In addition to the Radeon RX 9070, AMD launched their second RDNA 4 based GPU at the same time, the Radeon RX 9070 XT. The 9070 XT has 6 more RDNA 4 compute units, a higher boost clock, and a higher board power. The overclocked RX 9070 that AMD sent over was impressive. I’m excited today to take a look at the ASRock RX 9070 XT Steel Legend that they also sent over. The Steel Legend is available in white and black and are both ASRock’s stock-clocked options with their Taichi being their overclocked option. So I’m excited to see what the card is capable of, so let’s get to it.

AMD has been busy, not only did we just have their first RDNA 4 based GPUs launched last week with the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 but they also announced on Friday that their latest Radeon 9 X3D CPUs would be hitting stores on March 12^th. Well, today the performance embargo lifts on those and I’ve got the AMD Radeon 9 9950X3D on hand to put to the test before they hit stores tomorrow. Back in November, I took a look at the Ryzen 7 9800X3D that we liked enough to use with our GPU test bench. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D takes the already very capable Radeon 9 9950X with its 16 cores and 5.7 GHz max boost and adds in the 2^nd generation AMD 3D V-Cache. A lot of gamers will recognize the X3D model designation because AMDs 3D V-Cache CPUs have been dominating the market when it comes to gaming for a few generations now. The 9950X3D brings that technology up to the top of their CPU product stack for those who want great gaming performance but also need the highest-end CPU capabilities as well.

For AMDs upcoming GPU launch there had been rumors for months but this past week AMD confirmed that they were launching both the Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT. Both cards being their first RDNA 4 architecture cards. Today the performance embargo for both cards lifts and we can check out how they perform ahead of them hitting stores tomorrow. So let's dive in and find out how they compare to yesterday's announced RTX 5070 and more!

In addition to the Nvidia RTX 5070 Founders Edition, I also received a second MSRP-priced RTX 5070. The second card was from Asus, their Prime RTX 5070. Like with the RTX 5070 Ti, at launch Asus has three different card designs in their lineup for the RTX 5070. They have the Prime RTX 5070, the TUF Gaming RTX 5070, and the Strix RTX 5070 with all three having stock clocked and overclocked models. Our Prime RTX 5070 is the stock-clocked model. We already saw how the RTX 5070 can perform but I’m excited to get a direct comparison on how a larger aftermarket cooler changes performance and compares to the Founders Edition. Well, no point in wasting any time, let’s get into it!

When Nvidia originally announced their new 50 Series of video cards, the RTX 5090 was their flagship but they did also announce three other GPUs as well. We have seen all of those except one and today the embargo lists on that last card, the RTX 5070. The RTX 5070 helps bring the 50 Series specific features like DLSS 4 a little farther down into the product stack. The 5070 is targeted at RTX 3070 owners which is still in the top 5 on Steam's hardware survey and is increasing now with 4.27% of Steam users using it. Because the RTX 5070 Ti didn’t have a Founders Edition, this is also the first 50 Series Founders Edition model with a much more compact size, and with that, I’m curious if it might be a great LAN right option. So let’s dive in and see what it is all about then put it to the test.

I took a look at the Asus Prime RTX 5070 Ti ahead of the new RTX 5070 Ti’s hitting stores. The Prime model that I took a look at is a stock-clocked card. Well, I was lucky enough to end up with a second Asus RTX 5070 Ti, Asus themselves sent over their TUF Gaming RTX 5070 Ti and this one is overclocked. Typically, especially anytime near a launch getting your hands on a stock-clocked “MSRP” card can be impossible. You are a lot more likely to get an overclocked card like this one so this will be a better look at what you might experience. I’m curious to see what sets the TUF Gaming model apart from the Prime and to put it to the test in our test suite, so let’s dive in.

This past January at CES Nvidia announced their new 50 Series of GPUs based on their Blackwell architecture. The flagship of the new lineup was their RTX 5090 but they did also announce a few of the models below it including the RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5070. I covered the RTX 5090 and the RTX 5080 late in January but now we start to get into the other models with the RTX 5070 Ti embargo lifting today and RTX 5070 Ti’s hitting stores tomorrow. The RTX 5070 Ti isn’t available as a Founders Edition card, similarly to the RTX 4070 Ti so for those considering getting an RTX 5070 Ti, I have the Asus Prime RTX 5070 Ti on hand to check out its performance. So let’s dive in and see what it's all about.

With such a wide range of RAM designs, you can find anything to fit your tastes, especially if you want RGB lighting. If you want something more subtle there are options, but what if you want to build something in black and gold? I’ve been planning on building a new PC and I wanted to do something a little more subtle and the Asus ProArt line has caught my eye. When trying to find memory that might match it, even with a wide variety of options there weren’t many that would match it. Sure I could go with just a basic black, but as it turns out TEAMGROUP has a line that matches it perfectly, their T-CREATE Expert line and they were kind enough to send over the 6000 MHz 32x2GB CL34 kit to check out for our future build and today I’m going to take a closer look at the kit and see how it performs.

When it comes to the power levels being used in even a smaller server rack, you can’t just use a cheap power strip without the strip melting down is a concern, a proper PDU or power distribution unit is needed. For some, this might just be a simple unit that is basically just a rack-mounted power strip designed for the higher wattage, or maybe you need one with switches for each plug. Being able to keep an eye on power usage, remotely reboot, and to set your devices to reboot automatically if they stop pinging is what you can expect on the higher-end managed PDUs and that is exactly what Trendnet offers with their TPI-06 6-Outlet Managed PDU. Today I’m going to check the TPI-06 and see what it is all about and see how it performs by checking out the software side of things and see how it compares to the EnGenius ECP106 I took a look at last year.

Yesterday I took a look at Nvidia’s RTX 5080 Founders Edition and today both the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 hit stores. Along with the sale embargo, we can finally take a look at the overclocked aftermarket cards as well. MSI has a wide variety of RTX 5080 card designs, with 21 different SKUs. Some of those are different variations on product lines that we have seen MSI have in the past like the Shadow line, Gaming Trio, Ventus, and my favorite, the Suprim lineup. There were two new lines though with the Inspire line and the Vanguard line. MSI ended up sending over their RTX 5080 Vanguard SOC in the Launch Edition packaging so we get a chance to see what that new lineup is all about. Let’s dive in and see what features the card has, how it performs, and how it compares with the Founders Edition as well.  

Last week Nvidia lifted the curtain on the performance of their new flagship, the Blackwell-based RTX 5090 as well as giving people their first look at DLSS 4. Both Founders Edition and aftermarket versions of that card hit stores on Thursday, January 30^th. Also announced with the RTX 5090 was the RTX 5080, which will be hitting stores on the 30^th as well, and over the past week I have had the RTX 5080 Founders Edition in the office and have put it through our benchmark suite. Today we can take a closer look at the card design and then see how it performed in those tests. It has an MSRP that is half of the RTX 5090, will it still impress with its performance? Let’s find out!

This year’s CES had major announcements from all of the big names in the industry with Intel and AMD both announcing new motherboard chipsets and AMD also announcing their upcoming GPUs. Nvidia had a lot to announce as well. The biggest of those was their new 50 series of GPUs based on their Blackwell architecture. That included four GPUs which they planned to launch in January and February. They have the RTX 5090 which is their flagship, the RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and the RTX 5070 all announced. They also announced Multi Frame Generation which along with the new Transformer based DLSS ray Reconstruction and Super Resolution models make DLSS 4 and Nvidia Reflex 2 as well. RTX Neural Shaders and Neural Faces were both announced as well. Today the performance benchmarks for the upcoming RTX 5090 lift and while I take a look at the new RTX 5090 Founders Edition we can also check out DLSS 4 alongside of seeing how the new flagship GPU performs. It’s a lot to cover, so let’s get to it!

Noctua has a reputation for having some of the best quality and performing PC fans on the market and with that, they are also known for taking all of the time needed to bring even the smallest of products to market. If it isn’t perfect in their eyes, they keep working on it or scrap it altogether. Their desk fan and with it the entire Noctua Home lineup is a great example of that. They had prototypes at Computex back in 2018 and that lineup just hit shelves this year. With that, I’m excited to finally check it out. I have been running a basic USB fan on my desk 24 hours a day for 10 to 15 years, replacing a full-sized fan that would be in my office before then. But that fan does raise the base noise level in my office and I always have to turn it off anytime I’m doing any noise testing. I even toyed around with replacing it years ago when Noctua brought out their 5v lineup of fans using 3D-printed stands. Anyhow, let’s get into it and see what all of Noctua Home lineup has to offer and see how their new fan performs.

For a small trip one of Ankers's many small battery backups will be more than enough to keep your devices charged. But what if you are looking to power other devices beyond USB-powered devices or what if you need more capacity? The same goes for a power outage at your house as well, if you want to keep your internet up, power your laptop, or a medical device like a CPAP you might want a larger battery backup without going completely in on a gas-powered generator. Anker with their SOLIX line has been in the power station market for a while now. But bridging the gap between a small pocketable battery backup and the larger whole-house solutions they have introduced the SOLIX C300 as well as the similar C300 DC which doesn’t have the built-in AC outlets. They don’t advertise it as a UPS, but it has UPS capabilities, so I’m curious to see how it can handle that. Having a buffer keeping the modem and router up for short power outages would be helpful so let’s see what the Anker SOLIX C300 is all about.

Asus’s ROG product lineup covers just about anything you might want to use for gaming and that includes a full range of peripherals and headsets. While I have had a lot of Asus hardware in the office over the years, I haven’t had one of their headsets in to test for a whopping 9 years. Going back to 2015 when I took a look at the Strix 7.1 Gaming Headset. They have continued to evolve their designs including adding wireless options. That Strix 7.1 headset had multiple issues in my testing, so I’m excited to see how their latest headset, the ROG Delta II will compare. So let’s dig in and see what the ROG Delta II has to offer and how it performs.

With the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D hitting the market strong, the X870 and X870E motherboards that launched back at the end of September move more into the spotlight. You can run the 9800X3D on the 600 Series chipsets as well, but if you are building a high-end gaming PC with the 9800X3D for your CPU you might just be looking at the latest and greatest for motherboards with all of those PCIe 5.0 lanes. I’ve already taken a look at a few options from Gigabyte and Asus but I haven’t taken a look at anything from MSI yet. Today I’m going to check out the MSI MPG X870E Carbon Wifi and see how it compares.

After taking a look at a few of Asus’s full-sized options, it's high time we check out what they have to offer for smaller builds. Currently, Asus has just one X870 board smaller than ATX and that is their ROG Strix X870-I Gaming Wifi. I was impressed with the ROG Strix X870E-E so I’m excited to see what they packed into the Strix X870-I Gaming Wifi. With the next generation of X3D CPUs around the corner, I can’t be the only one starting to think about a new SFF build to save some space in my office and to hit a few LANs. Will the Strix X870-I Gaming Wifi be the ticket?

Back in June AMD announced their Ryzen 9000 Series CPUs with the 9950X, 9900X, 9700X, and 9600X. The Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X hit reviews and later stores in August. The Zen 5 based CPUs have been popular, but like with the 7000 Series there has been a large group waiting to see what Intel would have to offer and even more importantly to see AMD's introduction of their 3D V-Cache based offers and last week they finally lifted the cover on the new Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor. With the new 2^nd generation 3D V-Cache and the Zen 5 architecture, they teased that they were seeing an average of 8% gaming performance improvement compared to the previous generation and 20% average over the competition people have been excited. Well, today’s the day, the embargo’s lifted and we can finally dive into performance testing the new Ryzen 7 9800X3D to see if AMDs teasing was true so let’s not waste any more time and get to it!

This last week Intel launched their new Core Ultra 200 Series CPUs and with that the Z890 chipset as well. I started off our testing by taking a look at the Iced-out Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Pro Ice, but that wasn’t the only motherboard that came in. Asus sent over a few boards as well and now that I have a little more time I can finally dive in and see what they have to offer. I’m starting off with the Asus TUF Gaming Z890-Plus Wifi which isn’t Asus’s cheapest Z890 board but does look to be a good mix of features without costing as much as some of the other gaming-focused boards. I was really impressed with the Asus TUF Gaming X870-Plus Wifi that I took a look at last month. Will their Z890 TUF Gaming board do the same? Let’s find out!

With new CPUs and a new socket also come new chipsets and motherboards. The launch chipset to go alongside of the new Intel Core Ultra CPUs is Z890 which follows the same making scheme that Intel has used in the past. I am surprised though that it didn’t change alongside of the new CPU naming scheme. To start things off, the first board to come in was the Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Pro Ice. Gigabyte is launching 17 models in total with four of those being the Ice model like we have here which have a white theme. Some of those have a matching non-Ice model as well but the Z890 Aorus Pro Ice doesn’t. Today I’m going to dive in and see what kind of features they have included with this board and run it through our test suite as well. So without wasting any more time, let’s get to it!