Organizer
Gadget news
Samsung’s T9 portable SSD is its first with USB 3 Gen 2×2, it achieves 2,000MB/s transfer speeds
12:47 pm | October 4, 2023
Author: admin | Category: Mobile phones news | Tags: , | Comments: Off

The Samsung Portable SSD T9 is the company’s first with a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interface. This allows the external drives to reach 2,000MB/s sequential read and write speeds, twice as fast as the previous T7 drive (that one had a Gen 2x1 interface). To help the drive stay fast, Samsung equipped it with its “Dynamic Thermal Guard”, which helps minimize slow downs due to thermal throttling. This is only for prolonged transfers, which may be rare – the drive is so quick that you can send a 4GB file to it in just two seconds. The Samsung T9 SSD comes in four capacities: 1TB, 2TB and 4TB. They...

AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT review: pulling an otherwise knockout, midrange punch
12:10 am | September 9, 2023
Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: , , , | Comments: Off

AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT: Two-minute review

To say I've been looking forward to the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT for over a year is an understatement, and if I were to judge this card on its merits, I have to say that this is easily one of the best graphics card releases we've gotten out of this generation. My heart, though, knows that it should have been even better, so I can't help but feel slightly disappointed.

Released right on the heels of Labor Day here in the US, getting this card properly tested was obviously going to be a heavy lift, so when my preliminary benchmark numbers showed it edging out the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 by about 2% overall (while not getting as badly crushed by Nvidia's midrange rival in ray-tracing performance as during the previous generation), I figured this card was going to be an easy one to review.

Coming in at $499.99 (about £380/AU$725) compared to the RTX 4070's MSRP of $599.99 (about £460/AU$870), that roughly 17% price difference in AMD's favor is going to make a world of difference for a lot of gamers out there looking to upgrade to a current-gen midrange card.

In addition to fantastic 1440p gaming performance and even very respectable 4K gaming performance (thanks in no small part to the 16GB VRAM and 256-bit memory bus), ray tracing performance has gotten better as AMD's ray accelerators have improved and a host of new anti-latency and upscaling features make this pretty much the best 1440p graphics card on the market, hands down.

An AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT on a table

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

So why does my heart ache having done a very intense week's worth of testing on this card?

Well, the single biggest negative in this card's column is that there is very little gen-on-gen improvement in terms of its rasterization performance over the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT. 

Now the RX 7800 XT does have things that the RX 6800 XT doesn't have, namely AI accelerator cores that can power more advanced AI workloads like upscaling and other generative AI processes, and the 7800 XT does feature much better ray tracing performance than its predecessor, so calling these cards essentially the same would be factually and substantively wrong.

But rasterization is AMD Radeon's bread-and-butter, and by that metric, you only really get about 12% and 5% better gaming performance at 1080p and 1440p, respectively, and there's essentially no difference at 4K. If you don't care about ray tracing or running Stable Diffusion-like AI models (which you're likely to use Nvidia hardware for anyway), then this card is going to feel much more like a refresh of the RX 6800 XT, or even the RX 6850 XT that we didn't get a year ago.

And for that, the RX 7800 XT leaves me somewhat disappointed. If you aren't upgrading from an RX 6800 XT (which you shouldn't be doing even if this card was a true gen-on-gen successor like the fantastic AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is to the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT), then none of this is really going to matter to you. 

I'd still tell you to buy the RX 7800 XT over the RX 6800 XT and even the RTX 4070, without question, but there's no getting around the fact that the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT misses its shot at being truly magnificent.

AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT: Price & availability

An AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT on a table

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • How much does it cost? $499.99 (about £380/AU$725)
  • When is it available? Available September 6, 2023
  • Where can you get it? Available in the US, UK, and Australia

The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is available on September 6, 2023, starting at $499.99 (about £380/AU$725), which puts it about 23% cheaper than the RX 6800 XT was when it launched in 2020, and $100 cheaper than direct competitor the Nvidia RTX 4070.

It's also just $50 more expensive than the RX 7700 XT that it launched alongside, so anyone looking at the RX 7700 XT might be better served by buying the RX 7800 XT instead since you'll get better performance and extra VRAM without spending a whole lot more money.

AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT: Specs

An AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT on a table

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT: Design

Unlike the RX 7700 XT, the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT does have a reference card, and it'll look familiar to anyone who's been looking at AMD cards this generation. Opting for a two-fan cooling solution, this dual-slot card looks a lot like the AMD Radeon RX 7600 would if you stretched the card lengthwise. 

It's not a long card either, measuring 267mm, or about 10.5 inches, so you shouldn't have any issues getting this card to fit inside a mid-tower case or larger. You might even be able to squeeze it into some tighter-fitting cases as well, but that'll depend on the case itself and what version of the RX 7800 XT you end up getting (third-party versions will vary in size and will likely be longer).

An AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT on a table

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

The reference model of the card features three DisplayPort 2.1 outputs along with an HDMI 2.1 port, so it'll be more than capable of powering the best 4K monitors with ease, along with the various sizes and resolutions of the best gaming monitors on the market.

What it doesn't have, however, is a USB-C output, so if you have one of the best USB-C monitors (which is common in creative industries), youi'll likely need to pick up an adapter if you plan on slotting this card into a workstation.

An AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT on a table

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

You'll also only need two free 8-pin power connectors, so no 12HPWR cable like Nvidia's competing cards. The card is fairly solid with a decent amount of weight, so you'll definitely need a support bracket if you're slotting this directly into a motherboard's PCIe slot.

Overall, the appearance is the same no-fuss, no-bling aesthetic we've gotten from AMD's RDNA 3 reference cards this generation, so if you want that RGB look, you're better off with a third-party card, but otherwise it's a lovely card to look at and won't be the shame of anyone's PC case.

An AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT on a table

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT: Chipset & features

The Navi 32 GPU in the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is the full version of the chip compared to the slightly trimmed-down GPU powering the RX 7700 XT, with an additional 6 compute units over the RX 7700 XT's 54, giving the RX 7800 XT an additional 384 shaders, 6 ray accelerators, and 12 AI accelerators.

The RX 7800 XT has a fairly low base clock of 1,295 MHz, compared to the RX 7700 XT's 1,700 MHz, but the RX 7800 XT's boost clock runs as high as 2,430 MHz (compared to the RX 7700 XT's 2,544 MHz).

This means that even though the RX 7800 XT has slightly more compute units, everything is running slightly slower, which goes a long way to explaining the relatively close levels of performance between the two GPUs.

The RX 7800 XT does feature 16GB VRAM with a large 256-bit memory bus, with a memory clock of 2,425 MHz for an effective 19.4 Gbps. This is slower than the RTX 4070's 21 Gbps effective memory speed, but the wider bus and larger frame buffer offered by the additional 4GB VRAM with the RX 7800 XT really highlights where Nvidia went wrong with lower VRAM and tighter buses this generation, compared to AMD who generally got the memory question on their cards right.

Finally, the TGP on the RX 7800 XT is a rather high 263W, compared to the 200W RTX 4070, but this is still less than the RX 6800 XT's 300W TGP, so there's progress at least.

An AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT on a table

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT: Performance

And here is where the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT impresses the most, even as it breaks my heart: performance.

I'll start with the good news for AMD here, which is that it by and large scores even with the RTX 4070 in terms of synthetic tests and gameplay performance while faltering rather badly against the RTX 4070 in creative workloads, which is pretty much expected given the Nvidia CUDA instruction set's dominance in all things creative.

Image 1 of 15

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 2 of 15

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 3 of 15

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 4 of 15

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 5 of 15

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 6 of 15

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 7 of 15

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 8 of 15

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 9 of 15

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 10 of 15

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 11 of 15

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 12 of 15

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 13 of 15

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 14 of 15

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 15 of 15

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)

On the synthetic side, the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT outperforms the RTX 4070 by about 2% overall, with rasterization workloads being its breakout strength, while Nvidia's ray tracing capabilities continue to outperform AMD's. Though it's worth noting that the RX 7800 XT does a lot to close the gap here, so Nvidia's advantage is only about 15% at best during 3DMark Speedway and just 6% better in Port Royal. 

Meanwhile, the RX 7800 XT manages to score 25% better in 3DMark Firestrike Ultra, showing it to be a much better 4K card than the RTX 4070 thanks to the additional VRAM, a level of performance that is replicated in our gaming tests.

Image 1 of 24

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 2 of 24

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 3 of 24

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 4 of 24

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 5 of 24

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 6 of 24

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 7 of 24

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 8 of 24

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 9 of 24

Benchmarking results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 10 of 24

Benchmarking results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 11 of 24

Benchmarking results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 12 of 24

Benchmarking results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 13 of 24

Benchmarking results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 14 of 24

Benchmarking results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 15 of 24

Benchmarking results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 16 of 24

Benchmarking results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 17 of 24

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 18 of 24

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 19 of 24

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 20 of 24

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 21 of 24

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 22 of 24

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 23 of 24

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)
Image 24 of 24

Benchmark results for the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / Infogram)

When not using any upscaling tech, on average, the RX 7800 XT performs 15% better without ray tracing than the RTX 4070 (and just 4% worse with ray tracing at max settings) at 1080p, 6% better on average at 1440p (16% worse when ray tracing on max settings), and 17% better at 4K (though about 25% worse at 4K when ray tracing).

FSR 2 can't hold a candle to DLSS 3 when ray tracing, but in non-RT gameplay, FSR 2 and the RX 7800 XT actually comes out way ahead across all resolutions when FSR 2 and DLSS 3 are set to balanced, with the RX 7800 XT getting 53%, 21%, 19% better performance at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K, respectively. 

Turning on ray tracing prety much reverses the case and the RTX 4070 gets as much as 47%, 16%, and 12% better performance at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions, respectively.

In short, if you're planning on gaming without ray tracing, there is no question that between the RX 7800 XT and RTX 4070, the RX 7800 XT is the card you'll want to buy. 

Here, as well, the RX 7800 XT manages to perform better than the RX 6800 XT, by about 15%, which isn't awful, but gamers hoping for a much larger improvement on the RX 6800 XT (such as myself) will be disappointed. Getting 15% better FPS on average when talking about the RX 7600 is one thing. 

Given the price and the class of card in question, 15% is pretty much all you're going to get, but for a nearly $500 graphics card, I'd have liked to see 25% to 33%, if I'm being honest, and that's where this card ultimately should have landed in a perfect world. 

But ours is a fallen land, and we're not comparing this card against a Platonic ideal projecting onto a cave wall, we're comparing it to the cards on the shelf that you have to pick between for your next upgrade. 

If you can find the RX 6800 XT for more than 15% less than the RX 7800 XT, that might make the last-gen card the better buy. If that's not an option though, and you're like most gamers looking at the RTX 4070 vs. RX 7800 XT, the vast majority are going to get a better experience from the RX 7800 XT, especially when they have an extra $100 to buy themselves something else that's nice, as a treat.

An AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT on a table

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Should you buy the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT?

Buy it if...

You want to play at 4K
This card has serious 4K gaming chops thanks to its 16GB VRAM and wide memory bus.

You don't want to completely sacrifice ray tracing
AMD is finally getting to the point where you can have both great rasterization and decent ray tracing performance.

Don't buy it if...

You want the best ray tracing and upscaling possible
If ray tracing and upscaling are your bag, then the RTX 4070 is going to be the better buy here.

AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT: Also consider

If my AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT review has you considering other options, here are two more graphics cards to consider.

How I tested the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT

  • I spent about a week with the RX 7800 XT
  • I focused mostly on gaming, since that is what AMD Radeon graphics cards are primarily used for
  • I used our standard battery of benchmark tests and personal gameplay experience
Test System Specs

These are the specs for the test system used for this review:

CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K
CPU Cooler: Cougar Poseidon GT 360 AIO Cooler
Motherboard: MSI MPG Z790E Tomahawk Wifi
Memory: 64GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5-6000
SSD: Samsung 990 Pro
PSU: Thermaltake PF3 1050W ATX 3.0
Case: Praxis Wetbench

I spent about a week extensively testing the RX 7800 XT, both in a test bench and as my personal gaming card at home.

I ran our standard battery of performance benchmarks, including 3DMark tests and various in-game gaming benchmarks, on the RX 7800 XT and various competing graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia to get a slate of comparable figures.

In addition to my extensive computer science education and years as a tech product reviewer, I've been a PC gamer my whole life, so I know what to look for and what to expect from a graphics card at this price point.

We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained - regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it's on our radar.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed September 2023

AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT review: worth the wait, but its price is iffy
4:00 pm | September 6, 2023
Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: , , , | Comments: Off

AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: One-minute review

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is a very solid 1440p graphics card with a lot going for it, but its price isn't one of them, and that ultimately holds it back from scoring a major upset for Team Red.

That isn't to say that the RX 7700 XT isn't a card worth buying, but it is one that comes with a pretty big caveat, namely its bigger sibling, the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT that launches alongside it on September 6, 2023. At $449.99 (about £350/AU$660), this puts it exactly $50 cheaper than the RX 7800 XT. Now, there are caveats around that as well, since the RX 7800 XT's performance is better, but not so much as to make it the best graphics card to buy between the two. 

By offering better ray tracing performance, a significant performance gain over its predecessor, and doing so at a cheaper price point to boot makes the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT an easy card to recommend for anyone looking for the best 1440p graphics card without breaking the bank.

AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: AMD)

Given the end of the summer holiday (in the Northern Hemisphere, at least), I'm still in the process of wrapping up testing on the RX 7800 XT, but it looks to be about 10% to 15% faster than the RX 7700 XT, so the price isn't that far out of pocket on either card, but that does leave you with two cards occupying a very similar niche.

In terms of the RX 7700 XT, its ostensible competition is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, and broadly speaking it wipes the floor with the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB variant when you're not using ray tracing at 1440p and 1080p.

There are times when the RX 7700 XT even gives the Nvidia RTX 4070 some competition, even though that card is supposed to be squaring up against the RX 7800 XT, and it's against our current top pick for the best graphics card overall that really pushes the RX 7700 XT above all the caveats and make it a card worth buying.

AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Price & availability

An AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT on a table

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • How much does it cost? $449.99 (about £350/AU$660)
  • When is it available? Available September 6, 2023
  • Where can you get it? Available in the US, UK, and Australia

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is available on September 6, 2023 starting at $449.99 (about £350/AU$660).

This puts the RX 7700 XT about $30 cheaper than the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT it replaces (which launched at $479.99), which is great, and it puts it dead center between the two RTX 4060 Ti variants in terms of price, so we'll go ahead and call it a wash on that front.

If there's an issue here really it's that the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is also just $50 more ($499.99, about £385/AU$725). As mentioned before, I'm still wrapping up our AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT review, but that card looks to give you about 10% to 15% better performance for an 11% premium, it might be the better value for those who want a midrange card with marginally better performance.

AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Specs

An AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT on a table

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Design

In terms of design, there's not much to say about the AMD RX 7700 XT other than to check with the third-party manufacturers of the card you want to buy, since there is no reference card for the RX 7700 XT.

One thing to note though is that no matter which card you go with, to my knowledge no AMD RX 7700 XT card will require a 12HPWR cable to power it, so two 8-pin cables should be all you need.

An AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT on a table

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Chipset & features

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, along with the RX 7800 XT, finally brings AMD's Navi 32 GPU to the desktop market after nearly a year of waiting, and overall I can say it's been worth the wait.

The RX 7700 XT features a slightly cut-down version of the GPU than the one used in the RX 7800 XT, so there's not too much difference between the two. The biggest though will be what's not on the GPU die itself, namely the amount of VRAM.

The RX 7700 XT features 12GB, which is the bare minimum for effective 1440p gameplay, and unlike the largely disappointing RTX 4060 Ti, AMD at least made sure to include enough VRAM to be effective and gave the card a wide enough memory bus to give it the texture bandwidth necessary to play at this level without needing to rely on the assistance of upscaling tech.

Speaking of upscaling tech, along with the announcement of the RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT, AMD unveiled FSR 3 which should definitely help AMD level the playing field with Nvidia, but since that's a software-driven tool, rather than being tied to the driver and the RDNA 3 hardware itself, I'll save a deep dive into that for another time, but just know that you should be able to start leveraging that tech soon as well.

If there's a knock on the RX 7700 XT here, it's its power consumption. At 245W, its rated power draw is high for a 1440p card, especially when Nvidia is able to make do with 200W for the RTX 4070 and 160W for the RTX 4060 Ti.

An AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT slotted into a test bench

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Performance

In terms of performance, the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is pretty much what we want to see in the gen-on-gen performance increase of a midrange card.

Starting with synthetic benchmarks, the RX 7700 XT scored about 28% better in 1080p performance than the RX 6700 XT, about 35% better in 1440p performance, and about 29% better in terms of 4K performance, or about 30% better than the RX 6700 XT overall.

Against the Nvidia RTX 4070, meanwhile, the RX 7700 XT only scored about 7.25% lower overall in synthetic performance while costing about 25% less, making it a very compelling challenger to Nvidia's best midrange offering.

The same goes for gaming performance, which is really what everyone is interested in here. The story is much as you'd expect: AMD performs as well or better in rasterization performance while falling behind when it comes to ray tracing and upscaling performance against competing RTX 4060 Ti and RTX 4070 cards.

Most interesting perhaps is the RX 7700 XT's performance vis a vis the RTX 4070, where the RX 7700 XT averaged 103 fps at 1080p, 77 fps at 1440p, and 48 fps at 4K, compared to the RTX 4070's 117 fps, 88 fps, and 52 fps, respectively. These are very close, and for many gamers this will be a practical tie depending on their rigs, so if you're looking for the best cheap graphics card for 1440p and 4K gaming, the RX 7700 XT is definitely one to consider.

A masculine hand holding an AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Should you buy the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT?

Buy it if...

You want a great 1440p graphics card
The RX 7700 XT is a fantastic card for 1440p gaming, especially for the price.

You don't care about ray tracing
As with any AMD graphics card, if you don't really care about ray tracing, you can pretty much skip Nvidia's premium offerings.

Don't buy it if...

You have a bit more room in your budget
If you've got some extra money to spend, the RTX 4070 is still likely to be the best option for 1440p gaming.

AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Also consider

If my AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT review has you considering other options, here are two more graphics cards to consider.

How I tested the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

  • I spent about a week with the RX 7700 XT
  • I focused mostly on gaming, since that is what AMD Radeon graphics cards are primarily used for
  • I used our standard battery of benchmark tests and personal gameplay experience
Test System Specs

These are the specs for the test system used for this review:

CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K
CPU Cooler: Cougar Poseidon GT 360 AIO Cooler
Motherboard: MSI MPG Z790E Tomahawk Wifi
Memory: 64GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5-6000
SSD: Samsung 990 Pro
PSU: Thermaltake PF3 1050W ATX 3.0
Case: Praxis Wetbench

I spent about a week with the AM Radeon RX 7700 XT running benchmark tests and playing Baldur's Gate 3 like everyone else is doing right now.

AMD Radeon cards are overwhelmingly used for gaming purposes, so I focused my efforts on determining how good of a gaming graphics card it is.

I've been a PC gamer my whole life and I've spent the past few years extensively benchmarking gaming hardware for a living, so I know how a graphics card at this level is supposed to perform given its price as well as the manufacturer's past product launches.

We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained - regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it's on our radar.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed September 2023

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D review: an unexpected triumph that we should have gotten sooner
12:03 pm | July 7, 2023
Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: , | Comments: Off

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D: Two-minute review

So this here AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D review isn't going to be a normal processor review, since this is not a normal chip. 

It's a limited edition chip exclusively sold through Micro Center in the US, so a lot of folks won't even be able to get their hands on it. That's a hell of a shame, because this chip really makes the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D pretty irrelevant for gamers, and it's easily the best cheap processor for gaming you're going to find — if you can find it.

According to Micro Center, AMD agreed to let Micro Center sell its stock of the unreleased Ryzen 5 5600X3D exclusively through its stores for $229 (about £195/AU$330) as long as stock remains, although there's no sense yet of how much stock there is.

Being a Ryzen 5, the chip comes loaded with six Zen 3 cores (with 12 threads), but those cores are a somewhat slower 3.3GHz base and 4.4GHz boost clock (as opposed to the 3.7GHz base and 4.6GHz boost clock of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X). It has the same TDP as the Ryzen 7 5800X3D (105W), which is also a lot higher than the base Ryzen 5 5600X (65W).

The 3D V-Cache on this chip also gives it a substantially larger cache pool (3MB+96MB L2+L3 cache) than the non-3D version. In total, the 5600X3D has just 1MB less than the 100MB combined cache of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D.

And boy howdy, does it show.

An AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

In terms of performance, the Ryzen 5 5600X3D runs about 16% slower than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D in terms of synthetic benchmarks, which makes sense, since it has slower clocks and two fewer cores. Its single core score is more or less the same though though.

Where this chip shines though is in its gaming performance. Thanks to its effectively identical cache pool compared to the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, the 5600X3D's gaming chops are so exceptional it actually manages to squeeze out some solid wins in our gaming tests, and any losses might at this point come down to what apps I had running in the background.

Test System Specs

Here is the test system setup used to review the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D:

Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090
Motherboard: Gigabyte Aorus X570 Master
CPU Cooler: Cougar Poseidon GT 360
Memory: 64GB Corsair Vengence RGB DDR4-3200
SSD: Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe M.2 SSD
Power Supply: Corsair AX1000
Case: Praxis Wetbench

The only outlier here is the minimum framerate on Returnal, which was about half what it is for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Its average FPS is still about 3-4% higher though.

These benefits will obviously diminish at higher quality settings where the frame rate will become entirely GPU-locked, and since I have an RTX 4090 on the test bench, you can expect slower GPUs to hit that limit much faster, but it's fair to say that this is the same level of gaming performance for roughly 33% less, even considering the recent 5800X3D price cut to $349.

What's more, the chip runs slightly cooler and uses about 22% less power than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. 

In short, if you're looking for a budget midrange chip to power a 1080p or 1440p gaming rig and you have an AM4 board, just stop what you're doing and buy this chip - if and while you can.

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D: Price & availability

An AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • How much does it cost? $229 (about £195/AU$330)
  • When is it available? Available starting July 7, 2023
  • Where can you get it? Available in the US at Micro Center stores

So the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D is only available in the US through Micro Center stores, at an MSRP of $229, while supplies last. AMD only made so many of these chips, and they aren't planning on making more, so if you want to head over to your local Micro Center location and pick one up, you'll have to move somewhat fast I imagine. I don't think anyone knows how many of these chips are going to be available or for how long.

If there is a knock on this chip, it is that AMD never seemed to want to release it, which makes business sense at least. These chips are so good that they pretty much blow up any reason to buy the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, and naturally, AMD would want to sell the chip that's going to make it the most money.

There's no getting around the fact though that gamers who did buy the Ryzen 7 5800X3D could have gotten the same performance for cheaper, but didn't. I can't hold that against this chip per se, but I do wish that this was the chip offered last year rather than the 5800X3D - and that gamers outside the US could get their hands on it.

Should you buy the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D?

An AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Buy it if...

You're looking to upgrade your AM4 system one last time
This is the last processor you should buy for an AM4 system (if you're a gamer, anyway).

You're tight on cash
This chip isn't necessarily cheap, but for a gaming processor, you can't beat this level of price-to-performance value.

Don't buy it if...

You're not in the US
It's not that you shouldn't buy it, it's that you can't buy it. At least, not directly; Micro Center doesn't ship outside of the US.

You don't have an AM4 system
If you've got a next-gen Intel system or you've already moved on to AM5, don't bother with this chip - it'll just be a downgrade.

How I tested the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D

  • I spent about a week testing it
  • Primarily gaming, but also some productivity and creative work

I put this chip through our standard battery of tests, but given the limited availability and the fact that this is a last-gen chip, I only compared it to the best AM4 chip of the last-gen (and the one I'd still broadly recommend to those who can't find the Ryzen 5 5600X3D), the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D.

Primarily, this is a gaming-focused chip, so I spent the most time looking at its gaming performance. In this case, I played several games on it, as well as using my standard battery of built-in benchmark tests to get comparable numbers.

We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained - regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it's on our radar.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed July 2023

Netac ZX20 review: A tiny, external SSD that’s speedy but more expensive than expected
10:17 pm | July 3, 2023
Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: | Comments: Off

One-minute review

The Netac ZX20 is a portable solid state drive that is lightweight, fast, compact, reasonably solid and borrowed that orange carabiner hole from a popular rival: a useful feature to have for anyone who wants to secure their most precious data storage device.

Its (engineered) plastic casing makes it feel tacky but that’s preferable - in my view - to a full metal enclosure that scratches easily, is heavier and adds to the overall cost. The ZX20 comes with the strict minimum when it comes to accessories: just a couple of USB cables and a pouch and there is no bundled software. There’s no activity LED as well but that doesn’t bother me; what irks me more is the fact that it is only available in 512GB and 1TB capacities, rather small by today’s standards.

Just bear in mind that it doesn’t carry any IP or MIL-STD ratings; so don’t drop it in a glass of water to impress your coworkers, it is not a water resistant device. It still feels reasonably solid but be aware of its limitations (even if it includes a three-year warranty).

Netac claims that the drive should reach read/write speeds of up to 2GBps/1.7GBps thanks to its USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interface. I never managed to match that because my laptop only supports USB 3.2 Gen 2, something to bear in mind if ever you want to buy with speed in mind. The drive was still plenty fast for everyday usage.

Even then, it is difficult to recommend the ZX20 given the plethora of alternatives, especially if you don’t have a laptop or desktop PC with USB 3.2 Gen 2x2. I’d recommend the Kingston XS2000 (which is cheaper, has a longer warranty and is waterproof) or the bargain basement Silicon Power PC60 if you don’t have a Gen 2x2 device. Note that I check prices on Amazon.com rather than relying on old and obsolete suggested retail prices.

Netac ZX20

(Image credit: Desire Athow // Future)

Netac ZX20: Pricing and availability

  • How much does it cost? $85.35 / £64.49 / AU$174.58
  • When is it available? Now
  • Where can you get it? In the US, UK, and Australia

In a fiercely competitive category, the ZX20 faces some tough competition; with little to differentiate between the products, it’s very often down to price and at the time of writing, that’s a game that the ZX20 is losing and one that ultimately prevents it from entering our best portable SSD buying guide.

Netac ZX20: Benchmark

You need a Gen 2x2 laptop or desktop computer to experience the full performance that the ZX20 promises to deliver: that’s a theoretical maximum of 20Gbps (2.5GBps). Netac says it will reach 2GBps/1.7GBps in real life but sadly I didn’t achieve those speeds because my test laptop has a USB 3.2 Gen 2, topping at 10Gbps. 

A laptop with USB 4 or Thunderbolt 4 (like the Apple MacBook Pro) will only achieve these speeds as well which clearly shows that Gen 2x2 doesn’t have a future. Neither Samsung nor Crucial, two of the bigger portable SSD vendors out there, have released USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 products.

That aside, the ZX20 achieved some great results that put it firmly in the top five external solid state drives I have tested to date. The drive didn’t warm up even under load.

Should I buy the Netac ZX20

Netac ZX20

(Image credit: Desire Athow // Future)

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Netac ZX20 alternatives

The PNY Elite X Pro looks a lot like the popular Samsung T7 (and the ZX20) but is smaller, cheaper and with a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interface.

The Silicon Power PC60 is bland, unassuming and average in everything except its price. It is an entry-level, affordable and capable device that is far, far cheaper than the competition.

The Kingston XS2000 portable SSD is a better alternative to the ZX20 with a cheaper price tag, a longer warranty and an IP rating.

How I tested the Netac ZX20

After having formatted the ZX20 to exFAT, I test it the same way I test other storage components (external HDD, microSD cards etc). I use the latest versions of CrystalDiskMark, Atto, AS SSD and AJA benchmarks, noting the best scores achieved in each. They are all free and can be downloaded by anyone. I then transfer a folder of files, roughly 10GB in size, to get a rough idea of real life performance.

AMD Radeon RX 7600: a major gift for gamers on a budget
4:00 pm | May 24, 2023
Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: , , , | Comments: Off

AMD Radeon RX 7600: Two minute review

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 is probably the best 1080p graphics card you can buy right now, and in all honesty, it should be the last of its kind.

Team Red has been a bit gun-shy of late with its graphics card offerings, with the last graphics card we saw being the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT. While that was a great card, it launched almost half a year ago, and we haven't heard much from AMD since. 

Meanwhile, its rival has released a steady stream of cards, and at this rate, it's almost through its main GPU stack at this point, so it's interesting that AMD chose to release a very budget-friendly midrange card rather than go down the list of higher-end offerings the way Nvidia has.

In a way, it's a very smart strategy (and one I actually recommended back in February), and with the Radeon RX 7600 going on sale on May 25, 2023, for just $269 (about £215/AU$405), AMD manages to make it to market with its all-important midrange offering at least a full month ahead of Nvidia's competing RTX 4060 while also managing to undercut its rival on price.

In terms of performance, the RX 7600 is a major improvement over the AMD Radeon RX 6600 it replaces, while also generally outperforming the competing Intel Arc A750. It does fall short of the RTX 3060 overall, but not by much, and a lot of that is relative to ray tracing performance, which isn't great on either card to begin with, so this advantage looks bigger than it really is in practice.

If there is one knock against the RX 7600, it's its power draw, which is pulling down 165W TGP, which is more than the 8GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and about 33W more than the RX 6600, so this is definitely the wrong direction for AMD to be going in, power wise.

AMD also has to step up its game when it comes to FSR. Nvidia's most recent launch, the RTX 4060 Ti, was a fairly disappointing card when it came to its baseline performance, but there was no denying that DLSS 3, especially with Frame Generation, is a huge value-add for Team Green. And while DLSS 3 is only available on about 50-ish games, FSR 2 is generally more available with about 120 games featuring FSR 2, but DLSS 2.0 is available in more than 200 games, so AMD has some catching up to do.

When it finally does, the RX 7600 will be an even better buy for midrange gamers, and while it's a sad state of affairs that $269 is about as "budget" as we can hope to see for a while, it's a substantially better value than just about any card on the market right now.

That might change when the RTX 4060 lands, but given that the performance of the baseline performance of the RTX 4060 is expected to be about 20% better than that of the RTX 3060, I expect that it will fall in pretty close to where the RX 7600 currently is, only with a more expensive MSRP and no Founders Edition to keep third-party partners honest in terms of price. 

So unless the RTX 4060 pulls a rabbit out of a hat, I still expect the AMD Radeon RX 7600 to hold the edge over its rival on value, which at this price point is really the only thing that really matters. As it stands, it is the best cheap graphics card you can buy right now, and I expect that will remain the case for the rest of this generation.

AMD Radeon RX 7600: Price & availability

An AMD Radeon RX 7600 on a desk

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • How much is it? MSRP listed at $269 (about £215/AU$405)
  • When is it out? It goes on sale May 25, 2023
  • Where can you get it? You can buy it in the US, UK, and Australia

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 goes on sale on May 25, 2023, with an MSRP of $269, (about £215/AU$405), making it the cheapest card of this generation to launch. Not only that, it's a substantial price drop from the Radeon RX 6600, which launched at $329 (about £265/AU$495), so you're getting a much better graphics card for almost 20% less. This is more like it! 

Ostensibly, the rival to the RX 7600 is the RTX 4060, but since that card has yet to launch, we can only really compare it to the last-gen midrange offerings from Nvidia and Intel.

The Nvidia RTX 4060 when it launches will sell for $299 (about £240/AU$450), which is 9% cheaper than the RTX 3060's official MSRP of $329. The RX 7600 has a cheaper MSRP than either of those, but I expect that the RTX 3060 especially will see some heavy discounting as a result of both the RTX 4060 and the RX 7600, so the value proposition of the RX 7600 might shift depending on what SKU you're looking at.

The RX 7600 does come in slightly more expensive than the Intel Arc A750, and while you might do a double-take at the mention of Intel, the Arc A750 can give the RX 7600 a run for its money at times, so you definitely can't write it off completely.

AMD Radeon RX 7600: Features and chipset

An AMD Radeon RX 7600 on a desk

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • More ray tracing cores and new AI cores
  • Higher TGP

With the move to RDNA 3, the AMD Radeon RX 7600 starts off on a 6nm TSMC process over the RX 6600's 7nm, which gives the RX 7600 a roughly 20% jump in the number of transistors it has to work with (13.3 billion to 11.1 billion). And even though the actual GPU die on the RX 7600 is about 14% smaller than that of the RX 6600, it manages to pack in four additional compute units for a total of 32 compared to the RX 6600's 28.

This is also a more mature architecture, so the 2,048 stream processors (a roughly 14% increase over the RX 6600), are more performant, and the second-generation ray accelerators are a huge improvement over the first-gen RAs in the RX 6600.

The RX 7600 also has faster clocks than the RX 6600, with a boost clock improvement of about 6%, but the big improvement comes with the memory clock speed, which is 2,250MHz for the RX 7600 and 1,750MHz for the RX 6600. This means a nearly 30% boost to memory speed, so even though the RX 7600 is still rocking the same 8GB GDDR6 VRAM on a 128-bit bus as the RX 6600, it has an 18 Gbps effective memory speed compared to 14 Gbps for the RX 6600.

There is also the addition of 64 AI accelerators for the RX 7600, which the RX 6600 simply didn't have. This means that things like Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) will run better than it did on the RX 6600, and it will enable advanced AI workloads like generative AI content creation.

All this does come at the cost of power though, as the RX 7600 has a 25% higher TGP than the RX 6600. This isn't good, and given how Nvidia's cards are typically getting better performance with less power gen-on-gen, this is definitely the wrong direction for AMD to be going in. It still keeps the card "reasonable" when it comes to your PSU, and AMD recommends a 550W PSU for the RX 7600 at a minimum, but this still manages to keep things under 600W overall.

AMD Radeon RX 7600: design

An AMD Radeon RX 7600 on a desk

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

The AMD reference card for the Radeon RX 7600 is a compact dual-fan number that will fit in just about any case. This is a dual-slot card, but it's just over eight inches long and a little over four inches tall, so it's great for mini-tower builds, and with just a single 8-pin power connector, you won't have any issues with cable management here.

In terms of outputs, we get three DisplayPort 2.1 ports, with a single HDMI 2.1a port, though no USB-C output. Honestly, having the DisplayPort 2.1 output is nice, but really unnecessary. With just 8GB VRAM, there is no universe where this card can output 8K video that doesn't default to a slow sequence of still images, so it's a nice-to-have that you are almost guaranteed to never use. Far be it for me to be a buzzkill, though, so if you want to push this card at 8K, do let me know how that turns out.

As for the lack of USB-C, this really isn't a creative card, so this isn't something that you should worry about unless you have one of the best USB-C monitors and nothing else. Even then, I recommend looking further up the stack (like the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT), since USB-C monitors are almost universally for creative pros and this card isn't going to cut it for the kind of work you'll need to do with it.

In terms of its actual aesthetics, like the two RDNA 3 cards before it, the RX 7600 eschews any RGB and features a matte black design with some subtle accent touches like the red stripes on the fins of the heat sink which would be visible in a case. Overall, it's a cool-looking card, especially for those not looking to have excessive RGB lighting up everything in their case.

AMD Radeon RX 7600: Performance

An AMD Radeon RX 7600 on a desk

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • Best-in-class 1080p rasterization performance
  • Much improved ray tracing performance
  • Can manage some decent 1440p performance, especially without ray tracing

Given the missteps Nvidia has been making lately, AMD has a real shot of taking some market share if it can offer compelling performance for gamers. Fortunately for Team Red, the AMD Radeon RX 7600 manages to pull off quite a coup when it comes to gaming performance.

Test system specs

This is the system we used to test the AMD Radeon RX 7600:

CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K
CPU Cooler: Cougar Poseidon GT 360 AIO
RAM: 64GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5-6600MHz
Motherboard: MSI MAG Z790 Tomahawk Wifi
SSD: Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe M.2 SSD
Power Supply: Corsair AX1000
Case: Praxis Wetbench

For the most part, the RTX 4060 is the RX 7600's main competition, but with the Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti just being released, it's the natural comparison at the moment. Is this necessarily fair? No, it's not, and the RX 7600 does lose out to the RTX 4060 Ti on just about every measure, but it really doesn't lose that badly.

In rasterized workloads at 1080p, the RX 7600 is only about 12% slower than the RTX 4060 Ti, and only about 13% slower at 1440p. This changes drastically as soon as you start factoring in ray tracing and upscaling, but it's something I definitely wasn't expecting. Against the RTX 3060 Ti, the RX 7600 fares better, obviously, and generally it outperforms the RTX 3060 in rasterization workloads.

In terms of its predecessor, the RX 7600 is the kind of gen-on-gen improvement I was really expecting to see from the RTX 4060 Ti and didn't get. The RX 7600's rasterization performance is great, but its improved ray accelerators really outshine what the RX 6600 is capable of, and really makes ray tracing at this price point accessible to the midrange.

Synthetic Benchmarks

In synthetic benchmarks, the RX 7600 roundly beats its predecessor, as well as the RTX 3060. Against the card it's replacing, the RX 7600 outperforms the RX 6600 by about 19%, while the RX 7600 beats the RTX 3060 by about 18% overall.

Digging into the results a bit further though, we can see some of the biggest gains come in ray-traced workloads like Port Royal, where the RX 7600 saw a 33% improvement over the previous gen.

The only benchmark where the RX 7600 comes up a bit short is in the Speedway benchmark, which is a 1440p, ray tracing benchmark. Here, the RTX 3060 just barely edges out the RX 7600 by just 219 points, which is close enough to be a bit of a wash.

Gaming Benchmarks

As you can see, when it comes to general rasterization performance at 1080p, the RX 7600 is the hands-down winner, only falling to the RTX 3060 in Counterstrike: Global Offensive, and only then by the barest of margins. Everywhere else, you can expect roughly 15-20% better performance out of the RX 7600 overall.

Things take a bit of a turn when it comes to ray tracing performance, but the results here are a bit deceptive for a couple of reasons. First, Cyberpunk 2077 is Nvidia's major showcase game, and that game is very well optimized for Nvidia cards, so the ray tracing performance for the RTX 3060 is substantially better than for either AMD card. However, take Cyberpunk 2077 out of the mix, and the RX 7600 actually outperforms the RTX 3060 in ray tracing performance. 

It's not all good for AMD though, since the minimum fps for the RX 7600 in both Returnal and Cyberpunk 2077 is in the single digits, and it's not just for a brief moment, but fairly regular dips into slideshow territory, especially around volumetric fog with applied lighting effects.

It's a similar story when you apply upscaling to either Cyberpunk 2077 or Returnal, where the RTX 3060's DLSS 2.0 is simply better optimized for the former, and the AMD RX 7600 struggles on the minimum fps on the latter, so even though the average fps on Returnal looks like it's north of 60 fps, you'll dip as low as 6 fps on the Quality FSR preset or 15 fps on the Ultra Performance preset, and trust me, it's noticeable. 

Of course, turn ray tracing off and you probably won't have this issue, but that will be a series of settings compromises you will have to decide for yourself. Overall though, the AMD Radeon RX 7600 manages to perform well above where you would expect from this generation at this price point. If you're looking for an outstanding and reasonably cheap 1080p graphics card, you can't go wrong with this one.

Should you buy the AMD Radeon RX 7600?

An AMD Radeon RX 7600 on a desk

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Also consider

An AMD Radeon RX 7600 on a desk

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

If my AMD Radeon RX 7600 review has you considering other options, here's two other graphics cards to consider.

How we test graphics cards

I spend several days with the RX 7600 running benchmarks, playing games, and generally measuring its performance against competing cards.

I paid special attention to its 1080p performance, since this is the main target audience for this card, while also stretching into 1440p gaming as well.

Having covered and tested many graphics cards in my career, I know how a graphics card should perform at this level and what you should be spending for this level of performance. 

Read more about how we test

Intel Arc A750 review: a great budget graphics card with major caveats
9:48 pm | May 22, 2023
Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: , , , | Comments: Off

Intel Arc A750: Two-minute review

The Intel Arc A750 is probably the one graphics card I've most wanted to get my hands on this year, and now that I've put it through a fairly rigorous testing regime, I can honestly say I am very impressed with Intel's first effort at a discrete GPU. At the same time, it's also not an easy card to recommend right now, which is a tragedy.

First, to the good, namely the great price and stylish look of the Intel Limited Edition reference card. The Intel Arc A750 Limited Edition card has an MSRP of just $249.99 (about £200 / AU$375), and the limited number of third-party cards out there are retailing at roughly the same price. 

The Arc A750 I tested also looks spectacular compared to the reference cards from Nvidia and AMD, thanks to its matte black look, subtle lighting, and silver trim along the edge of the card. It will look great in a case, especially for those who don't need their PCs to look like a carnival.

When it comes to performance, I was most surprised by how the Arc A750 handled modern AAA games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Returnal, both of which put a lot of demands on a graphics card in order to maintain a stable frame rate. The Arc A750 handled them much better than the RTX 3050 it is ostensibly competing against. It even outperformed the RTX 3060 in many cases, putting it just under halfway between the RTX 3060 and the RTX 3060 Ti, two of the best graphics cards ever made.

The Arc A750 manages to pull this off while costing substantially less, which is definitely a huge point in its column.

An Intel Arc A750 running on a test bench

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
Test system specs

This is the system we used to test the Intel Arc A750:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
CPU Cooler: Cougar Poseidon GT 360 AIO
RAM: 32GB Corsair Dominator Platinum @ 5,200MHz & 32GB G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo @ 5,200MHz
Motherboard: ASRock X670E Taichi
SSD: Samsung 980 Pro 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD
Power Supply: Corsair AX1000
Case: Praxis Wetbench

The thing about the Arc A750 is that the things it does well, it does really well, but those areas where it flounders, like older DirectX9 and DirectX10 workloads, it does so pretty badly. 

It's a tale of two halves, really. Nothing exposes the issues with the Arc A750 more than its synthetic performance scores, which on average trounce the RTX 3060, 23,924 to 20,216. In that average though is its PassMark 3D score, a good measure of the card's ability to render content that wasn't just put out within the last couple of years. Here, the Arc A750 scored a dismal 9,766 to the RTX 3060's 20,786 - a 10,000 point deficit.

The story is similar when gaming, where the Arc A750 generally outperforms its rival cards, even in ray tracing in which Intel is the newcomer behind mature leader Nvidia and fiesty, determined AMD. In fact, when gaming with ray tracing at 1080p, the Intel Arc A750 comes in a close second behind Nvidia's RTX 3060 8GB, 37fps on average to the 3060's 44fps.

Bump that up to 1440p, however, and the Intel Arc A750 actually does better than the RTX 3060 8GB - 33fps on average to the 3060's 29fps average. When running Intel XeSS and Nvidia DLSS, the Arc A750 averages about 56fps on max settings with full ray tracing at 1080p, while the RX 6600 can only muster 46fps on average.

These are much lower than the RTX 3060's 77fps, thanks to DLSS, but getting roughly 60fps gaming with full ray tracing and max settings at 1080p is a hell of an accomplishment for the first generation of Intel discrete graphics. The Arc A750 can even run even with the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT in ray tracing performance with upscaling at 1440p, getting 42fps on average. 

If only this performance were consistent across every game, then there would be no question that the Intel Arc A750 is the best cheap graphics card on the market. But it is exactly that inconsistency that drags this card down. Some games, like Tiny Tina's Wonderland, won't even run on the Arc A750, and it really, really should. How many games are there out there like Tiny Tina's? It's impossible to say, which is the heartbreaking thing about this card.

I really can't recommend people drop $250 on a graphics card that might not play their favorite games. That is simply not a problem that AMD or Nvidia have. Their performance might be rough for a few days or weeks after a game launches, but the game plays. The same can't be said of the A750, and only you, the buyer, can decide if that is worth the risk.

In the end, the Intel Arc A750 is a journeyman blacksmith's work: showing enormous potential but not of enough quality to merit selling in the shop. Those pieces are how craftspeople learn to become great, and I can very clearly see the greatness that future Arc cards can achieve as Intel continues to work on lingering issues and partners with more game developers.

It's just not there yet. As Intel's drivers improve, a lot of these issues might fade away, and the Intel Arc A750 will grow into the formidable card it seems like it should be. If you're comfortable dropping this kind of cash and taking that chance, you will still find this card does a lot of things great and can serve as a bridge to Intel's next generation of cards, Arc Battlemage, due out in 2024. 

Intel Arc A750 Price & availability

An Intel Arc A750 graphics card on a pink desk mat next to its retain packaging

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • How much does it cost? MSRP of $249.99 (about £200 / AU$375)
  • When can you get it? It is available now
  • Where can you get it? It is available in the US, UK, and Australia, but stock may be an issue

The Intel Arc A750 is available now, starting at $249.99 (about £200 / AU$375). There are a limited number of third-party partners who also make the A750, though these tend to sell at or very close to Intel's MSRP from what I've seen.

This puts the Arc A750 on the same level price-wise as the Nvidia RTX 3050, but it definitely offers better performance, making it a better value so long as you're ok with the varying compatibility of the Arc A750 with some PC games out there.

  • Value: 4 / 5

Intel Arc A750 Specs

An Intel Arc A750 graphics card on a pink desk mat next to its retain packaging

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Should you buy the Intel Arc A750?

Buy it if...

You're looking for a cheap GPU
At $249.99, this is one of the best cheap GPUs you're going to find.

You want a stylish looking card
This card is very cool looking in a way that Nvidia and AMD reference cards simply aren't.

You want strong ray tracing and upscaling
Not only do Intel's AI cores make XeSS upscaling a serious contender, the Arc A750's ray tracing performance is quite strong.

Don't buy it if...

You are concerned about compatibility
While only one game I tested wouldn't work, that's one game too many for many gamers out there.

You're concerned about power consumption
At 225W TGP, this card soaks up way more power than a card in this class reasonably should.

Intel Arc A750: Also consider

If my Intel Arc A750 has you considering other options, here are two more cards to consider...

How I tested the Intel Arc A750

An Intel Arc A750 graphics card on a pink desk mat next to its retain packaging

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • I spent several days with the Intel Arc A750
  • I used the A750 in my personal PC playing games and doing creative work
  • I ran our standard battery of tests on the Arc A750

I spent several days with the Intel Arc A750 to test its gaming and creative performance, including at 1080p and 1440p. In addition to gaming, I ran our standard suite of GPU tests at it using the same system set up I use for all our graphics card tests. 

Besides my extensive computer science education or practical experience, I have been a hardware reviewer for a few years now, and a PC gamer for even longer, so I know how well graphics cards are supposed to perform with a given set of specs.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed May 2023

AyaNeo Air Plus review
6:12 pm | April 26, 2023
Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: , , , | Comments: Off

AyaNeo Air Plus: Two minute review

AyaNeo is making PC handhelds as fast as you can buy them. It seems only a few weeks have passed since we looked at the gorgeous AyaNeo 2, another excellent handheld gaming PC. Yet, here we are with the all-new AyaNeo Air Plus device — available in several different configurations, no less, and all very exciting.

The flagship version I’ve been testing packs in the same AMD Ryzen 7 6800U chipset that we saw in the more-premium AyaNeo 2, but in a smaller form factor that makes it a far more comfortable device for portable play. As a result, for my money, this is currently the best handheld gaming PC on the market. It offers the same AAA performance of the AyaNeo 2, at a price point closer to the Steam Deck, but in a device that’s just simply more comfortable to play for extended lengths of time by virtue of its compact design, fronted by a 6-inch 1080p display.

The end result is something quite special — a truly portable gaming PC capable of better performance than the Steam Deck, with full-fat Windows 11 to play about in. Yes, it remains more expensive than Valve’s handheld, and the Steam Deck is the recommended option for those who want a more console-like experience. But for those that are willing to trade a degree of convenience in favor of frame rate, resolution and portability, the AyaNeo Air Plus is an incredible device.

AyaNeo Air Plus: Price and availability

AyaNeo Air Plus screen

(Image credit: Future / Gerald Lynch)
  •  How much does it cost? Starts at $599 (model reviewed RRP $979) 
  •  When is it available? Available now in Glacier Blue, Starlight Black and Classic Grey 
  •  Where can you get it? Available online direct from AyaNeo, with third-party retailers to follow soon 
AyaNeo Air Plus: Specs

Here is the AyaNeo Air Plus configuration sent to TechRadar Gaming for review: 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 6800U

RAM: 32GB LPDDR5 6400 (16GB option available)

SSD: 512GB (1TB and 2TB options available)

Size: 237mm X 91.4mm x 23.1mm 

Weight: 525g

Screen: 1920 x 1080 / IPS / 6-inch / 400nits / 368 PPI / Touch-enabled

Input: Hall sensor joysticks / Hall sensor triggers / Fingerprint scanner

Battery: 46.2Wh / PD3.0 65W Fast Charge

Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6 / BT 5.2 / USB-C (USB 4) x 2 / Micro SD

OS: Windows 11 Home

The AyaNeo Air Plus starts at an affordable $599 for its lower-powered models, but to get into the Steam Deck-beating territory, it stalks, you need to cough up for the premium AMD Ryzen 7 6800U model. At that point, you’ve comfortably got a machine that outperforms Valve’s model — at a significantly higher price, of course, which is fair enough, considering Valve helps to subsidize Steam Deck costs through Steam store game sales. In terms of value, you’ll likely get more pure gaming mileage with a gaming laptop of similar cost, and more functionality with keys and trackpad too. But you’ll lose the magic of it being a truly handheld machine along the way. And this is still cheaper than the premium AyaNeo 2, despite near-identical internal specs delivering the same fantastic AAA PC gaming performance.

AyaNeo also offers other variants of the Air Plus in less powerful configurations, including Intel Alder Lake Core i3 1215U builds starting at $649, and additional AMD Ryzen 3 7320U and Ryzen 5 7520U variants starting at $599. Each offers either 128GB or 512GB SSD storage, and 8GB or 16GB of LPDDR5 storage. All other specs remain the same.

  • Value: 3.5 / 5 

AyaNeo Air Plus: Design

AyaNeo Air Plus controls

(Image credit: Future)
  •  Great size for a Windows portable 
  •  Ergonomic controls 
  •  Premium Hall sensor triggers and sticks 

AyaNeo has had a fair few goes at creating handheld PCs at this point, and the refinements it’s been making along the way are really starting to pay off. While this is not as luxurious as the AyaNeo 2, instead designed to land at a more affordable price point, I’d argue this is the better machine for portable play in many ways.

That’s in large part because of the screen size. The AyaNeo Air Plus opts for a 6-inch touch display compared to the 7-incher on the AyaNeo 2. Both are gorgeous; rich IPS displays with contrast ratios and color depth to rival an OLED panel. But the smaller screen on the Air Plus facilitates an overall smaller, lighter design, making it far easier to play and hold for longer play sessions. It puts the oversized Steam Deck to shame in this respect. And, as I’ll discuss in a bit, it also helps to increase battery life. Interestingly, the brightness steps on the AyaNeo Air Plus feel a little… off? After about 30% brightness, you’re so close to max visible brightness that I rarely went above that value, so it doesn't seem worth any potential battery trade-off to go any higher. Regardless, it’s a sharper, brighter display than you’ll find on a Steam Deck, even before you hit the halfway mark.

Not every difference in design next to its pricier AyaNeo 2 stablemate is for the better: you’ve only got two USB-C ports (one on the top edge, one on the bottom) compared to the three found on the AyaNeo 2, and the sticks are inferior Joy-Con clones rather than the Xbox-like sticks on the AyaNeo 2. But again, in service of a smaller overall device, they’re smart choices, and the drift-free Hall sensors are still present in the sticks for accurate control. Each has an adjustable RGB light underneath, too.

It's ergonomically very comfortable, and more traditional in size and shape than the Steam Deck. A slight curvature to the back shell where your palms sit lets your fingers hug the AyaNeo Air Plus without cramping (though it is a fingerprint magnet on the rear), and shoulder and trigger buttons are in easy reach, with just the right amount of travel and clickiness. Those triggers are analogue compatible too, again with Hall sensors, letting you dial in fine input — perfect for, say, revving an engine at just the right speed in a racing game like Forza Horizon 5. The D-Pad pivots well, and gives you the precision you need for platformers and brawlers. Start and select buttons sit under the D-Pad on the left, and X, Y, A, and B buttons sit above the right stick — buttons a little smaller perhaps than we’d like, but again in service of added portability.

There’s a few extra buttons that you won’t usually find on a traditional console handheld here. Next to the shoulder buttons are two clicky hotkey buttons that can be configured for whatever use you see fit —say, for instance, bringing up the onscreen touch keyboard, or Task Manager. Then below the right stick are two circular buttons, one larger than the other. The bigger opens up the Aya Space game launcher and device settings software with a long press, while a short press brings up an overlay for quick settings like TDP, brightness and volume control. The smaller button is configurable, but I left it as its default ‘Show Desktop’ function, which is always handy. Up top is a power button which also doubles up as a fingerprint scanner — it’s far, far more reliable than that seen on the AyaNeo 2, thankfully.

That top edge is capped off by a thin horizontal volume rocker, a mic spot, the first of the USB-C ports and a large exhaust vent, pushing out air pulled in from a fan intake grill on the rear of the device. The lower edge houses the AyaNeo Air Plus’s stereo speakers, the second USB-C port, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a microSD slot, covered by a flap. Those speakers are reasonably loud, and won’t be drowned out when the fans need to kick in.

  • Design: 4.5 / 5

AyaNeo Air Plus: Performance

AyaNeo Air Plus top I/O

(Image credit: Future / Gerald Lynch)
  •  Great AAA gaming performance 
  •  Better-than-expected battery life 
  •  Could be quickly overshadowed by a growing number of rival devices 

Though it’s not packing discrete graphics, the superb performance of AMD’s Ryzen 7 6800U chipset, paired with the 32GB of RAM in our review unit, means that the AyaNeo Air Plus can handle any game I throw at it. Yes, you may need to dial the resolution down a tad, drop the graphical presets to lower settings, and accept that you won’t get Cyberpunk 2077’s ray-tracing ‘Overdrive’ mode running here. But if you’ve ever dreamed of playing Elden Ring on the toilet (or should that be the nightmare?), the AyaNeo Air Plus makes that possible at solid frame rates.

Performance in many aspects is similar to that of the AyaNeo 2: though that’s a more premium device in its external design, reflected in its pricing, the internal specs are essentially identical.

As you’d expect, indie games like Hades and Night in the Woods will easily play at 1080p / 60fps without the AyaNeo Air Plus breaking a sweat, with a sweet spot between 5W and 8W for 2D titles and retro 3D games. Cranking things up a notch, a 10W TDP and 720p resolution saw an enjoyably stable 30fps for Grand Theft Auto V on medium settings — an experience that could scale to 60fp or higher resolutions with ease at a higher TDP (at the expense of battery life). Similar fun could be had with The Witcher 3 at a 30fps cap on Low settings at a 720p resolution by pushing the TDP on the chipset up to 20W — a superior handheld experience compared to the Nintendo Switch port, for instance. Those that are wanting to dabble with emulation will have a great time, too, with upscaled PS2 and Gamecube easily achieved across the vast majority of titles, and even solid performance with platforms as demanding as the PS3.

Where the AyaNeo Air Plus beats out the AyaNeo 2; however, by some distance is in battery life. With a smaller 6-inch display, the Air Plus is less power-hungry, and given that the smaller screen size facilitates a smaller handheld overall, that, combined with battery improvements, makes for a better device all around, in my opinion. Lower-end games, such as indies or retro titles, will happily run for between 3 and 4 hours at a 1080p resolution and between a 5W or 8W TDP, while an online shooter like Destiny 2 can get upwards of two hours of play at 720p and a 30fps cap. The real top-tier titles, like the PC God of War port, is still going to push the AyaNeo Air Plus to its limits in terms of battery life. But if you’re conservative in your settings, you can still eke out close to an hour and a half of play before the battery throws in the towel. 

As has become the norm with PC portables, your mileage will vary based on your stomach for lower frame rates and resolutions versus battery life. You will have to be prepared to tweak TDP settings to find the happy balance you’re comfortable with. This isn’t quite pick-up-and-play, then, though honestly, PC gaming in any form factor never has been. But the compromise feels much fairer here than with its AyaNeo 2 predecessor. In portable PC terms, this is as good as it currently gets.

Just how long the AyaNeo Air Plus sits on top of the PC gaming handheld pile is debatable. However — as AyaNeo’s own recent, busy product roadmap shows, this is a product category growing at an incredible rate. Competition is landing thick and fast, and devices like the upcoming ASUS ROG Ally will give the AyaNeo Air Plus a run for its money. For now, however, the AyaNeo Air Plus is leading the pack.

  • Performance: 4.5 / 5 

AyaNeo Air Plus: Software and features

Homescreen of the AyaNeo Air Plus

(Image credit: Future / Gerald Lynch)

The AyaNeo Air Plus runs full-fat Windows 11 Home, meaning you can dig around in the back end of Microsoft’s operating system with impunity. If you want to install any and every Windows application, fire up a Word document or even run your business, nothing is stopping you from doing that on the AyaNeo Air Plus.

That’s a double-edged sword, however. Despite technically supporting touch input, it’s still an operating system best navigated with a keyboard and mouse, and AyaNeo’s efforts to translate that to touch, stick and face button mappings is admirable but ultimately flawed. Likewise, its Aya Space frontend, which acts as both a game launcher and hardware setting configuration application, is better in theory than in practice. It is not quite a match for the Steam Deck SteamOS experience, let alone something as well polished and focused as the Nintendo Switch operating system. The shortcut overlay, accessed by pressing the AyaNeo logo ‘Home’ button on the device, is more useful, though, letting you quickly tweak fan settings, TDP draws to eke more power from the device, as well as resolution settings, brightness, volume and quick-launch buttons for apps or features like the onscreen keyboard.

Should you buy the AyaNeo Air Plus?

Buy it if... 

You want relatively powerful PC gaming on the go

This is a handheld PC with as much power as you can currently fit into a device this size, making for a great gameplay experience. 

You want your mobile devices to actually feel portable

The size and shape of the AyaNeo Air Plus makes it far easier to actually travel with, without compromising comfort.

You are comfortable with Windows

AyaNeo Air Plus gives you access to the full functionality of the Windows operating system — and all the potential that brings with it. 

Don't buy it if... 

You’re on a tight budget

You’ll get a ‘good-enough’ handheld PC gaming experience from a Steam Deck, but at a much cheaper price.

You want a more console-like experience

The Aya Space software isn’t good enough to keep you from having to delve back into Windows constantly.

You want to be able to get real work done on your gaming PC

If that’s the case, you may want to pick up a keyboard-equipped gaming laptop instead.

Also Consider: Valve's Steam Deck

If our AyaNeo Air Plus review has you considering other options, you should consider… 

How I tested the AyaNeo Air Plus

  • Review test period: two weeks 
  • Gaming across Steam / Epic Games. AAA games and indie titles 
  • Light web browsing and general Windows PC tasks

Over the course of two weeks testing the AyaNeo Air Plus, I played a range of modern, classic, indie, and AAA PC gaming titles, ranging from everything from Cyberpunk 2077 to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. I even played some retro titles via emulation software.

Though it’s pricier than the Steam Deck, the AyaNeo Air Plus justifies that by being the superior machine in many ways. For example, it’s more powerful, has a more comfortable form factor, and has better specs in key departments, including screen quality. Its only drawback is its software, which hasn’t been as perfectly optimized for handheld play in the same way that the Steam Deck equivalent has. Having said that, you get far more flexibility with the native full-fat Windows on offer here.

Working as a technology and gaming journalist for more than 15 years, I’ve tested (and in many cases owned) every major games console since the SNES, dozens of gaming PCs, and reviewed countless games along the way. I’m a regular gamer at home across Xbox Series X, PS5, and Nintendo Switch consoles, and I have my own gaming PC equipped with the latest generation of Intel processors and an Nvidia RTX 3080 GPU. I’ve also tested many of the new wave of gaming handhelds, including devices from Ayn, Anbernic, PowKiddy, and other AyaNeo models.

AyaNeo Air Plus review
6:12 pm |
Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: , , , | Comments: Off

AyaNeo Air Plus: Two minute review

AyaNeo is making PC handhelds as fast as you can buy them. It seems only a few weeks have passed since we looked at the gorgeous AyaNeo 2, another excellent handheld gaming PC. Yet, here we are with the all-new AyaNeo Air Plus device — available in several different configurations, no less, and all very exciting.

The flagship version I’ve been testing packs in the same AMD Ryzen 7 6800U chipset that we saw in the more-premium AyaNeo 2, but in a smaller form factor that makes it a far more comfortable device for portable play. As a result, for my money, this is currently the best handheld gaming PC on the market. It offers the same AAA performance of the AyaNeo 2, at a price point closer to the Steam Deck, but in a device that’s just simply more comfortable to play for extended lengths of time by virtue of its compact design, fronted by a 6-inch 1080p display.

The end result is something quite special — a truly portable gaming PC capable of better performance than the Steam Deck, with full-fat Windows 11 to play about in. Yes, it remains more expensive than Valve’s handheld, and the Steam Deck is the recommended option for those who want a more console-like experience. But for those that are willing to trade a degree of convenience in favor of frame rate, resolution and portability, the AyaNeo Air Plus is an incredible device.

AyaNeo Air Plus: Price and availability

AyaNeo Air Plus screen

(Image credit: Future / Gerald Lynch)
  •  How much does it cost? Starts at $599 (model reviewed RRP $979) 
  •  When is it available? Available now in Glacier Blue, Starlight Black and Classic Grey 
  •  Where can you get it? Available online direct from AyaNeo, with third-party retailers to follow soon 
AyaNeo Air Plus: Specs

Here is the AyaNeo Air Plus configuration sent to TechRadar Gaming for review: 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 6800U

RAM: 32GB LPDDR5 6400 (16GB option available)

SSD: 512GB (1TB and 2TB options available)

Size: 237mm X 91.4mm x 23.1mm 

Weight: 525g

Screen: 1920 x 1080 / IPS / 6-inch / 400nits / 368 PPI / Touch-enabled

Input: Hall sensor joysticks / Hall sensor triggers / Fingerprint scanner

Battery: 46.2Wh / PD3.0 65W Fast Charge

Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6 / BT 5.2 / USB-C (USB 4) x 2 / Micro SD

OS: Windows 11 Home

The AyaNeo Air Plus starts at an affordable $599 for its lower-powered models, but to get into the Steam Deck-beating territory, it stalks, you need to cough up for the premium AMD Ryzen 7 6800U model. At that point, you’ve comfortably got a machine that outperforms Valve’s model — at a significantly higher price, of course, which is fair enough, considering Valve helps to subsidize Steam Deck costs through Steam store game sales. In terms of value, you’ll likely get more pure gaming mileage with a gaming laptop of similar cost, and more functionality with keys and trackpad too. But you’ll lose the magic of it being a truly handheld machine along the way. And this is still cheaper than the premium AyaNeo 2, despite near-identical internal specs delivering the same fantastic AAA PC gaming performance.

AyaNeo also offers other variants of the Air Plus in less powerful configurations, including Intel Alder Lake Core i3 1215U builds starting at $649, and additional AMD Ryzen 3 7320U and Ryzen 5 7520U variants starting at $599. Each offers either 128GB or 512GB SSD storage, and 8GB or 16GB of LPDDR5 storage. All other specs remain the same.

  • Value: 3.5 / 5 

AyaNeo Air Plus: Design

AyaNeo Air Plus controls

(Image credit: Future)
  •  Great size for a Windows portable 
  •  Ergonomic controls 
  •  Premium Hall sensor triggers and sticks 

AyaNeo has had a fair few goes at creating handheld PCs at this point, and the refinements it’s been making along the way are really starting to pay off. While this is not as luxurious as the AyaNeo 2, instead designed to land at a more affordable price point, I’d argue this is the better machine for portable play in many ways.

That’s in large part because of the screen size. The AyaNeo Air Plus opts for a 6-inch touch display compared to the 7-incher on the AyaNeo 2. Both are gorgeous; rich IPS displays with contrast ratios and color depth to rival an OLED panel. But the smaller screen on the Air Plus facilitates an overall smaller, lighter design, making it far easier to play and hold for longer play sessions. It puts the oversized Steam Deck to shame in this respect. And, as I’ll discuss in a bit, it also helps to increase battery life. Interestingly, the brightness steps on the AyaNeo Air Plus feel a little… off? After about 30% brightness, you’re so close to max visible brightness that I rarely went above that value, so it doesn't seem worth any potential battery trade-off to go any higher. Regardless, it’s a sharper, brighter display than you’ll find on a Steam Deck, even before you hit the halfway mark.

Not every difference in design next to its pricier AyaNeo 2 stablemate is for the better: you’ve only got two USB-C ports (one on the top edge, one on the bottom) compared to the three found on the AyaNeo 2, and the sticks are inferior Joy-Con clones rather than the Xbox-like sticks on the AyaNeo 2. But again, in service of a smaller overall device, they’re smart choices, and the drift-free Hall sensors are still present in the sticks for accurate control. Each has an adjustable RGB light underneath, too.

It's ergonomically very comfortable, and more traditional in size and shape than the Steam Deck. A slight curvature to the back shell where your palms sit lets your fingers hug the AyaNeo Air Plus without cramping (though it is a fingerprint magnet on the rear), and shoulder and trigger buttons are in easy reach, with just the right amount of travel and clickiness. Those triggers are analogue compatible too, again with Hall sensors, letting you dial in fine input — perfect for, say, revving an engine at just the right speed in a racing game like Forza Horizon 5. The D-Pad pivots well, and gives you the precision you need for platformers and brawlers. Start and select buttons sit under the D-Pad on the left, and X, Y, A, and B buttons sit above the right stick — buttons a little smaller perhaps than we’d like, but again in service of added portability.

There’s a few extra buttons that you won’t usually find on a traditional console handheld here. Next to the shoulder buttons are two clicky hotkey buttons that can be configured for whatever use you see fit —say, for instance, bringing up the onscreen touch keyboard, or Task Manager. Then below the right stick are two circular buttons, one larger than the other. The bigger opens up the Aya Space game launcher and device settings software with a long press, while a short press brings up an overlay for quick settings like TDP, brightness and volume control. The smaller button is configurable, but I left it as its default ‘Show Desktop’ function, which is always handy. Up top is a power button which also doubles up as a fingerprint scanner — it’s far, far more reliable than that seen on the AyaNeo 2, thankfully.

That top edge is capped off by a thin horizontal volume rocker, a mic spot, the first of the USB-C ports and a large exhaust vent, pushing out air pulled in from a fan intake grill on the rear of the device. The lower edge houses the AyaNeo Air Plus’s stereo speakers, the second USB-C port, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a microSD slot, covered by a flap. Those speakers are reasonably loud, and won’t be drowned out when the fans need to kick in.

  • Design: 4.5 / 5

AyaNeo Air Plus: Performance

AyaNeo Air Plus top I/O

(Image credit: Future / Gerald Lynch)
  •  Great AAA gaming performance 
  •  Better-than-expected battery life 
  •  Could be quickly overshadowed by a growing number of rival devices 

Though it’s not packing discrete graphics, the superb performance of AMD’s Ryzen 7 6800U chipset, paired with the 32GB of RAM in our review unit, means that the AyaNeo Air Plus can handle any game I throw at it. Yes, you may need to dial the resolution down a tad, drop the graphical presets to lower settings, and accept that you won’t get Cyberpunk 2077’s ray-tracing ‘Overdrive’ mode running here. But if you’ve ever dreamed of playing Elden Ring on the toilet (or should that be the nightmare?), the AyaNeo Air Plus makes that possible at solid frame rates.

Performance in many aspects is similar to that of the AyaNeo 2: though that’s a more premium device in its external design, reflected in its pricing, the internal specs are essentially identical.

As you’d expect, indie games like Hades and Night in the Woods will easily play at 1080p / 60fps without the AyaNeo Air Plus breaking a sweat, with a sweet spot between 5W and 8W for 2D titles and retro 3D games. Cranking things up a notch, a 10W TDP and 720p resolution saw an enjoyably stable 30fps for Grand Theft Auto V on medium settings — an experience that could scale to 60fp or higher resolutions with ease at a higher TDP (at the expense of battery life). Similar fun could be had with The Witcher 3 at a 30fps cap on Low settings at a 720p resolution by pushing the TDP on the chipset up to 20W — a superior handheld experience compared to the Nintendo Switch port, for instance. Those that are wanting to dabble with emulation will have a great time, too, with upscaled PS2 and Gamecube easily achieved across the vast majority of titles, and even solid performance with platforms as demanding as the PS3.

Where the AyaNeo Air Plus beats out the AyaNeo 2; however, by some distance is in battery life. With a smaller 6-inch display, the Air Plus is less power-hungry, and given that the smaller screen size facilitates a smaller handheld overall, that, combined with battery improvements, makes for a better device all around, in my opinion. Lower-end games, such as indies or retro titles, will happily run for between 3 and 4 hours at a 1080p resolution and between a 5W or 8W TDP, while an online shooter like Destiny 2 can get upwards of two hours of play at 720p and a 30fps cap. The real top-tier titles, like the PC God of War port, is still going to push the AyaNeo Air Plus to its limits in terms of battery life. But if you’re conservative in your settings, you can still eke out close to an hour and a half of play before the battery throws in the towel. 

As has become the norm with PC portables, your mileage will vary based on your stomach for lower frame rates and resolutions versus battery life. You will have to be prepared to tweak TDP settings to find the happy balance you’re comfortable with. This isn’t quite pick-up-and-play, then, though honestly, PC gaming in any form factor never has been. But the compromise feels much fairer here than with its AyaNeo 2 predecessor. In portable PC terms, this is as good as it currently gets.

Just how long the AyaNeo Air Plus sits on top of the PC gaming handheld pile is debatable. However — as AyaNeo’s own recent, busy product roadmap shows, this is a product category growing at an incredible rate. Competition is landing thick and fast, and devices like the upcoming ASUS ROG Ally will give the AyaNeo Air Plus a run for its money. For now, however, the AyaNeo Air Plus is leading the pack.

  • Performance: 4.5 / 5 

AyaNeo Air Plus: Software and features

Homescreen of the AyaNeo Air Plus

(Image credit: Future / Gerald Lynch)

The AyaNeo Air Plus runs full-fat Windows 11 Home, meaning you can dig around in the back end of Microsoft’s operating system with impunity. If you want to install any and every Windows application, fire up a Word document or even run your business, nothing is stopping you from doing that on the AyaNeo Air Plus.

That’s a double-edged sword, however. Despite technically supporting touch input, it’s still an operating system best navigated with a keyboard and mouse, and AyaNeo’s efforts to translate that to touch, stick and face button mappings is admirable but ultimately flawed. Likewise, its Aya Space frontend, which acts as both a game launcher and hardware setting configuration application, is better in theory than in practice. It is not quite a match for the Steam Deck SteamOS experience, let alone something as well polished and focused as the Nintendo Switch operating system. The shortcut overlay, accessed by pressing the AyaNeo logo ‘Home’ button on the device, is more useful, though, letting you quickly tweak fan settings, TDP draws to eke more power from the device, as well as resolution settings, brightness, volume and quick-launch buttons for apps or features like the onscreen keyboard.

Should you buy the AyaNeo Air Plus?

Buy it if... 

You want relatively powerful PC gaming on the go

This is a handheld PC with as much power as you can currently fit into a device this size, making for a great gameplay experience. 

You want your mobile devices to actually feel portable

The size and shape of the AyaNeo Air Plus makes it far easier to actually travel with, without compromising comfort.

You are comfortable with Windows

AyaNeo Air Plus gives you access to the full functionality of the Windows operating system — and all the potential that brings with it. 

Don't buy it if... 

You’re on a tight budget

You’ll get a ‘good-enough’ handheld PC gaming experience from a Steam Deck, but at a much cheaper price.

You want a more console-like experience

The Aya Space software isn’t good enough to keep you from having to delve back into Windows constantly.

You want to be able to get real work done on your gaming PC

If that’s the case, you may want to pick up a keyboard-equipped gaming laptop instead.

Also Consider: Valve's Steam Deck

If our AyaNeo Air Plus review has you considering other options, you should consider… 

How I tested the AyaNeo Air Plus

  • Review test period: two weeks 
  • Gaming across Steam / Epic Games. AAA games and indie titles 
  • Light web browsing and general Windows PC tasks

Over the course of two weeks testing the AyaNeo Air Plus, I played a range of modern, classic, indie, and AAA PC gaming titles, ranging from everything from Cyberpunk 2077 to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. I even played some retro titles via emulation software.

Though it’s pricier than the Steam Deck, the AyaNeo Air Plus justifies that by being the superior machine in many ways. For example, it’s more powerful, has a more comfortable form factor, and has better specs in key departments, including screen quality. Its only drawback is its software, which hasn’t been as perfectly optimized for handheld play in the same way that the Steam Deck equivalent has. Having said that, you get far more flexibility with the native full-fat Windows on offer here.

Working as a technology and gaming journalist for more than 15 years, I’ve tested (and in many cases owned) every major games console since the SNES, dozens of gaming PCs, and reviewed countless games along the way. I’m a regular gamer at home across Xbox Series X, PS5, and Nintendo Switch consoles, and I have my own gaming PC equipped with the latest generation of Intel processors and an Nvidia RTX 3080 GPU. I’ve also tested many of the new wave of gaming handhelds, including devices from Ayn, Anbernic, PowKiddy, and other AyaNeo models.

AyaNeo Air Plus review
6:12 pm |
Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: , , , | Comments: Off

AyaNeo Air Plus: Two minute review

AyaNeo is making PC handhelds as fast as you can buy them. It seems only a few weeks have passed since we looked at the gorgeous AyaNeo 2, another excellent handheld gaming PC. Yet, here we are with the all-new AyaNeo Air Plus device — available in several different configurations, no less, and all very exciting.

The flagship version I’ve been testing packs in the same AMD Ryzen 7 6800U chipset that we saw in the more-premium AyaNeo 2, but in a smaller form factor that makes it a far more comfortable device for portable play. As a result, for my money, this is currently the best handheld gaming PC on the market. It offers the same AAA performance of the AyaNeo 2, at a price point closer to the Steam Deck, but in a device that’s just simply more comfortable to play for extended lengths of time by virtue of its compact design, fronted by a 6-inch 1080p display.

The end result is something quite special — a truly portable gaming PC capable of better performance than the Steam Deck, with full-fat Windows 11 to play about in. Yes, it remains more expensive than Valve’s handheld, and the Steam Deck is the recommended option for those who want a more console-like experience. But for those that are willing to trade a degree of convenience in favor of frame rate, resolution and portability, the AyaNeo Air Plus is an incredible device.

AyaNeo Air Plus: Price and availability

AyaNeo Air Plus screen

(Image credit: Future / Gerald Lynch)
  •  How much does it cost? Starts at $599 (model reviewed RRP $979) 
  •  When is it available? Available now in Glacier Blue, Starlight Black and Classic Grey 
  •  Where can you get it? Available online direct from AyaNeo, with third-party retailers to follow soon 
AyaNeo Air Plus: Specs

Here is the AyaNeo Air Plus configuration sent to TechRadar Gaming for review: 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 6800U

RAM: 32GB LPDDR5 6400 (16GB option available)

SSD: 512GB (1TB and 2TB options available)

Size: 237mm X 91.4mm x 23.1mm 

Weight: 525g

Screen: 1920 x 1080 / IPS / 6-inch / 400nits / 368 PPI / Touch-enabled

Input: Hall sensor joysticks / Hall sensor triggers / Fingerprint scanner

Battery: 46.2Wh / PD3.0 65W Fast Charge

Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6 / BT 5.2 / USB-C (USB 4) x 2 / Micro SD

OS: Windows 11 Home

The AyaNeo Air Plus starts at an affordable $599 for its lower-powered models, but to get into the Steam Deck-beating territory, it stalks, you need to cough up for the premium AMD Ryzen 7 6800U model. At that point, you’ve comfortably got a machine that outperforms Valve’s model — at a significantly higher price, of course, which is fair enough, considering Valve helps to subsidize Steam Deck costs through Steam store game sales. In terms of value, you’ll likely get more pure gaming mileage with a gaming laptop of similar cost, and more functionality with keys and trackpad too. But you’ll lose the magic of it being a truly handheld machine along the way. And this is still cheaper than the premium AyaNeo 2, despite near-identical internal specs delivering the same fantastic AAA PC gaming performance.

AyaNeo also offers other variants of the Air Plus in less powerful configurations, including Intel Alder Lake Core i3 1215U builds starting at $649, and additional AMD Ryzen 3 7320U and Ryzen 5 7520U variants starting at $599. Each offers either 128GB or 512GB SSD storage, and 8GB or 16GB of LPDDR5 storage. All other specs remain the same.

  • Value: 3.5 / 5 

AyaNeo Air Plus: Design

AyaNeo Air Plus controls

(Image credit: Future)
  •  Great size for a Windows portable 
  •  Ergonomic controls 
  •  Premium Hall sensor triggers and sticks 

AyaNeo has had a fair few goes at creating handheld PCs at this point, and the refinements it’s been making along the way are really starting to pay off. While this is not as luxurious as the AyaNeo 2, instead designed to land at a more affordable price point, I’d argue this is the better machine for portable play in many ways.

That’s in large part because of the screen size. The AyaNeo Air Plus opts for a 6-inch touch display compared to the 7-incher on the AyaNeo 2. Both are gorgeous; rich IPS displays with contrast ratios and color depth to rival an OLED panel. But the smaller screen on the Air Plus facilitates an overall smaller, lighter design, making it far easier to play and hold for longer play sessions. It puts the oversized Steam Deck to shame in this respect. And, as I’ll discuss in a bit, it also helps to increase battery life. Interestingly, the brightness steps on the AyaNeo Air Plus feel a little… off? After about 30% brightness, you’re so close to max visible brightness that I rarely went above that value, so it doesn't seem worth any potential battery trade-off to go any higher. Regardless, it’s a sharper, brighter display than you’ll find on a Steam Deck, even before you hit the halfway mark.

Not every difference in design next to its pricier AyaNeo 2 stablemate is for the better: you’ve only got two USB-C ports (one on the top edge, one on the bottom) compared to the three found on the AyaNeo 2, and the sticks are inferior Joy-Con clones rather than the Xbox-like sticks on the AyaNeo 2. But again, in service of a smaller overall device, they’re smart choices, and the drift-free Hall sensors are still present in the sticks for accurate control. Each has an adjustable RGB light underneath, too.

It's ergonomically very comfortable, and more traditional in size and shape than the Steam Deck. A slight curvature to the back shell where your palms sit lets your fingers hug the AyaNeo Air Plus without cramping (though it is a fingerprint magnet on the rear), and shoulder and trigger buttons are in easy reach, with just the right amount of travel and clickiness. Those triggers are analogue compatible too, again with Hall sensors, letting you dial in fine input — perfect for, say, revving an engine at just the right speed in a racing game like Forza Horizon 5. The D-Pad pivots well, and gives you the precision you need for platformers and brawlers. Start and select buttons sit under the D-Pad on the left, and X, Y, A, and B buttons sit above the right stick — buttons a little smaller perhaps than we’d like, but again in service of added portability.

There’s a few extra buttons that you won’t usually find on a traditional console handheld here. Next to the shoulder buttons are two clicky hotkey buttons that can be configured for whatever use you see fit —say, for instance, bringing up the onscreen touch keyboard, or Task Manager. Then below the right stick are two circular buttons, one larger than the other. The bigger opens up the Aya Space game launcher and device settings software with a long press, while a short press brings up an overlay for quick settings like TDP, brightness and volume control. The smaller button is configurable, but I left it as its default ‘Show Desktop’ function, which is always handy. Up top is a power button which also doubles up as a fingerprint scanner — it’s far, far more reliable than that seen on the AyaNeo 2, thankfully.

That top edge is capped off by a thin horizontal volume rocker, a mic spot, the first of the USB-C ports and a large exhaust vent, pushing out air pulled in from a fan intake grill on the rear of the device. The lower edge houses the AyaNeo Air Plus’s stereo speakers, the second USB-C port, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a microSD slot, covered by a flap. Those speakers are reasonably loud, and won’t be drowned out when the fans need to kick in.

  • Design: 4.5 / 5

AyaNeo Air Plus: Performance

AyaNeo Air Plus top I/O

(Image credit: Future / Gerald Lynch)
  •  Great AAA gaming performance 
  •  Better-than-expected battery life 
  •  Could be quickly overshadowed by a growing number of rival devices 

Though it’s not packing discrete graphics, the superb performance of AMD’s Ryzen 7 6800U chipset, paired with the 32GB of RAM in our review unit, means that the AyaNeo Air Plus can handle any game I throw at it. Yes, you may need to dial the resolution down a tad, drop the graphical presets to lower settings, and accept that you won’t get Cyberpunk 2077’s ray-tracing ‘Overdrive’ mode running here. But if you’ve ever dreamed of playing Elden Ring on the toilet (or should that be the nightmare?), the AyaNeo Air Plus makes that possible at solid frame rates.

Performance in many aspects is similar to that of the AyaNeo 2: though that’s a more premium device in its external design, reflected in its pricing, the internal specs are essentially identical.

As you’d expect, indie games like Hades and Night in the Woods will easily play at 1080p / 60fps without the AyaNeo Air Plus breaking a sweat, with a sweet spot between 5W and 8W for 2D titles and retro 3D games. Cranking things up a notch, a 10W TDP and 720p resolution saw an enjoyably stable 30fps for Grand Theft Auto V on medium settings — an experience that could scale to 60fp or higher resolutions with ease at a higher TDP (at the expense of battery life). Similar fun could be had with The Witcher 3 at a 30fps cap on Low settings at a 720p resolution by pushing the TDP on the chipset up to 20W — a superior handheld experience compared to the Nintendo Switch port, for instance. Those that are wanting to dabble with emulation will have a great time, too, with upscaled PS2 and Gamecube easily achieved across the vast majority of titles, and even solid performance with platforms as demanding as the PS3.

Where the AyaNeo Air Plus beats out the AyaNeo 2; however, by some distance is in battery life. With a smaller 6-inch display, the Air Plus is less power-hungry, and given that the smaller screen size facilitates a smaller handheld overall, that, combined with battery improvements, makes for a better device all around, in my opinion. Lower-end games, such as indies or retro titles, will happily run for between 3 and 4 hours at a 1080p resolution and between a 5W or 8W TDP, while an online shooter like Destiny 2 can get upwards of two hours of play at 720p and a 30fps cap. The real top-tier titles, like the PC God of War port, is still going to push the AyaNeo Air Plus to its limits in terms of battery life. But if you’re conservative in your settings, you can still eke out close to an hour and a half of play before the battery throws in the towel. 

As has become the norm with PC portables, your mileage will vary based on your stomach for lower frame rates and resolutions versus battery life. You will have to be prepared to tweak TDP settings to find the happy balance you’re comfortable with. This isn’t quite pick-up-and-play, then, though honestly, PC gaming in any form factor never has been. But the compromise feels much fairer here than with its AyaNeo 2 predecessor. In portable PC terms, this is as good as it currently gets.

Just how long the AyaNeo Air Plus sits on top of the PC gaming handheld pile is debatable. However — as AyaNeo’s own recent, busy product roadmap shows, this is a product category growing at an incredible rate. Competition is landing thick and fast, and devices like the upcoming ASUS ROG Ally will give the AyaNeo Air Plus a run for its money. For now, however, the AyaNeo Air Plus is leading the pack.

  • Performance: 4.5 / 5 

AyaNeo Air Plus: Software and features

Homescreen of the AyaNeo Air Plus

(Image credit: Future / Gerald Lynch)

The AyaNeo Air Plus runs full-fat Windows 11 Home, meaning you can dig around in the back end of Microsoft’s operating system with impunity. If you want to install any and every Windows application, fire up a Word document or even run your business, nothing is stopping you from doing that on the AyaNeo Air Plus.

That’s a double-edged sword, however. Despite technically supporting touch input, it’s still an operating system best navigated with a keyboard and mouse, and AyaNeo’s efforts to translate that to touch, stick and face button mappings is admirable but ultimately flawed. Likewise, its Aya Space frontend, which acts as both a game launcher and hardware setting configuration application, is better in theory than in practice. It is not quite a match for the Steam Deck SteamOS experience, let alone something as well polished and focused as the Nintendo Switch operating system. The shortcut overlay, accessed by pressing the AyaNeo logo ‘Home’ button on the device, is more useful, though, letting you quickly tweak fan settings, TDP draws to eke more power from the device, as well as resolution settings, brightness, volume and quick-launch buttons for apps or features like the onscreen keyboard.

Should you buy the AyaNeo Air Plus?

Buy it if... 

You want relatively powerful PC gaming on the go

This is a handheld PC with as much power as you can currently fit into a device this size, making for a great gameplay experience. 

You want your mobile devices to actually feel portable

The size and shape of the AyaNeo Air Plus makes it far easier to actually travel with, without compromising comfort.

You are comfortable with Windows

AyaNeo Air Plus gives you access to the full functionality of the Windows operating system — and all the potential that brings with it. 

Don't buy it if... 

You’re on a tight budget

You’ll get a ‘good-enough’ handheld PC gaming experience from a Steam Deck, but at a much cheaper price.

You want a more console-like experience

The Aya Space software isn’t good enough to keep you from having to delve back into Windows constantly.

You want to be able to get real work done on your gaming PC

If that’s the case, you may want to pick up a keyboard-equipped gaming laptop instead.

Also Consider: Valve's Steam Deck

If our AyaNeo Air Plus review has you considering other options, you should consider… 

How I tested the AyaNeo Air Plus

  • Review test period: two weeks 
  • Gaming across Steam / Epic Games. AAA games and indie titles 
  • Light web browsing and general Windows PC tasks

Over the course of two weeks testing the AyaNeo Air Plus, I played a range of modern, classic, indie, and AAA PC gaming titles, ranging from everything from Cyberpunk 2077 to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. I even played some retro titles via emulation software.

Though it’s pricier than the Steam Deck, the AyaNeo Air Plus justifies that by being the superior machine in many ways. For example, it’s more powerful, has a more comfortable form factor, and has better specs in key departments, including screen quality. Its only drawback is its software, which hasn’t been as perfectly optimized for handheld play in the same way that the Steam Deck equivalent has. Having said that, you get far more flexibility with the native full-fat Windows on offer here.

Working as a technology and gaming journalist for more than 15 years, I’ve tested (and in many cases owned) every major games console since the SNES, dozens of gaming PCs, and reviewed countless games along the way. I’m a regular gamer at home across Xbox Series X, PS5, and Nintendo Switch consoles, and I have my own gaming PC equipped with the latest generation of Intel processors and an Nvidia RTX 3080 GPU. I’ve also tested many of the new wave of gaming handhelds, including devices from Ayn, Anbernic, PowKiddy, and other AyaNeo models.

« Previous Page — Next Page »