Logitech purchased Blue Microphones back in 2018 for $117 million and for the last five years, we have seen them integrate the Blue lineup with the Logitech brand.  This includes using the Logitech G Hub software for some of the Yeti microphones and the Blue brand being used in their software for the microphone controls for things like their headsets. This past June they put out an update on social media updating the status on integrating things letting everyone know that the Blue brand would be fully integrated into the Logitech brand and it wouldn’t be independent like we have seen with other Logitech-owned companies like Ultimate Ears and Jaybird. The Blue Mic website forwards to the Logitech Gaming website now and today's announcement of two new Yeti microphones are fully under the Logitech G branding now. The new microphones are the Yeti Orb and the Yeti GX. People familiar with the Blue brand will recognize the Yeti Orb to share a lot of similarities with the popular Blue Snowball microphone and then there is the Yeti GX as well which is targeted to be a more premium option. I’m going to check out both today, diving into the features, performance, and how they fit into the market so let’s get to it!

I took a look at the new Logitech G Pro Superlight 2 mouse and their Pro X TKL LIGHTSPEED Gaming Keyboard, both in their pink or magenta colorway. For that same launch Logitech also brought out one other product, they announced the Pro X 2 LIGHTSPEED Gaming Headset in that same pink color. The Pro X 2 LIGHTSPEED Gaming Headset was announced in May and was available in their black and white models. This isn’t a new product but they did match the pink color option to have a full matching set of peripherals available. I was extremely impressed back in 2019 with the original G Pro X Gaming Headset launch and one of my only complaints was that they didn’t have a wireless option available as well but I never had the chance to check out the original wireless model or the new wired X 2. So I’m excited to see what has changed and how well the wireless works, let’s dive in.

Along with the new Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 Logitech also announced their new Pro X TKL Lightspeed gaming keyboard. This isn’t their first pro-focused gaming keyboard, they had the Pro Keyboard and the Pro X Keyboard before it. It might be a little confusing but it’s also not their first pro-focused TKL or tenkeyless keyboard either, those other two keyboards were also TKL this is just the first one to include it in the name. What this does bring however is Logitech’s LIGHTSPEED wireless technology and alongside that, they have made a few changes to the keyboard as well. Logitech sent over their pink model to match our Pro X Superlight 2 and today I’m going to dive in and see what their pro-focused keyboard is all about and how it performs. Let’s go!

I get a lot of different peripherals into the office for testing and you might think that I am constantly changing up what I use as my “main” hardware but that isn’t the case most of the time. Once I find something I like I stick with it. I still use the MasterKeys Pro L for my keyboard and for my mouse over the years I started with the SteelSeries Xai on to the Sensei and eventually switched to the Pro Wireless from Logitech when that came out. I switched to the Superlight and updated that to the bright pink Superlight when someone at Logitech sent a few over. That isn’t to say that I haven’t been a fan of other mice, but it's clear that I have a preferred shape. With that, the announcement of the new Pro X Superlight 2 which has been rumored for a long time is an exciting one. But as always in this situation improving on a popular design can be hard and it can be easy for small changes to upset people. So I’m curious to see how Logitech decided to improve on one of their more popular mice.

To start the launch off I had the chance to check out the Sapphire RX 7700 XT Pulse which is their budget-focused card and a stock-clocked card. I also took a look at the overclocked XFX QICK 319 RX 7700 XT Black. Well, now I’ve got the Sapphire RX 7700 XT PURE which sits in between Sapphire’s Pulse and Nitro+ lineups. It is an overclocked card and it also improves on the Pulse with a third fan and a larger cooler but most exciting is this is a white color scheme card from Sapphire. They did bring out the RX 6950 XT PURE which was partially white but still had black fans. White cases and white builds have been popular for a long time now, it is exciting to see Sapphire finally jumping in with their own option. So I’m going to check out what the RX 7700 XT PURE is all about, put it to the test in our test suite, and then we can see how it fits in the market!

With today's 7700 XT and 7800 XT launch, I had the chance to check out a reference RX 7800 XT up against XFX’s MERC 319 RX 7800 XT Black and I was extremely impressed with its performance both from the overclock as well as its cooling and noise performance. So getting in the stock clocked RDX 7700 XT Pulse and checking it out then getting to check out the XFX Qick 319 RX 7700 XT Black which is overclocked and has a similar looking cooler design minus a few bells and whistles. I’m excited to see if the QICK 319 RX 7700 XT Black can impress as well. So we are going to dive in and see what the QICK is all about then put it through our full test suite to check out its performance. Let’s get into it!

With our RX 7800 XT testing out of the way with both the reference card and the XFX overclocked card I can finally jump into the Radeon RX 7700 XT to check out its performance. For this card AMD doesn’t have a reference design so to check out stock clocked performance I’ve got the Sapphire RX 7700 XT Pulse. It has the stock clocks and is Sapphire’s budget friendly card which in the past has combined great performance while avoiding adding in all of the unneeded flashy features you see on higher-end cards including RGB. So I’m going to dive in and check out what Sapphire has done with their card design, and then after that, we can put it through our test suite. When we are done we can then step back and see how it all comes together and where the 7700 XT as well as the 7700 XT Pulse fit into the market.

I already took a look at the Radeon RX 7800 XT reference card this morning so we have an idea of how the new 7800 XT GPU performs. But most people aren’t picking up the stock-clocked reference cards, they run the partner cards with larger coolers and are overclocked. To get an idea of how the 7800 XT performs in that situation, XFX sent over their Merc 319 7800 XT Black. I’ve been a fan of XFX’s clean styling for the last few generations, they haven’t done the standard “gaming” styling that packs a bunch of angles into the design with multiple shades of grey. They have simple smooth fan shrouds and stick mostly with black. I’m hoping that the Merc 319 7800 XT Black is going to continue that. So let’s dive in and see what the Merc 319 7800 XT Black is all about and how it performs.

AMD launched their first 7000 Series cards back in December with the RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX. They have also launched the lower end of their 7000 Series with the RX 7600 but the middle of the lineup has been completely missing until now. At Gamescom, AMD announced both the Radeon RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT to fill in some of the middle of the lineup with a focus on 1440p performance. Today I’m going to check out a few options from both GPUs but to start things off I am going to check out the Radeon RX 7800 XT reference card to get a look at the base performance the 7800 XT is capable of then we can go from there. 

Spinning hard drives are surprisingly easy to damage when they are running and they get moved or banged around. The move to SSDs was not only huge for performance, but when they hit external storage they finally helped with durability significantly and also helped with the sizing of portable drives as well. Crucial has been in the market for a while now with the Crucial X8 being the first Crucial-branded portable SSD, but Micron their parent company did have them under the Lexar brand before the brand was sold in 2017. The X8 however was still a little large. Crucial just announced two new portable drives, their X9 Pro and the X10 Pro which are similar but with the X9 Pro being a USB 3.2 Gen-2 drive and the X10 Pro doubling the transfer speed with USB 3.2 Gen-2x2. Today I’m going to check out both and see what they are all about as well as put them to the test.

When it comes to EnGenius’s enterprise-focused lineup, especially when it comes to access points, they have a wide variety that covers most needs. I’ve taken a look at some of their indoor and outdoor options but one area where they have been missing something on their outdoor lineup that they have had on their indoor access points is having a 4x4 Wifi 6 Access Point. I previously took a look at the ECW260 which is a 2 x 2 Wifi 6 AP. Well, they now have the ECW270 to fill in that gap. Like with the ECW260, it connects with a 2.5 Gigabit PoE connection but the ECW270 doubles up on its antennas and radios to better utilize that bandwidth. They have also given it a 1 Gig PoE capable port to make it easy to run a PoE camera nearby. We have been using the ECW260 to get better coverage outside and I’m curious how the upgrade to the ECW270 might perform. So today I’m going to take a closer look at the ECW270 and also see how it performs.

It wasn’t that long ago when anything above a 450-watt model in the true SFX form factor wasn’t possible at all and even in the larger SFX-L form factor you could only find 600 watts. That has changed quickly over the years and Cooler Master has been one of the companies leading the charge with higher wattages and improvements in the small form factor focused SFX and SFX-L sizes. They even have a new model that reached 1300 watts which is just insane. That power supplies brother is the Cooler Master V SFX Platinum 1100W which I have in the office today. As a big SFF fan I’m curious to see what all Cooler Master has to offer with their new power supplies, so let's check it out and see what is going on.

It used to be that M.2 SSDs didn’t need much if any cooling but as speeds have improved that has changed and we have seen some situations where without cooling performance drops off or they fail completely. That along with the PS5 requiring a heatsink for M.2 drives has helped us see a lot of different SSD models that have heatsink and heatsinkless models. The Crucial P5 Plus which I took a look at back in 2021 is now included in those with the introduction of its own heatsink models. With drive prices dropping the P5 Plus was $179.99 when I originally took a look at it. The drive is now $54.99 or $67.99 for the heatsink model. I thought this would be a great time to see if the P5 Plus is still keeping up and to test out how the heatsink performs, so today I’m going to check it out. 

The ThermalTake Core P series of cases has been around for 7 years now and with that, they have had a variety of sized models as well as color and special editions. In fact, my wife's previous build was built in the Core P1, the Mini-ITX-sized model. While I loved the design there was room for improvement, especially with the feet and I noted that in our original coverage. So I was excited when I saw that Thermaltake introduced the Core P3 TG Pro which changed the base to better allow you to pick which orientation you want to use the case. It has the same open design that I loved previously and has been updated with modern I/O ports, a front fan bracket, and other changes. Today I’m going to see what is new and see if Thermaltake’s unique open-air design is still a good option in 2023.

Last year I took a look at the soda can-sized Capsule portable projector which had Android built in, functioned as a portable Bluetooth speaker, and being battery-powered could project just about anywhere. Sadly because of its age, it had an extremely old OS, was slow to navigate, was just 480p, and was based around an out of date app store. The idea was great and it may have been great when it came out but it was showing its age. Well even at that time there was a newer model the Capsule II and earlier this year the Capsule 3 which has a 1080p Laster DLP projector built-in came out. Given that the overall idea was great, I’m excited to take a look at the new Capsule 3 Laser to see how it performs with those issues addressed. Just in time too, we still have some time to enjoy it outside here up north before it starts to cool down!

You can find just about any product these days with an app that can be called a “smart” product or a smart home product but with a lot of those the functionality that it adds isn’t worth it at all and it is all just added to be able to throw a few more features on to the box and online listing. I came across the Dreo PolyFan and when I saw it had an app, I assumed it would fall into the same category. Checking it out though it did pique my interest. It had both horizontal and vertical oscillation and both can be controlled with the remote or the app. I can’t be the only person who has gotten completely comfortable in bed and realized that my fan wasn’t blowing in the right direction or speed. I use a smart outlet to be able to turn it off with google voice if I’m cold, but being able to change the aim or speed that could be useful if it works well. It is of course peak laziness, but a lot of smart home products would fall into that. Today I’m going to check out the Dreo PolyFan 513S Air Circulator Fan and find out if being able to change those things remotely with the app or remote is worth the extra cost.

While the big names have been around for what seems like forever, that isn’t really the case. They all get their start at some point and brands that everyone are used to now weren’t always a big name 5-10-15 years ago or more. In this case, the Yeyian Gaming brand is new to me but after some digging, it does come from Vadeto Group which has a few other brands like Qian and Getttech and others. They have been popular in Mexico and growing starting in the States in 2017 but really starting to grow from 2020 and beyond. The Yeyian Gaming brand started off building custom PCs and has expanded to have a whole lineup of products. I have been curious to see what they were all about, so today we are going to check out the Pegasus 1000W ATX 3.0 PSU from them and see what it has to offer.

While I am a keyboard and mouse guy to the core, there are plenty of games that play better when using a controller. So even the most hardcore keyboard and mouse PC gamers should keep a good controller around as well. I’ve been using a PS4 controller for a while but have issues with it from time to time and with that, I have been checking out a few different options from the Cooler Master Storm Controller as a budget option up to the Scuf Reflex controller and with the ROG Ally launch Asus also launched a new controller, the ROG Raikiri Pro and today I’m going to check it out as well to see what it is all about.

Lexar has been doing a great job of getting a nice variety in their SSD product stack while they haven’t brought out a PCIe 5.0 drive just yet and with that, they have also been competitive in pricing as well. Having already established their name in the storage market with their SD cards for years now they are also on the short list of brands that you can pick from when looking at SSDs and at least know what you are getting. They did just recently announce a new PCIe 4.0 drive that they are positioning to run against the WD SN770 and the Crucial P3 Plus. The NM710 is their latest entry-level drive that goes with their NM620 which is their PCIe 3.0 drive. Today I’m going to check out the NM710 and see what makes it tick as well as put it to the test so we can see how it fits in the market as well as check out its pricing to make sure it fits there as well. So let’s dive in and see what the Lexar NM710 is all about.

The AOC CQ27G3Z just recently hit the market and it is a 27-inch QHD (1440p) gaming monitor which has a 1000R curvature VA panel. It has a 240Hz refresh rate, a 0.5 ms MPRT, and supports FreeSync Premium hitting most of the important gaming features. But with this being from the AOC brand, not their higher-end Agon brand we can see that this is a display that they are targeting to be more budget-friendly. The 27-inch 1440p 140Hz display market has mostly had displays in the $699 and up range so a little relief is more than welcomed. Today I’m going to check out the rest of what the AOC CQ27G3Z has to offer and determine if it is as good of a value as AOC is hoping it will be.