why Microsoft might want to take a bigger cut of the pie too, especially with the rising prices of hardware.

And Microsoft saying this allows players to 'move forward' certainly signals the all-digital future alarm bell to this writer.

Still, with the next generation of both consoles anticipated to launch around the end of next year (or maybe even the year after), we know roughly when we'll get our answer.

For a new gaming monitor that ticks an awful lot of boxes, the Alienware AW3926QW has also arrived with an awful lot of controversy. Some early adopters of this epic 39-inch 5K2K OLED panel have reported numerous issues, including green tinting, so-called "vignette dimming" and adaptive refresh flicker.

We'll get into the specifics of what Reddit is losing its hive mind over with the Alienware AW3926QW later. But first let's consider the stellar on-paper proposition of this monitor. For starters, it's OLED. Not just any old OLED, but LG's fancy Tandem WOLED tech.

Oh, and it has pure RGB-stripe subpixels, it's a 39-inch ultrawide with sensible 1500R curvature for epic immersion, packs a 5K2K native resolution and thus excellent pixel density, has a glossy screen coating, DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification, a high-refresh 330 Hz dual-mode and, well, plenty more besides. Heck, it's even cheaper than you might expect, coming in at just $1,099 in the US and £999 in the UK, therefore undercutting LG's own $1,799 5K2K 39-inch OLED model by miles. And that LG monitor doesn't even get RGB-stripe tech. No question, this Alienware is absolutely stacked.

If that's the broad brush strokes of the Alienware AW3926QW's proposition, how about the finer details of its tech specs and configuration? The basic panel format is 21:9 aspect and 5K2K resolution, which means it's essentially a 32-inch 4K 16:9 panel widened out to 21:9 and with exactly the same pixel density, just on an even more immersive ultrawide panel.

As I've covered on several previous occasions, Tandem WOLED is LG's very latest panel tech. Confusingly, the "W" doesn't refer to the white subpixel that all previous generations of LG's monitor panels have included, but rather the white colour of the light produced by each subpixel, which in turn is passed through a colour filter.

Likewise, the "Tandem" bit as used here doesn't mean two full OLED panels sandwiched together as per, say, a tandem OLED panel in a Apple iPad Pro. Instead, it's a reference to the additional emissive layer LG has added, again within the sub pixels.

Anyway, this new Tandem WOLED generation is brighter than ever before. At least, it is in some cases. This is actually the fourth OLED we've reviewed this year with the new Tandem WOLED panel tech. The first two, the aforementioned LG UltraGear Evo GX9 39GX950B and then the Asus ROG Strix XG32UQWMS, use LG's traditional RGWB subpixel structure, cranked out 1,500 nits of peak HDR brightness and good enough for DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification.

But the Asus ROG Swift PG32UCWM adds a twist by taking that Tandem WOLED panel tech and inserting LG's new pure RGB-stripe subpixel structure that does away with the additional white subpixel in a quest for sharper, more precise rendering and broader colour coverage. In that Asus Swift, RGB-stripe comes at a pretty pointed cost when it comes to brightness.

Where the two RGWB Tandem WOLEDs I mention hit around 330 nits full screen, the RGB-Stripe Swift can only manage 250 nits. It also tops out at just 1,000 nits peak HDR and makes do with DisplayHDR True Black 400 certification. But here's where it gets really confusing. This new 5K2K 39-inch Alienware is also RGB-stripe Tandem WOLED just like the Asus Swift, but achieves 300 nits full-screen brightness, 1,300 nits peak HDR and DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification.

Long story short, then, what this Alienware seems to offer is the benefits of RGB-stripe subpixels, including more precise rendering at subpixel level and so crisper text and fonts, plus wider colour coverage more akin to Samsung's competing QD-OLED tech, while minimising the downsides in terms of compromised brightness.

Of course, all this also promises a monitor that might match QD-OLED's vibrancy without that technology's own downsides, which include purple tint and compromised contrast in bright ambient light, plus overly warm colour balance. Then there's the usual upsides that come with all OLED monitors, like perfect per-pixel lighting and ridiculously quick 0.03 ms response times. It's a lot to keep up with but a tantalising overall proposition.

For the record and just to cover off the broader feature set, the Alienware AW3926QW is very well specified beyond the core panel tech. You get DisplayPort 2.1, two HDMI ports and USB-C with 90 W of power delivery, plus a multi-port USB hub and a KVM switch. As for refresh rate, at the native 5K2K or 5,120 by 2,160 pixel resolution, the AW3926QW hits 165 Hz, while an alternative 2,560 by 1,080 resolution dual-mode ups that to 330 Hz.

There are also additional alternative resolutions of 4K at 165 Hz, and a couple of further 25-inch and 27-inch 330 Hz modes which run at sub-1080p. As you would expect, further gaming-friendly features include AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync support. It's all buttoned up by a full three-year warranty that includes the all-important cover for OLED burn-in.

Finally, the physical design is a dead ringer for other Alienware monitors. Gone is the Storm Trooper-style white plastic and retro lines, which is a bit of a pity. In is a more organic vibe and dark blue plastic throughout. Still, it's well enough built and looks modern with slim bezels on all four sides of the WOLED panel.

Hopefully that covers off the context, now we can consider how this display actually performs. And that performance is mostly incredible. It's immediately obvious that there are fewer compromises when it comes to brightness with this RGB-stripe Tandem WOLED versus the similarly equipped Asus Swift.

How Alienware has managed to make this huge 39-inch 5K2K model noticeably brighter than the 32-inch 4K Asus, I don't know. But it clearly has. It's punchier everywhere, whether you're talking SDR or HDR content. What's more, there's very little noticeable dimming when, say, you expand a small white browser window across the display. It's much less clunky than the Asus in that regard.

Subjectively, you lose very little compared with RGWB Tandem WOLEDs in terms of perceived brightness, too. But you gain loads when it comes to colours. This is not only a more vibrant display, it's more accurate. Gone is the slightly green-tinged colour balance of an RGWB WOLED. Overall, it's right up there with a QD-OLED panel for vibrancy, but with a more natural and accurate vibe. It's really super.

It's also bloody quick, like all OLEDs. The caveat to that is the 165 Hz refresh rate at native 5K2K. Some commentators have criticised this display for that supposed shortcoming. After all, most 32-inch 4K OLEDs run at 240 Hz.

Admittedly, the fact that you have to step down from the 240 Hz widely available from 32-inch 4K OLEDs doesn't sit comfortably with is otherwise a bleeding-edge monitor. Personally, I think the idea that 165 Hz is a major limitation given the huge resolution isn't terribly convincing.

Indeed, the immediate assumption is that you'd want at least an RTX 5080 to make the most of this display and even then you're probably not going to run into that 165 Hz limitation with a lot of games. With graphics card prices escalating by the day, that's a significant worry.

In practice, you might be surprised how usable this monitor is with an RTX 5070-level card, such is the effectiveness of the likes of DLSS upscaling these days. Okay, it's not a super slick high-refresh experience with an RTX 5070-level card, but you can get playable results and fantastic image quality with only minor settings tweaks. Of course, you have those higher refresh dual-modes to fall back on when frame rates really matter, too, though as ever with dual-mode features, image quality and sharpness take quite a hit.

Anyway, the general picture, no pun intended, with this monitor is very positive. I cannot tell you how lush it looks fully lit up running the latest titles with HDR enabled. The scale of the thing, the clarity and detail, the incredible contrast, the pixel speed, it's just fantastic.

It is, however, not perfect. Apart from the arguable refresh rate limitations, let's cover off those Reddit concerts. First, the claimed green tint. That's essentially a viewing angle thing. Yes, it is visible at the edges of the display, but it's really only clearly apparent if you shove your nose a few inches from the panel then crane your neck to view the edges.

Personally, I couldn't detect any VRR flicker, either. It's possible there are settings and frame rates I didn't try where it's more obvious, but I don't think that's a major limitation. The one Reddit-raised issue that I do think is more problematic, however, is the so-called "vignette" or corner dimming.

This is a tricky issue to isolate. But to summarise, during gaming the edges of the panel gradually dim ever so slightly. The best way to see this is to have an app displaying full-screen white on the Windows desktop that you can alt-tab out to. At which point you'll see the "vignette" effect of dimming around the edges with a brighter central area of the display.

If you remain on the desktop, the dimming gradually fades and normal full-screen brightness returns after about 30 seconds. Equally, the dimming takes about 30 seconds of bright-scene gaming to fully kick in. It doesn't seem to happen when gaming in darker scenes.

In terms of why this happens at all, the most likely candidate is a feature called CPC, or Convex Power Control. It’s an LG Display WOLED panel protection feature and dims all four edges of the display to help prevent burn-in. As far as I am aware, it can't be toggled on or off on this Alienware, but if CPC is causing the vignette issue, it should be easy to address in a firmware update. Broadly, I don't think this is a hardware limitation, but a configuration issue.

Exactly how much of an actual problem it is, on the other hand, is subjective. It's worth noting it seems to happen in all modes, SDR, HDR, the works. I'd say it's one of those issues you won't immediately spot, but once you are aware—either because you notice or because you've read about it—well, it does then niggle a little.

That said, the reported issues with this panel are generally pretty subtle in reality and fall into the category of minor flaws from which pretty much any monitor will suffer at least a few. The somewhat frenzied community discussion around this Alienware, then, probably comes down to the fact that it's an expensive panel with fantastic specs that has generated a lot of anticipation and scrutiny.

It's probably inevitable, therefore, that any minor glitch was going to be immediately jumped on by the tech community. But I've seen far worse flaws on displays that have generally reviewed very well, the obvious example being backlight oddities on just about every mini-LED monitor.

In the end, it's a very tough and subjective call to make. I'd say the vignette dimming is an issue that needs to be factored in to a purchase decision. It's by no means catastrophic, but it is a tiny bit bothersome. It's just enough, I think, to prevent a full, caveat-free recommendation and pull our score below the critical 90% mark.

This is still an incredible monitor. I personally prefer it to the other 39-inch 5K2K OLED option out there, the LG UltraGear Evo GX9 39GX950B, which also didn't achieve 90-plus percent for its own reasons. This Alienware is, as things stand, still the monitor that I personally would buy right now, money no object. But to attach an unreserved buy recommendation for everyone else, that vignette dimming issue, relatively subtle as it is, needs to be sorted.

As spotted by International Cyber Digest, Linus took to a Linux Kernel commit to state all it took was "fixing a bogus 'round_up()' to a 'round_down()', but there were 24 patches adding more and more debug information to this, and 18 kernel boot to finally narrow it down to this."

This is a good example of where an AI might struggle to fix code, because it's not a syntax error or a bug, necessarily. The function is technically 'correct', it's just not doing what Torvalds wants it to. "The AI several times stated flat out that this was impossible and unsolvable," says Torvalds, "and that we should just write a report about it."

It seems like grit, determination, and stubbornness were what got the AI to behave in the end. Torvalds says, "I suspect those things have been trained by people who may not be quite as stubborn as I am."

Torvalds does praise the AI he's using, noting that, "while the AI was ready to give up several times, it did keep adding debug code and analyzing it faithfully when I pushed. So credit where credit is due and I let the AI write the commit message above."

Generative AI in coding has proved to be somewhat contentious. Last year, Collins Dictionary awarded 'vibe coding' (coding with AI) the word of the year, and a paper at the beginning of 2026 argued that "vibe coding kills open source" due to the lack of human attention and the ability for anyone to contribute huge amounts of data.

AI vibe coding ports of old console games have even become a bit of an ethical battleground. The team behind DK64 Randomizer (as you might guess, it randomises Donkey Kong 64) has been developing an unofficial PC port, specifically saying "Fuck AI vibe coding bullshit."

That's because, ignoring environmental concerns of AI plus the ethically dubious sourcing of data for training, teams like DK64 Randomizer argue that reliance on vibe coding results "in a poor quality project that will make it progressively harder to manage as time goes on."

Some developers clearly argue the benefit of AI code right now, but even so, it seems a human touch is often needed.

That's not to say Nvidia isn't still doing gaming stuff. It's just released DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction to help clean up the artifacting in high-end ray and path-traced games, as well as showing off the upcoming RTX Spark laptops at Gamescom actually running games on their ARM-y insides.

But it couldn't escape our notice that none of Nvidia's board members so much as uttered the word 'gaming' to investors in last night's earnings call, once again. But with the data centre segment bringing in $89 billion this quarter alone, accounting for almost 93% of the company's total revenue, it's not hard to see where the company's priorities now lie, and why.

Nvidia made $96 billion in total revenue in the second quarter of 2026, doubling what it made during the same period last year. Nvidia CFO Colette Kress told investors, "The surge in AI demand is driving a global infrastructure buildout, supported by an expanding and diverse set of growth opportunities, spanning hyperscalers, AI labs, AI natives, enterprises and sovereign customers."

For those unclear, I'll explain the last part of this comment: hyperscalers handle massive AI workloads so need a lot of infrastructure like data centres. AI labs are at the tech's bleeding edge in terms of research and development. 'AI natives' refers to workflows, products, or companies that are built from the ground up around AI—in other words, it's an inextricable aspect from the start. Enterprise customers may have otherwise bolted on data-centre-dependent AI products at a later date. Finally, sovereign customers can represent either businesses or even entire countries that want to retain full control over an AI technology's entire lifecycle.

The really brain-melting thing though is that Kress adds that the company expects "to grow revenue by approximately 70% in fiscal 2028," even in the midst of the RAMpocalypse. In fact, Nvidia feels it would be making a whole lot more money if it weren't for the memory crisis it's contributing to. Still, even in a "supply-constrained" landscape, Nvidia is not expecting the demand for AI or data centres to slow down any time soon. That leaves gaming out in the cold.

In fact, Nvidia no longer reports on gaming as its own separate segment. Instead, this has apparently been bundled up into the Edge Computing segment, which itself made $7.2 billion. Kress comments that these "increases were driven by strong sales of Blackwell workstations, partially offset by slower consumer PC sales that were tempered by elevated memory and systems prices." The Edge Computing segment saw a 27% year-over-year increase, though this win still pales in comparison to all things AI at Nvidia.

Obviously, Nvidia hasn't stopped selling its very shiny RTX 50-series GPUs—so shiny in fact, that it would have been genuinely cheaper for me to fly to QuakeCon and buy an RTX 5090 at the Nvidia booth than pick up the GPU absolutely anywhere else. But even though the RTX 5090 costs a small fortune, gaming is clearly not the priority it once was for Nvidia, nor has it been for a while.

The last time I remember Nvidia mentioning gaming in an earnings call was this time last year, and even then AI was already making 10 times as much as gaming. De-emphasising the gaming segment even further is something we could all have seen coming. With that in mind, hearing 'Nvidia' and still thinking 'gaming' before 'AI' or 'data centres' puts me firmly behind the times.

When asked about that 70% figure specifically, CEO Jensen Huang confirmed that it's a "constrained" number that is informed by the lack of available memory in the market

Huang says, "The unconstrained would be a lot higher. We grew 100% year-over-year this year. The unconstrained is significant. And so we're just going to have to work hard to get more capacity. And we have a large supply chain".

Nvidia's financials paint an interesting picture, specifically one where data centers account for the majority of revenue, and consumer demand lacks in response. Nvidia made $96.2 billion in the latest quarter, with a gross margin of 75% and data center revenue accounting for $89 billion. That's a 117% jump from last year.

Annoyingly, Nvidia doesn't report gaming in financial earnings, and instead wraps it into 'Edge Computing', which includes gaming, workstations, physical AI PCs and robotics. That accounts for $7.1 billion in the latest earnings call. That's a 27% jump from last year.

In regard to Edge Computing, Nvidia says "increases were driven by strong sales of Blackwell workstations, partially offset by slower consumer PC sales that were tempered by elevated memory and systems prices."

As of today, the RX 9070 XT and 9060 XT are sitting atop the Amazon and Mindfactory GPU sales. It's not yet clear if pricing, stock, or a combination of both are responsible for this shift.

Huang says many investors expressed concerns regarding gross margins with rising component costs, and confirms "we are experiencing extreme pricing conditions in memory. The magnitude of the price increase has exceeded our prior expectations and [is] headed even higher into next year."

However, he argues, "We have a really gigantic supply chain. And so we have incredible partners, and we've secured a lot of supply, but we just need a lot more."

It seems the memory crisis is really hitting everyone and is unlikely to end any time soon. Even the likes of Samsung has warned of a 'severe' memory supply crisis next year. Pour one out for poor old Nvidia, who will have to pay more for the fire it is currently throwing even more wood onto.

BlackShark V3 | 50 mm drivers: was $279.95 now $190.30
The BlackShark V3 is the best gaming headset and has been since its launch in 2025. Thanks to some very impressive upgraded 50 mm drivers, the Razer unit sounds clear as a bell for gaming, with excellent mids and an overall response that makes it great for your music, too.

Key specs: 50 mm Triforce Titanium Gen 2 drivers | 2.4 GHz + Bluetooth 5.3 | 12 - 28,000 Hz | Detachable Super Wideband mic | 70-hour battery lifeView Deal

For gamers, 2026 has been a truly abysmal year for buying expensive things cheaply. The AI-induced component shortage crisis has blighted the market for RAM, storage and GPUs, which has had a knock-on effect to most other gaming-related gear. I guess the logic is: If people can't buy a stick of RAM cheaply, or a Nintendo Switch 2 cheaply, then they're not going to expect to pay less for—as an example—a headset.

Which is why I browsed Amazon AU's new Gaming Week 2026 sale with great scepticism. I haven't seen a gaming discount worth writing about since EOFY, and even that sales period was pretty average compared to last year, or the year before.

My scepticism wasn't unfounded, but I did at least find one very good deal: the best gaming headset you can buy, namely the Razer BlackShark V3, is currently enjoying its steepest discount yet, dropping 32% from its AU$279.95 RRP to AU$190.30.

And it gets better: If you don't mind owning the PS5 version—which is functionally the same, albeit with some sprinklings of PlayStation blue—that edition is even cheaper: you can get it for AU$179.47.

Both ship from Amazon Germany, but delivery is free.

Here's some pics, in case the look of it is important to you:

This is an exceptional set of wireless cans, and with such a hefty chunk wiped off its RRP, the value is enormous here. Dave James tested them last year before rewarding them a score of 91 / 100 and top placement in our best gaming headsets list. He praised their crystalline fidelity, light-but-rigorous chassis, low latency and affordability, while noting that the low-latency results in lower battery life than the competition.

"It's going to take something more than just an inconvenience to trump the audio quality on offer with the BlackShark V3," he wrote. "When the different headsets arrived in the office, it was always going to be about the top-end V3 Pro, for me. But the process of testing these different cans has shown just what a great wireless gaming headset this middle child is."

So yes: this bargain on the BlackShark V3 is undoubtedly the best deal during Amazon AU's Gaming Week. Still, if you're into Logitech gear there's a bunch of that on sale. Go forth and browse.

Which means that, alongside 20 Grace CPU cores in the custom Arm-based chip, they've also got 6144 RTX Blackwell GPU cores to play with. And that means RTX 5070-like gaming performance, at least on paper.

And in practice, each was demonstrated to be capable of running modern games at high frame rates. Exactly how high was kept under wraps, unfortunately, although it was mentioned that frame generation was in use for each.

So, I wasn't able to do any benchmarking of my own, or dig into the settings menus to find out exactly what sort of DLSS/FG combination I was dealing with. Still, 007 First Light, Arc Raiders, Borderlands 4, and F1 25 were all running without a hitch, which is apparently indicative of the smooth sailing Nvidia has experienced with Microsoft's Prism translation layer.

I asked about any unforeseen emulation issues, but nope, apparently all is well in the land of Windows-on-Arm and Nvidia chips. As for the laptops themselves, I took a few notes based on my brief time playing with them at the booth.

First off, lets talk about the one I really want to take home. The Asus ProArt P14 looks and feels, for all intents and purposes, like the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14—and that's a very good thing indeed. It's got a milled aluminium chassis that feels robust (yet slim in the hand), a crisp keyboard, and a beautifully vivid OLED panel.

I had a brief run around in Arc Raiders on this particular lappy, and immediately wanted to squirrel it back to my hotel room for a proper gaming session.

14-inch laptops are the perfect size for taking on the road, and the relative lack of weight compared to the beefier (and much older) Blade 15 Advanced in my backpack made me yearn for the little P14 instead.

Proper gaming performance, too? It appears so, although Arc Raiders is far from the most demanding of test games. Still, while I'm not so confident in my abilities as to guess exactly what frame rate or settings combo this machine was running at, I will say it felt like 100 fps+. Ah, go on then. Probably High to Ultra settings. If I was pushed. Maybe.

Special mention should also be given to the Dell XPS 16 Creator Edition. Yes, I associate Dell laptops with being dull as well, but this new XPS model feels excellent, and it's rather handsome, too. The keyboard is as tight as a drum, the OLED display looks great, and it wasn't making a whole lot of noise while I ripped and teared my way through Doom: The Dark Ages.

It feels like a civilised machine I'd be happy to sling in my bag, at least on this first impression. Both of these laptops look like the sort of thing you might expect to see in a business meeting, but the gaming ability of the RTX Spark SOC squeezed into their slim and light chassis designs is plain to see.

Every laptop showdown, even one as brief as this, is likely to come up with an also-ran that doesn't quite cut the mustard—and for me, this comes in the form of the new Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra. In a room full of sublime competition, the chassis looks and feels... tired, while the Mini LED screen wasn't particularly enticing to behold. It was trundling away in the corner of the room running World of Tanks, and didn't garner "oohs" and "ahhs" in the same way as the rest.

Despite the hardware inside, something about it says "old fashioned" to me. It's funny how we judge these things in an instant, but there we are. I'm prepared to change my mind if we get one in for review (I'm incredibly tired and cranky after a long day at the show, after all), but I get the feeling it's going to cost lots of money—without looking and feeling as good as its premium competition.

Ah, now I've gone and done it. I've mentioned the price. Or rather, prices. The Nvidia reps around me refused to be drawn in on exact figures for these Spark-infused machines, especially as some of the models on display had a loadout of 128 GB of RAM. Ludicrous amounts, I think you'll agree, which will almost certainly be sold for ludicrous amounts of cash. For all that local AI stuff you'll be doing, naturally.

Personally, the lesser-seen optimist living in the middle of my cold, brutal heart is still hoping for 16 GB or 32 GB variants of the Asus and Dell laptops for somewhat-reasonable figures—as more slim and light, gaming-capable machines to choose from is always a good thing.

Looking at the state of gaming laptop prices at the moment, though, I think said optimist will probably be let down once more. It was a nice day out, at least. Anyone fancy buying me a bratwurst?

Over on the PCMR subreddit, user CarefulMeasurement99 shared that they bought a 4 TB Crucial drive a year ago for $200, and when it broke, Crucial offered that original price in a refund. That same drive seems to fetch up to $800 now (thanks, AI).

Crucial originally set up an RMA for the drive in order to pick it up and send it back to the company. The Redditor replied to this saying, "Due to the recent global increase in SSD prices, $199.999 is unfortunately no longer enough to purchase a new 4 TB drive in the current market", and officially requested a direct replacement.

This story gets a tad complicated because Micron announced the closure of the Crucial consumer business late last year, which threw its ability to actually replace the drive into question.

Crucial responded to this request saying, "after reviewing the current inventory situation, we must advise that we do not have any replacement units available for this product" and again stated they could only approve the original refund.

Crucial does clarify in the warranty section of its website, "We understand that replacement costs may be higher today. However, warranty coverage is tied to the original purchase."

An important point to note is that the Redditor buying this drive from Crucial last year meant they didn't buy one from a competitor. In getting a faulty drive, they missed out on getting a fresh one at the lower price they originally paid. Therefore, one would assume that Crucial should cover the replacement, as it sold a drive it believed would last longer than a single year.

When this problem was taken to Reddit, CarefulMeasurement99 was advised to inform Crucial "that a refund was unacceptable" and they "demanded a 4TB equivalent replacement (or alternative), and mentioned that this issue was gaining massive traction here on Reddit."

They also, on Reddit's advice, cited the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which is an act that, among other things, tightened consumer remedies for active warranties. In this case, they seemingly threw in the reference to suggest that they would take some legal action if necessary.

Micron, being one of the big three memory manufacturers, certainly has the cash to spare, and it has profited heavily from the memory crisis that is causing the prices of memory to skyrocket.

Just a few hours after sending this email, Crucial approved a 1-to-1 replacement, confirming it had "limited inventory available to replace the drive with a new one".

Triumphantly returning to the subreddit, CarefulMeasurement99 said: "Holy shit, pushing back actually worked!"

If there were ever a laptop design to be right "up my alley", as we brits like to say, it would be this one. That's because it makes its sacrifices in exactly the right places to deliver something genuinely portable, sleek, elegant, and satisfying to use both for gaming and work.

The MSI 'Stealth' laptop looks to have been reimagined along these MacBook or Razer Blade-esque lines—and successfully so—featuring a giant touchpad, thin aluminium form factor, subtle upward-facing speakers, and a spacious screen.

It's not just a looker, though, as MSI has crammed an RTX 5080 mobile GPU into it, making for genuine high-end performance. It has, however, had to be power-limited to play nicely with the slim chassis, meaning you're not getting quite the performance you could get out of a chunkier laptop for the same very expensive price or cheaper.

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ B3W Features

After powering on the laptop for the first time, I was immediately impressed by how it feels to use. The trackpad doesn't require much force to press but just enough so you're not accidentally pressing it, and it has a very satisfying click. I didn't have many problems with accidentally moving the cursor while typing because of the size of the trackpad, but it did happen occasionally.

'Satisfying' is also the word I'd use to describe the pleasantly tactile chiclet keyboard. This keyboard has four-zone RGB that I set to solid white to match the classy look.

There's also a decent selection of ports on the Stealth, including two Thunderbolt 4, a HDMI, and even an Ethernet port. This, I found to be particularly impressive given the sleek form factor.

Sleek, that is, and very shiny thanks to its 240 Hz OLED. It's of the 16:10 variety, too, which is the best kind as it gives you plenty of space for browsing and so on. I'd say 16-inch with a 16:10 aspect ratio is pretty much ideal for a laptop, especially one like this that's also slim and portable. The OLED panel itself is fantastic, too, with plenty of contrast thanks to the true blacks and vibrant colours. And of course the smooth 240 Hz certainly doesn't hurt in those games that can push frame rates up that high.

Specs-wise, this particular version gives you only the choice of the Core Ultra 9 386H for the processor, but you can choose between an RTX 5070, 5070 Ti, or 5080 version. The latter two come with 32 GB of DDR5 RAM, but the RTX 5070 version comes with just 16 GB. All configs except for one 2 TB version comes with 1 TB of storage.

The version I tested has 1 TB of storage, 32 GB of DDR5-5600 memory, and an RTX 5080 mobile. The RTX 5080 here has a big asterisk: it's a nerfed—ie, power-limited—version of the GPU. With a max draw of just 125 W, that's 50 W less juice than you get with a full-fat RTX 5080 mobile like the one in the Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10, the current best high-performance gaming laptop. That's a sacrifice made to keep things so slim, as is the choice of CPU which sacrifices some top-end compute performance for efficiency.

So far so good, but there is one area that unfortunately rains all over the parade, and that's audio. The problem isn't the sound quality or volume, as things are great in both these respects—clear, punchy (though not as bassy as standalone speakers, of course), and plenty loud.

The problem is latency and glitching, though mainly the former. Initially the speakers would spit every now and then, but that seemed to clear up after using the laptop for a while. I'm not sure why that is, given I had Windows update paused, but whatever the reason, I was glad when it stopped.

The persistent problem was poor audio latency. There is a delay between my in-game action (such as shooting) and the sound coming through. It's about the same level of delay as I experience using Bluetooth earphones without any low-latency mode enabled. It only happens over the default audio device, not when I plug in a new USB device like my earphones with USB-C DAC.

That leads me to believe it might be a problem with the default audio device drivers, and after checking various (x) discussions (x) online it seems like the problem could be with Nahimic, however I cannot confirm this. I can say that I tried different methods to disable and uninstall the drivers, which didn't work, and I also uninstalled the Norton antivirus that comes bundled with the laptop just to see if that was the issue, but that didn't resolve it. MSI says it is looking into the issue, but so far I haven't heard any results of this investigation.

To be clear, using the speakers is fine for listening to music and for playing casual, non-shooter games, but for playing shooters the latency is definitely noticeable, meaning a separate USB audio device might be necessary. Though saying that, when testing a different MSI laptop, even switching to a different device didn't resolve the latency, though it strangely did with the Stealth.

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ B3W Performance

Given the high-end components sitting inside this MSI Stealth 16 AI+ B3W, it was never going to fail at churning out frames. You'd have to severely throttle an RTX 5080 laptop GPU for it to be unable to deliver playable performance. But for the Stealth's price tag we want more than just 'playable', so let's see how it does.

1080p gaming performance

This chart shows average and 1% low frame rate results in various tested games at 1080p resolution

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra)Baldur's Gate 3 (1080p Ultra)Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (1080p High)F1 24 (1080p Ultra High)Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (1080p Ultra)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)

55

32

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)

52

39

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)

68

38

Framework 16 | RTX 5070

43

33

020406080

Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p RT Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)	55 Avg FPS, 32 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)	52 Avg FPS, 39 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)	68 Avg FPS, 38 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070	43 Avg FPS, 33 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)

68

39

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)

78

43

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)

96

55

Framework 16 | RTX 5070

69

41

0255075100

Baldur's Gate 3 (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)	68 Avg FPS, 39 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)	78 Avg FPS, 43 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)	96 Avg FPS, 55 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070	69 Avg FPS, 41 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)

73

47

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)

102

83

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)

99

84

Framework 16 | RTX 5070

64

55

037.575112.5150

Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (1080p High) Data

Product	Value
MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)	73 Avg FPS, 47 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)	102 Avg FPS, 83 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)	99 Avg FPS, 84 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070	64 Avg FPS, 55 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)

100

50

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)

101

76

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)

126

51

Framework 16 | RTX 5070

75

58

037.575112.5150

F1 24 (1080p Ultra High) Data

Product	Value
MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)	100 Avg FPS, 50 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)	101 Avg FPS, 76 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)	126 Avg FPS, 51 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070	75 Avg FPS, 58 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)

102

42

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)

102

53

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)

140

72

Framework 16 | RTX 5070

82

51

037.575112.5150

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (1080p Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)	102 Avg FPS, 42 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)	102 Avg FPS, 53 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)	140 Avg FPS, 72 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070	82 Avg FPS, 51 1% Low FPS

The MSI Stealth 16 AI+ sits between RTX 5070 and full-fat (175 W) RTX 5080 gaming laptops in 1080p performance.

1600p (native) gaming performance

This chart shows average and 1% low frame rate results in various tested games at 1600p (native) resolution

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra)Baldur's Gate 3 (Native res. Ultra)Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High)F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High)Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (Native res. Ultra)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)

34

22

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)

31

24

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)

40

28

Framework 16 | RTX 5070

18

8

010203040

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)	34 Avg FPS, 22 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)	31 Avg FPS, 24 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)	40 Avg FPS, 28 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070	18 Avg FPS, 8 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)

67

39

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)

80

46

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)

96

42

Framework 16 | RTX 5070

67

37

0255075100

Baldur's Gate 3 (Native res. Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)	67 Avg FPS, 39 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)	80 Avg FPS, 46 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)	96 Avg FPS, 42 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070	67 Avg FPS, 37 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)

57

49

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)

75

66

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)

111

80

Framework 16 | RTX 5070

72

62

037.575112.5150

Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High) Data

Product	Value
MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)	57 Avg FPS, 49 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)	75 Avg FPS, 66 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)	111 Avg FPS, 80 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070	72 Avg FPS, 62 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)

62

43

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)

63

53

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)

77

55

Framework 16 | RTX 5070

41

32

020406080

F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High) Data

Product	Value
MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)	62 Avg FPS, 43 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)	63 Avg FPS, 53 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)	77 Avg FPS, 55 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070	41 Avg FPS, 32 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)

74

48

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)

68

46

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)

96

65

Framework 16 | RTX 5070

54

39

0255075100

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (Native res. Ultra) Data

Product	Value
MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)	74 Avg FPS, 48 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)	68 Avg FPS, 46 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)	96 Avg FPS, 65 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070	54 Avg FPS, 39 1% Low FPS

As is the case at 1080p, at 1600p the MSI Stealth 16 AI+ sits between an RTX 5070 laptop and a full-fat (175 W) RTX 5080 laptop in its gaming performance.

At both 1080p and 1600p (native) resolution, the power-limited RTX 5080 in the Stealth 16 AI+ tends to churn out more frames than an RTX 5070 mobile but fewer frames than an unrestricted RTX 5080 mobile. There are exceptions in my testing, though these are most likely due to the CPUs in the different laptops I compared the Stealth to. If you play mainly CPU-intensive games, you might do better with a HX chip (and a thicker laptop) rather than an H one like this.

Real-world gaming performance

This chart shows average and 1% low frame rate results in various tested games at 1600p resolution with Quality upscaling enabled, and frame gen where applicable

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra + upscaling (quality), 2x FG)Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High + upscaling (quality, 67%))F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High + upscaling (quality), 2x FG)

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)

97

53

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)

95

79

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)

124

83

Framework 16 | RTX 5070

75

58

037.575112.5150

Cyberpunk 2077 (Native res. RT Ultra + upscaling (quality), 2x FG) Data

Product	Value
MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)	97 Avg FPS, 53 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)	95 Avg FPS, 79 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)	124 Avg FPS, 83 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070	75 Avg FPS, 58 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)

87

74

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)

84

72

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)

111

80

Framework 16 | RTX 5070

72

62

037.575112.5150

Black Myth: Wukong benchmarking tool (Native res. High + upscaling (quality, 67%)) Data

Product	Value
MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)	87 Avg FPS, 74 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)	84 Avg FPS, 72 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)	111 Avg FPS, 80 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070	72 Avg FPS, 62 1% Low FPS

Avg FPS

1% Low FPS

MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)

147

56

Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)

144

125

Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)

184

91

Framework 16 | RTX 5070

92

70

050100150200

F1 24 (Native res. Ultra High + upscaling (quality), 2x FG) Data

Product	Value
MSI Stealth 16 AI+ | RTX 5080 (125 W)	147 Avg FPS, 56 1% Low FPS
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2026) | RTX 5080 (135 W)	144 Avg FPS, 125 1% Low FPS
Lenovo Legion 7i Pro Gen10 | RTX 5080 (175 W)	184 Avg FPS, 91 1% Low FPS
Framework 16 | RTX 5070	92 Avg FPS, 70 1% Low FPS

Again, the MSI Stealth 16 AI+ sits somewhere between an RTX 5070 and full-fat RTX 5080 gaming laptop, although with upscaling and frame gen enabled, it seems to sit a little closer to the latter.

In terms of real-world gaming performance, ie, performance with upscaling and/or frame gen enabled, this laptop performs very well, running not too far behind a laptop with the full-fat RTX 5080 mobile. In terms of actual frame rates, in most games expect well above 60 fps on ultra settings, with ray tracing enabled, at native resolution.

And of course expect even better than this when you lower your game settings down below max, as this will net you frame rates high enough to make good use of that 240 Hz refresh rate. Not to mention lower latency, too, because frame gen does better in terms of latency when the starting frame rate is higher.

Extreme vs Balanced mode

Comparing gaming performance, frequency, and temps for Extreme Performance (+ Apex) mode vs Balanced mode.

Versus Comparison Data

Attribute	MSI Stealth 16 AI+	MSI Stealth 16 AI+ (Balanced mode)
3DMark Time Spy Extreme	8646	7238
Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (1080p Ultra)	102	89
Gaming temperatures	92	83
GPU stats	2079	1607

MSI Stealth 16 AI+MSI Stealth 16 AI+ (Balanced mode)

VS

MSI Stealth 16 AI+MSI Stealth 16 AI+ (Balanced mode)

3DMark Time Spy Extreme (Overall index score)

+19%8,646

7,238

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (1080p Ultra) (Avg FPS)

+15%102

89

Gaming temperatures (Avg CPU (°C))

+11%92

83

GPU stats (Avg GPU freq. (MHz))

+29%2,079

1,607

Putting the laptop into Balanced mode cuts down the GPU frequency and CPU temps, but does cost 15–20% performance in-game.

While the above tests were done with the laptop in Extreme Performance mode, I also tried out the laptop in Balanced mode, which limits frequencies and temps a little and keeps the fans quieter. If you're playing graphically intensive games, I really wouldn't recommend this as the drop in performance is quite significant. It drops frame rates by about 15–20%, turning it more decidedly into something like an RTX 5070 machine, and the fan noise reduction isn't really worth that. But for less demanding games where you don't need that extra 15+%, it's a good shout.

I also tried disabling the 'Apex Mode' which pushes things to the max, even above the 'Extreme Performance' defaults, but I found there to be little in it, just a 1-3% decrease in performance and basically no change in max temps, just 1 °C lower for the GPU.

Overall, I'm pretty impressed with how this Stealth performs given its sleek form factor and pleasant-sounding fans (they do get loud, just not in an obnoxious way). You're getting better performance than an RTX 5070 laptop in a form factor that's usually reserved for more mid-range and less thermally expulsive internals. If you want the best performance possible from a high-end machine, this isn't it, but if you're willing to sacrifice a little for the sleek design, it's stellar.