This review first appeared in issue 348 of PC Pro.
PCSpecialist takes a unique approach in this month’s Labs by supplying its system with consumer-grade graphics. It’s also the only company to provide secondary storage along with a main drive. So this workstation has a lot in common with a high-end gaming rig; if you design games for a living, this could be exactly what you want.
The CPU is unquestionably potent. This is a 13th generation Intel Core i9-13900K with 24 cores. Eight of these are P-cores with a 3GHz base clock rising to 5.8GHz on maximum boost with Hyper-Threading, while the other 16 are E-cores that operate at 2.2GHz or boost to 4.3GHz, but without Hyper-Threading. So you still get 32 threads like the 16-core AMD CPUs, but 24 of these are full physical cores not virtual ones.
Since Intel Core i9 processors have supported DDR5 memory for a couple of generations now, PCSpecialist has opted for this RAM type, offering 5,200MHz DIMMs. But it has gone further than this – much further. This system includes an incredible 192GB, which is the maximum supported by the Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero motherboard. This is supplied as four 48GB modules, although this isn’t a quad-channel system. It’s safe to say that you won’t be needing to upgrade the memory on this system at any point during its useful lifetime.
There’s space for upgrades, but you won’t need to add to the 192GB of RAM(Image credit: Future)
Now we get to the elephant in the room: the consumer-grade graphics. This is cheaper than the professional equivalent, meaning you can get more power for your money. In fact, PCSpecialist has opted for an Asus TUF GeForce RTX 4090 OC Edition, which is the most powerful consumer GPU currently available. This provides 9,728 CUDA cores, almost as many as the Nvidia RTX A6000, but the 4090 has a newer GPU core design and runs at a much higher clock speed, so promises significantly higher raw processing power – of which more later.
The trusty Fractal Design Black Solid chassis is supplied to house all these components. This isn’t as big as the XL, but still has plenty of space inside and options for storage upgrades. There are six 2.5in/3.5in bays included, with up to 14 possible, and two 2.5in trays as standard, but four possible. PCSpecialist opts to use an M.2 slot for NVMe SSD main storage, but also uses one of the 3.5in bays for a conventional hard disk.
The SSD is a Samsung 990 Pro running at PCI Express 4 speeds. It delivered sustained reading of 7,404MB/sec and writing speeds of 6,818MB/sec, which are good for non-PCI Express 5 storage. The hard disk is a 4TB Seagate IronWolf Pro 7,200rpm mechanical hard disk, offering 260MB/sec reading and 257MB/sec writing. This is pedestrian throughput compared to the SSD but fast for a hard disk, and the extra storage will be handy for greedy media such as 8K video.
The Onyx Pro packs plenty of power for many (but not all) GPU rendering tasks(Image credit: Future)
The Intel Core i9 CPU is very much in its element with everyday tasks. Its overall score of 849 in the PC Pro benchmarks is the joint fastest we’ve ever seen, particularly aided by the multitasking score of 1,057. However, while 35,990 with multicore Maxon Cinebench R23 rendering is superb, Armari’s AMD Ryzen 9 7950X is just ahead, and CPU rendering with Blender is similarly behind AMD, with the Gooseberry frame taking 312 seconds.
But then there’s that GPU. CUDA-accelerated Blender rendering took an incredible 64 seconds, and the LuxMark 3.1 score of 31,713 is staggering. This is also a supreme accelerator for some – but not all – content-creation viewsets. Running SPECviewperf 2020 3.1, the GeForce 4090 managed 316 in 3dsmax-07 and 792 in maya-06. This is a brilliant card for 3D animation. However, while catia-06 saw 165 and solidworks-07 a jaw-dropping 732, snx-04 could only reach 54.57.
If you’ll be running engineering workloads, in particular Siemens NX (represented by snx-04), you’re best avoiding a system with consumer-grade graphics like the Onyx Pro. But if you’re a game designer or 3D animator utilizing GPU rendering, this is a phenomenally powerful machine, and comes highly recommended.
This review first appeared in issue 348 of PC Pro.
We haven’t seen many blue-chip brands in our workstation Labs for some years. This has largely been because these manufacturers stuck with Intel Xeons, even when AMD was in the ascendancy, so wouldn’t have fared well. But Lenovo has been offering the AMD alternative for some years and was the initial partner for the Ryzen Threadripper Pro when it arrived last year. Now we get our first look at what Lenovo can do with this potent CPU.
The system is based on the AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5945WX, which has the lowest number of cores of any CPU this month – just 12. These run at a base 4.1GHz and boost 4.5GHz, with multithreading and support for eight-channel memory. But Lenovo only provides four 3,200MHz DDR4 DIMM modules, so the bandwidth is quad channel with half the throughput of eight-channel, even though the total was a wholesome 64GB.
Lenovo offers a choice of AMD and Nvidia graphics with the P620, and our system came with Nvidia’s RTX A4000. This places this configuration as a modelling workstation rather than more general purpose. Lenovo was IBM’s hardware manufacturer, and when IBM became a services company Lenovo inherited its server and workstation business. The chassis is still reminiscent of the former brand, with excellent tool-free design.
(Image credit: Future)
In this high-powered company, the P620 fell behind, achieving 529 in the media-focusedbenchmarks, 21,580 in the Cinebench R23 multicore rendering test and 486 seconds for the Blender CPU render. These would have been amazing scores a year ago, but all other systems here are way ahead. The Adobe Media Encoder results were impressive, however, taking 121 seconds with CUDA acceleration enabled.
Although the Threadripper Pro has a solid 4.5GHz top single-core frequency, this clearly held it back when modelling. The SPECviewperf 2020 v3.1 results were excellent on an absolute scale but were beaten by every other system. The 2TB Samsung PM981ab was also the slowest NVMe drive here, delivering just 3,519MB/sec reading and 2,986MB/sec writing.
It’s hard to mark down the Lenovo P620 Tower for lagging behind in performance. It’s the cheapest system in this labs test by nearly £900 inc VAT and if upgraded to £4,500 would be far more competitive. It’s also a solid, well-built workstation. With the right specification for your money, it could be well worth considering.
This review first appeared in issue 348 of PC Pro.
Armari’s lower-cost system is something of a technology showcase, exhibiting the latest options in processor, graphics and storage. The combination is one of the most powerful workstations you could buy for £4,500 inc VAT.
At the center of the Magnetar MC16R7 is AMD’s range-topping Ryzen 9 7950X. This potent 16-core processor uses AMD’s latest Zen 4 architecture and is manufactured on the 5nm process. This enables an incredible base clock of 4.5GHz, which is the boost clock for AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro processors. The 7950X’s boost clock of 5.7GHz is only a few hundred megahertz behind the best Intel has to offer, and only with the latter’s P-cores, so it’s good to see that Armari makes the most out of the Ryzen 9 via its own customized CPU liquid cooling.
Armari has also taken full advantage of the fact that the AMD Ryzen 7000 series supports DDR5 memory by supplying 64GB of 6,000MHz RAM in two 32GB modules, leaving two DIMM slots free for upgrades. This is the fastest-clocked memory of any system this month.
The Magnetar MC16R7 showcases the latest CPU, graphics and storage technology(Image credit: Future)
So the Magnetar MC16R7 has a cutting-edge processor, some of the fastest system memory available, and its graphics acceleration is bleeding edge, too. In the past, choosing AMD professional GPUs might be a good choice to keep within a budget, but it rarely beat the Nvidia alternative for performance. The AMD Radeon Pro W7800 is a different matter. It’s in the same price category as the Nvidia RTX A5000 and offers 4,480 unified shaders (which aren’t equivalent to CUDA cores) on AMD’s latest RDNA 3 architecture. It also boasts 32GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, offering 576GB/sec bandwidth.
Armari is notable in the UK market because it’s one of the few local PC integrators that designs its own chassis. However, these cases come at a premium so the Magnetar MC16R7 has been built into a Fractal Design Meshify 2. This is still a great basis for a workstation, with plenty of room inside for airflow and storage upgrades. There are six spaces for 3.5in or 2.5in drives included, and there could optionally be up to 14. On top of this there are two 2.5in-only spaces as standard, but up to four are possible.
You may want to build upon the single M.2 NVMe SSD Armari supplies, but what a great foundation it provides. It’s a 2TB Crucial T700 drive, which supports PCI Express 5, as does the Asus ProArt B650-Creator motherboard. The Crucial SSD delivers incredible throughput from a single drive. CrystalDiskMark recorded sustained reading at 12,373MB/sec and writing at 11,807MB/sec, which were close to twice as fast as some of the PCI Express 4 NVMe SSDs in other workstations this month.
The Fractal Design Meshify 2 case offers lots of room for airflow and upgrades(Image credit: Future)
Considering all the powerful components in the Magnetar MC16R7, it’s no surprise that it produced some stunning test results.Our media-focused benchmarks are the Intel Core i9’s forte, but the Armari system’s overall result of 772 is still incredible, significantly beating the other system this month based on an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. Its Cinebench R23 multithread rendering result of 38,611 was the fastest in the £4,500 category, and the Blender rendering time of 265 seconds was also top in this class. The OpenCL-accelerated Adobe Media Encoder time of 105 seconds beat every other system this month.
The AMD Radeon Pro W7800 graphics may be around the same price as Nvidia’s RTX A5000, but its performance with SPECviewperf 2020 v3.1 is in a different league as well. The results of 235 in 3dsmax-07 and an unbelievable 846 in maya-06 imply this will be a consummate accelerator for 3D animation. Likewise, 155 in catia-06, 235 in creo-03, 622 in snx-04 and 460 in solidworks-07 show strong abilities with product development, CAD and engineering.
Its LuxMark 3.1 result of 14,919 is a little behind the RTX A5000, but GPU rendering in Blender took just 141 seconds, which is ahead.
Overall, the Armari Magnetar MC16R7 provides the best possible performance for the money in most areas. If you need a powerful all-round workstation, this system should be top of your list.
This review first appeared in issue 349 of PC Pro.
SMBs that want the best on-premises remote support solution need look no further than NetSupport Manager (NSM). Now well into its third decade, NSM has been continuously updated, with version 14 on review providing a redesigned Control interface, support for Windows 11 and Server 2022 clients plus two-factor authentication (2FA) and SSL/TLS certificates to tighten up access security to remote systems.
Licensing couldn’t be any easier: pricing is based only on the number of supported systems. You don’t need to worry about subscriptions, either, with perpetual licensing for up to 500 systems costing a straight £10 each.
Installation is a breeze. We loaded the Control component on a Windows 10 host and used the separate Deploy tool to scan the local network and push the client to all our Windows desktops and servers. The client executable is now protected from malware actions; if its name is changed, it won’t be allowed to run.
The new Control interface focuses on ease of use and has a status bar at its base showing the number of clients plus those currently connected and an icon to disconnect them all with one click. Search facilities have been improved, the tree view can now be minimized, and if you double-click on a client in the main panel you can assign different actions such as starting remote control or remotely launching an application.
The NSM console delivers an impressive range of support tools(Image credit: Future)
The tree view uses dynamic grouping to neatly organize clients into categories such as Windows, macOS, Chrome OS and Android versions, hardware enclosure types and geographical locations. You can create custom groups using your preferred criteria and the tree also has options to browse for a client and see those that have sent help requests.
The free PIN Connect server accelerates support connections across large networks. The technician and user simply enter the same unique PIN and an instant connection is created for them.
Selecting a group in the tree shows all members in the main pane and a monitor mode displays scalable screen thumbnails so you can watch user activity in real-time. Users needn’t worry about privacy issues as when the Control app connects, their system tray app alerts them and they can disconnect at any time.
The iOS Manager mobile app offers easy access to all clients(Image credit: Future)
A remote control session opens a new window with a wealth of support tools presented in its upper menu. Along with choosing to control, share or passively view the screen, you can launch local apps, have text and audio chats, take screen captures, share clipboards and reboot the client.
NSM scores over cloud-hosted solutions as its distribution tool sends local files to multiple users, technicians can run training sessions by showing their screen to user groups and they can record Control host activities and replay them. And being an on-premises solution, performance between a host and client on the same LAN will be much faster.
Remote offices and home workers come under NSM’s support umbrella, too. The NSM Gateway and Connectivity Server are included in the price and allow technicians to reach out over the internet to systems with the client installed.
Security is tight: along with 256-bit AES session encryption, the Connectivity Server, Gateway and clients must all possess the same key. Remote clients can only connect to one gateway, the Connectivity Server connection log can be downloaded for further security analysis and larger sites can improve performance by using multiple Gateways in load-balanced configurations.
SMBs that prefer their support services in-house won’t find a better alternative to NetSupport Manager. It delivers a wealth of support tools, including secure access to home workers, while its perpetual licensing plans are highly affordable.
This review first appeared in issue 349 of PC Pro.
You can buy exotically named 15.6in portable monitors from Amazon for £100, but there are good reasons to pay extra for well-known brands. Brands such as MSI, with its history of producing high-quality desktop displays.
However, when paying £129, you must set your expectations low. This is a 6-bit panel that’s only capable of producing 16.7 million colors through a technology called frame rate control (FRC). The result is subdued, covering 57% of the sRGB gamut at best. That equates to 41% of DCI-P3, so this isn’t the screen I’d reach for to watch Netflix.
Despite this, MSI provides a Movie mode to accompany the Anti-Blue, Eco, Black-White and Office modes. Office is the best choice for brightness, peaking at 296cd/m2, but greys are blown out to near-white so I kept it at the native profile. This only hit 215cd/m2 at peak, which I kept it at to make whites look relatively white.
Ports include two USB-C sockets and a mini-HDMI input(Image credit: Future)
MSI makes no sacrifices when it comes to the speedy OSD. There are settings to control sharpness, low blue light, the response time (normal, fast or 4ms fastest) and even the company’s “Eye-Q” features. These are designed to keep people working in optimized fashion. For instance, you can use it to remind you to adjust your posture, or check for eye-strain using a grid. One more ergonomic plus: a highly effective anti-glare coating.
There are two usable albeit low-fidelity 1.5W speakers, but I’m more impressed by the two USB-C ports and a mini-HDMI input, so you can connect the monitor to three devices (including tablets and phones) simultaneously. I appreciate the flexibility, which is echoed by a rotating stand that means you can use the Pro MP161 in portrait mode as well as landscape.
At 750g, and measuring 12mm thick if you ignore the stand, this is a highly portable monitor. MSI also offers protection via a lightweight travel pouch that guards it from scratches (if not direct bashes). Add a two-year warranty and there are many reasons to choose the MSI Pro MP161 over its rivals, despite their price advantage.
As we did some digging on Scanguard, we came across the fact that it seems to be owned by Total Security LTD. Hopefully, this means that it’s benefiting from the same minds that are behind the Total AV products. We’re optimistic that this could translate into numerous updates over time, potentially crystallizing Scanguard into a more premium offering in the antivirus & security space. Nevertheless, Scanguard is its own thing at the moment, and it has a lot to offer regardless. It’s essentially a total security and optimization suite that covers everything from viruses to PC improvement through junk file removal, a password vault, and even a VPN.
The offering starts off with security features, which include: advanced real-time protection against various threats, including malware, ransomware, spyware, and adware, through specialized guards like Malware Guard, Ransomware Guard, Spyware Guard, and Aware Guard. You can give most of the functions a free try, as the company offers a free version of the application for Windows. The time it took to update and apply the definitions in the free tool was a bit worrying, we’re not sure whether it was a connection issue or the free version just being slow. The initial scan, however, was quite quick on a 512 GB SSD filled roughly to 30% of its capacity. The entire scan took under five minutes, going through a malware scan, junk removal, browser cleanup, and startup app check. A note of caution here, as the app scans your PC for any tracking cookies it finds, it will notify you, with an attempt to upsell you to the Pro version, so the cookie, or malware, can be removed. To be fair, the company does offer a 90% discount if you’re trying out their software and musing whether to purchase a license, which means you can get Scanguard Essential Antivirus for as low as $9 for the first year. Beware of the price for the renewal license, though!
(Image credit: Future)
Features
The initial scan that we ran with Scanguard, called “smart scan” as we mentioned, was quite quick, covering malware, security and privacy issues, PC performance issues, system junk, and duplicate files with just one click. However, if you want to do a full system scan, which runs a more comprehensive check, be ready to wait up to 20 minutes. Of course, there is the Custom Scan option if you want to specifically target some folders in the scan, potentially speeding up your scan times. In the settings menu, you can additionally tweak your scan options with a toggle for scanning: removable drives, inside archives, specific file types, or scheduling a scan.
(Image credit: Future)
Moreover, the above-mentioned four features make up the core security offering, with the Malware Guard protecting your PC from trojans and worms. The Ransomware Guard guards from hackers taking over your PC and files, Spyware Guard deletes and blocks tracking software, and finally, Aware Guard blocks pesky adverts. We would also add the WebShield to this core, which protects you from malicious sites in real-time. Additionally, this feature offers a web cache cleaner, which can be useful if you do opt to visit the “Low Trust” websites the WebShield designates for you. It works quite well, preventing access to most well-known sites featured on PhishTank, though we did manage to access some more obscure sites, which were blocked by other security solutions, so stay vigilant regardless of which security solution you use.
You can enhance your security by installing the free ScanGuard web extension for browsers like Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari. It’s quite handy in blocking unwanted browser notifications and clearing up your cookies with just one click. Note, the Ad Block Pro is only available if you have the Pro version (paid plan) of the solution. Speaking of web extensions, another useful one offered by Scanguard is the Password Vault browser extension, but for it to function properly, you need to set up the Password Vault on the Desktop app first. If you do so, you will have access to auto-fill and auto-save features, as well as the password generator that will help you create secure passwords. We would have liked to see some features like 2FA for the vault itself, and options to share passwords, save notes, and files securely, but none of that was available. Standalone password managers, like 1Password, offer much more, but Scanguard does cover the basics, so if you need a more advanced password manager, you will have to buy an additional one.
If you opt to pay for the VPN, which is an extra feature, you will get the industry standard features such as data encryption, a kill switch, and encryption protocols like IKEv2 and OpenVPN. There are roughly 100 servers, most of which are located in North America and Europe, thus providing solid options for circumventing geo restrictions. The speeds are acceptable when streaming or torrenting (available only for non-US servers). We feel that other premium providers like Nord offer a much better VPN, with stable and higher speeds, as well as additional features.
If you’re worried about identity theft protection, apparently Scanguard offers some solid features in this regard. Note, we did not test out the offer, nor purchase it. It’s an additional service (paid separately), which covers dark web and social media monitoring, identity restoration, lost wallet assistance, and up to $1 million in identity theft insurance. You also get the Data Breach Check, which scans whether your passwords have been compromised as part of an online data breach. All you need to do is provide your email, and Scanguard does all the heavy lifting.
Rounding off the offer is Scanguard's system optimizer or tune-up utility, which covers junk file cleaning (including duplicate files), an application uninstaller, start-up manager, and a browser cleanup. The junk cleaner seems impressive as it ran under a minute, removing some odd 300 MB of junk files from my PC in the first run. The duplicate scanner, on the other hand, is not perfect; it flagged two different videos as duplicates hidden in a wide tree of folders, both had different names, lengths, sizes, and content, so make sure you double-check before letting the app remove the files by itself. The browser cleanup offers to clear your browsing and download history, cookies, and junk files from your browser, speed up the loading of websites, and put idle tabs to sleep. During our test, it worked quite well, we did not notice any issues with it. Despite having some useful features, we would have liked to see some disk optimization features as well as some gaming boosters, as seen in some other premium offerings. Sure, there is a “game mode,” but it simply makes sure no notifications or scans come up as you game, but there are no PC performance tweaks for gamers with Scanguard.
If you’re an Android user, there is a dedicated app for you; however, if you use an iPhone, then tough luck, there is no Scanguard app for you. On Android, you can not get the app from the Google store, you have to find the link to it in the Scanguard website’s help center. Google will warn you that the app is not safe. Most of the Desktop features are available on the mobile app as well. They work without any issues, but you don’t get advanced security features like SMS filtering, scam call filtering, etc. So all in all, the mobile experience is a bit underwhelming, to say the least.
Pricing
(Image credit: Scanguard)
Luckily, Scanguard gets it right with its pricing plan approach, offering just two pricing plans. The first one is the free one, giving you some basic protection and a taste of what the suite encompasses and offers. The paid plan costs $29 for the first year if you purchase through the site, and here is where things get complicated. The site advertises $29 for the first year instead of $99, which is your annual renewal price. Yet, if you install the free version of the app and from the options menu click on upgrade, you get a price of $9 for the first year, and a renewal price of $99. But wait, there’s more! If you decide to make the purchase, be ready to pay for it using only PayPal, as there is no other payment option. Furthermore, once you do go through the purchase, an upsell moment arrives, offering the VPN as a service at an extra cost, as well as the Ad Blocker Pro.
The initial pricing strategy and plan started off quite promising, but the various offers through the site and the app just left a bad taste in our mouth, loathing the entire process. Sure, we understand that some marketing magic needs to be used to get the best sales results, but communicating everything in one place and transparently makes much more sense in our book.
The offer on the website for the paid plan includes the following: real-time virus and phishing protection, cloud-based threat detection, and tools to defend against adware and spyware. It also includes a secure password vault, system tune-up tools, disk and browser cleaners, and even a web shield extension to block harmful sites. With added Android protection, 24/7 customer support, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Protection
(Image credit: VB100)
Checking reliable testing sites, you will only come across a VB100 test result for Scanguard from October 2023. It successfully passed the test at the time, but the website states that Scanguard is not VB100 certified, as the test results have not been refreshed or done recently. However, the test from October 2023 states that it achieved a detection rate of 96.94%, successfully identifying 1,871 out of 1,930 malware samples. Just as importantly, it scored a perfect 0.000% false alarm rate, meaning it didn’t flag any clean files as malicious across 100,000 legitimate test samples. This balance of strong malware detection and zero false positives demonstrated at the time that Scanguard provides reliable protection.
Ease of use
Scanguard has a beautiful design philosophy, with a modern UI, a black, green, and blue color scheme, and large icons that are intuitive and informative once you hover over them. Initial installation may take some time since all of the databases need updating, but it's not concerning. Under the settings tab, everything is laid out logically, with most settings offering a toggle switch for easy customization. Despite having numerous customization options, it never felt overwhelming.
Final verdict
In the end, Scanguard represents a peculiar offer in the security suite space. Some things, like the malware protection and web protection in general, it does well; we would argue on par with some more renowned companies. On the other hand, there are major issues with the mobile app, which is difficult to install. To this, we would also add the pricing fiasco from the app to the website, and the fact that no independent lab has tested Scanguard in 2025 to offer an insight into how well it compares to the others.
All in all, if you’re not too picky or demanding, Scanguard can keep you safe online, but knowing that there are much better offerings in the field, priced similarly to Scanguard, it’s simply difficult to recommend it as a go-to solution.
We've also highlighted the best antivirus software in this roundup
This review first appeared in issue 349 of PC Pro.
Where TP-Link’s Deco XE200 opposite takes a maximalist approach, the Asus ZenWiFi XD5 goes in the other direction. Rather than the fastest possible performance, it offers a decent Wi-Fi 6 network at an attractive price, via two or three boxy little stations that are small enough to hide away around your home.
That’s not to say the XD5 units are unpleasant to look at. The rounded cuboid design is clean and modern, with a subtle spiral pattern on top. The base of each station houses a multicolored status LED, although this can’t be seen from all angles as it’s unhelpfully tucked away below the main body.
Internally, the XD5 is a simple dual-band mesh, with a single 5GHz radio connection for both client and backhaul communications. It’s rated at a reasonable 2.4Gbits/sec, however, with 2x2 MIMO and support for 160MHz channels, so there’s a decent amount of bandwidth on hand. The 2.4GHz radio is rated at 574Mbits/sec, which should be fine for the types of device that still use the slower band.
I set up one station in the study of my home and the other in the adjoining bedroom. Asus suggests that two XD5 units will cover an area of up to 325m2, while adding a third extends claimed coverage to 465m2 – although performance will naturally depend on the layout and build of your home.
The stylish design gives the XD5 units a clean, modern look(Image credit: Future)
With my units in place, I took a laptop to various locations around the house, copied a selection of files to and from a NAS appliance connected to the primary XD5 unit via Ethernet, and measured the effective speeds. Despite the XD5’s small size and modest hardware, two stations proved ample to provide strong, consistent performance all around my home, with download rates between 34 and 40MB/sec. That’s nowhere near the speeds you’ll see from the most expensive meshes, but more than enough to handle Zoom calls, Disney Plus, web browsing and whatever else you’re likely to want to do, whether you’re relaxing on the sofa or running a business from home.
On the software side of things there’s no compromise at all: the ZenWiFi XD5 system uses the same full-fat firmware as found on Asus’ most expensive meshes and routers, with management via either the Asus Router mobile app or the traditional web portal. The two interfaces are completely different, which can be a little disorienting if you hop back and forth between them, but they’re both clear and accessible, considering the range of settings and features on offer. Those include not only extensive control over the basic configuration of your network, but a whole slew of advanced features, such as extensive traffic-management and QoS options, plus a configurable built-in firewall.
As if that weren’t enough, the XD5 also offers per-device parental controls, with customizable web filtering for kids’ devices, plus network security scanning powered by Trend Micro. These tools are all free to use forever – a great bonus, as most competing meshes demand an annual fee to fully unlock such capabilities.
(Image credit: Future)
Finally, it’s always good to see Asus’ trademark VPN module. As well as permitting secure inbound connections over the internet, this lets you configure up to 16 third-party outbound VPN servers and bind each one to any number of MAC addresses – enabling you to route your traffic all over the world, if you so desire.
The only thing that’s notably missing is USB support. Older, chunkier ZenWiFi models offered the ability to share USB storage devices and printers over the network, and even to plug in a 4G or 5G mobile internet adapter should your main broadband line go down. The smaller XD5 units don’t have USB ports, so all that’s off the table.
There are only two Ethernet sockets, and no USB ports(Image credit: Future)
It’s also worth mentioning that each ZenWiFi unit has only two Ethernet sockets, both limited to gigabit speeds. It’s a serviceable minimum, but if your network uses a mixture of wireless and wired connections you might prefer a mesh with a few more ports, and perhaps a multi-gigabit option. While the ZenWiFi XD5 is reasonably priced, there are certainly cheaper mesh options. The Huawei Mesh 3 can currently be had for £180 inc VAT, while the Mercusys Halo H80X costs only £135 for three units, or £95 for two. That’s an excellent deal, as the Mercusys mesh provides overall similar performance to the ZenWiFi XD5, with an extra boost for same-room connections. However, it’s a far more basic system, with none of the XD5’s sophisticated software features.
If you want more hands-on control, then, the Asus ZenWiFi XD5 is one of the most appealing meshes around. It doesn’t max out the performance of Wi-Fi 6, but it’s speedy enough that very few people will need to pay more – and its sheer versatility and configurability put cheaper systems to shame.
This review first appeared in issue 349 of PC Pro.
When you think of Asus’ Vivobook range, cheap laptops probably spring to mind. So you may wonder what’s going on here: a Vivobook costing £2,500? Surely that’s more Asus ROG gaming laptop territory? Dig into the specs and it sounds like a gaming machine, too, with a turbo-fueled Core i9 matched with 32GB of DDR5 RAM and Nvidia RTX 4070 graphics.
Here, though, Asus has creators in its sights rather than gamers. It comes loaded with Nvidia’s Studio drivers, a Pantone-validated OLED screen and even a clever dial built into the touchpad. But let’s start with the fundamentals: power.
Top guns, part one
It’s easy to get blasé about such things, but I still find it remarkable to say that there are 24 cores inside this laptop. That’s because Asus has opted for a Core i9-13980HX processor, which is as boy racer as it sounds. The 13980 indicates that it’s right at the top end of Intel’s family, a fact reinforced by the H suffix (which stands for high performance). The X is the overclocking cherry on top.
All this would be for naught if Asus had skimped on cooling, but a double fan and meaty heatsinks mean that the CPU should keep running at its peak speeds – 5.6GHz for the eight performance P-cores – even under duress. No wonder it can gobble up to 105W.
It’s also why this laptop returned such stonking speeds in our CPU-torture tests. A result of 16,581 in Geekbench 6.1 multicore is as fast as we’ve seen from a laptop, making me nervous that our new graphs should have a higher peak than 20,000. This supreme speed was repeated in Cinebench R23’s multicore section, where it scorched its way to 25,660.
Asus has packed plenty of powerful parts inside the Vivobook Pro 16X(Image credit: Future)
Top guns, part two
The RTX 4070 doesn’t sit at the top of Nvidia’s mobile range, but it’s still a potent chip. Its main weapons are the 4,608 CUDA cores, which sounds like a huge number when compared to the RTX 4060 (3,072) but surprisingly few next to the 7,424 of the RTX 4080 and 9,728 of the RTX 4090 (to be clear, these numbers refer to the laptop versions of Nvidia’s chips).
How many CUDA cores you have matters in professional applications such as 3ds Max, Catia and Maya – while there isn’t a linear relationship, it’s a great indicator of how long tasks will take – so there are reasons to opt for an RTX 4080 or 4090. Especially as those products come with far superior memory setups: the RTX 4070 includes 8GB of GDDR6 RAM with a 128-bit interface width, but switch to the 4080 and you get 12GB/192-bit, while a 4090 offers 16GB/256-bit. That’s a huge jump.
However, the RTX 4070 has power efficiency in its favor, getting by on up to 115W (35W minimum) compared to 150W for its siblings. It’s also the reason why this laptop costs £2,500 rather than £3,000 or £3,500.
The good news is that with a Core i9 and 32GB of RAM as the backing cast, the RTX 4070 here is given every chance to excel. I first saw this in our suite of gaming tests. Taking the 1080p High results first, the Vivobook returned 225fps in F1 2022, 93fps in Metro Exodus Enhanced, 183fps in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and 86fps in Dirt 5.
Switching to the panel’s native resolution of 3,200 x 2,000, those results dropped to 116fps (F1 2022), 49fps (Metro), 95fps (Tomb Raider) and 49fps (Dirt 5). In our toughest test, Metro Exodus Enhanced at Extreme settings, the Vivobook returned 48fps at 1080p and 25fps at native resolution. In other words, its only unplayable frame rates came in that final, brutal test.
(Image credit: Future)
Creative spin
All those results were with Nvidia’s Studio drivers, as supplied; if you know you’ll be using this machine only for gaming then switch to the Game Ready drivers for the latest optimizations. Asus clearly expects people to use this laptop for creativity, however, so I also put it through its paces in Specviewperf R20.
Here, it performed in line with expectations for an RTX 4070 laptop. Highlights included 91 in the 3ds Max viewset, 335 in Maya and 238 in SolidWorks; to put those scores in perspective, the Lenovo P620 Tower scored 147, 439 and 278 respectively. Those results are significantly higher, but so they should be for a desktop workstation with a Threadripper Pro 5945WX and Nvidia’s RTX A4000 graphics.
Asus loves to add little extras to its touchpads, and here that’s a DialPad. This is a dotted circle, with an inch diameter, that sits at the top left of the touchpad, but you need to activate it: press and hold the tiny symbol at the top right of the pad, then swipe in. It’s a clunky mechanism, but this stops you accidentally switching the dial on and off.
Once active, a white circle within the dotted lines lights up. Press it, and the Asus dial overlay appears on-screen, with different options depending on context. In Photoshop, for instance, it offers the chance to cycle through brush sizes, switch between documents, zoom in and out of layers and quickly undo changes. It’s no substitute for a physical dial, but creatives with dexterous fingers may grow fond of it.
The chunky chassis and poor battery life mean it’s not very portable(Image credit: Future)
Getting physical
I ended up leaving the dial on most of the time, as the touchpad is large enough (130 x 83mm) that it didn’t interfere with navigation. With a glass coating it ticks the usual smooth and responsive boxes, although I occasionally found myself reaching for the F6 key to deactivate the whole thing as palm rejection didn’t always work.
Nor will those people who type for a living love this keyboard, which offers surprisingly little travel for a laptop that measures 21mm thick. The keys themselves offer little “feel”, with a lifeless action, but once you move past this and the single-height Enter key (oddly jammed next to the hash key and finished in the same dark grey) the keyboard fades into the inoffensive background.
And there are a couple of positives. All the keys are a generous size and have a sensible gap between them, helping to minimize typos, the spacebar is huge and, while the cursor keys are shortened, they’re also separated from the main buttons. Plus, a dedicated number pad makes sense in a laptop this width.
The keys are a decent size, and the large touchpad is smooth and responsive(Image credit: Future)
Super size
This machine is no ultraportable.
Whichever dimension you measure, it’s chunky. A 356 x 249mm footprint means you’ll need a good-sized rucksack to carry it with you, and while Asus officially states the weight as 1.9kg that’s for the more basic spec: I weighed it at 2.1kg. The 21mm thickness refers to the front of the chassis; once you factor in the orange “foot” – a U-shape strip that lifts the Vivobook from a surface to aid airflow – it’s closer to 2.5mm.
I like the brash orange color (echoed in the Esc key) as it lifts what is otherwise quite a boring-looking design. Asus also makes this Vivobook in black, but the silver version I tested is unlikely to gain any lustful glances from passersby. Its only other flash of styling is a raised area on the lid – almost like a melded-on business card – that reveals the laptop’s name.
Rather than style, then, this laptop is designed for practicality. Head to the left and you’ll find a gigabit Ethernet port, full-size SD card reader, USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 (5Gbits/sec) port and the power connector. Over on the right, a 3.5mm jack and HDMI 2.1 output are kept company by two Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports and a second USB-A port. That’s a strong connectivity offering, backed up by Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.
A top-quality OLED panel makes films look great(Image credit: Future)
Power down
To get the most out of this laptop, though, you’ll need to keep it plugged in. I found that battery life varied considerably during my tests, but set your expectations at around four hours – hardly a full working day. And in PCMark’s Gaming test, which pushes the graphics chip in the same way creative graphics tasks will, it lasted only 1hr 41mins.
You can trickle-charge it using the Thunderbolt ports, but I can’t imagine travelling without the 540g power supply. Considering its 240W output, it’s surprisingly compact, and it takes the laptop from empty to 80% in an hour, reaching full capacity in less than two hours.
You’ll probably keep it plugged in much of the time, in which case I recommend you fully investigate the MyAsus app. From here you can switch on the battery care mode, adjust the fan profile (we tested with Performance mode, and the fans get noisy when you’re pushing this machine), and play around with “TaskFirst”, which allows you to set network connectivity priorities – to game streaming, say, or communication apps.
There’s also a bunch of options for the microphone, and unlike many “AI optimizations” I’ve tried, this is worth using. There’s nothing wrong with the plain mode, but the “single presenter conference call” option will bring your voice to the fore. Thanks to the excellent 1080p webcam, which supports Windows Hello and includes a fiddly but effective privacy shutter, you’ll look great on calls, too.
It’s easy to remove the base of the chassis and upgrade the memory and SSD(Image credit: Future)
Entertain me
I have mixed feelings about the speakers, but that’s mainly due to the high expectations set elsewhere. If you listen to music in isolation on the Vivobook then you’ll be impressed by its volume and how clearly instruments and voices emerge – the intricate instrumentation of Björk is normally too much for laptops, but the Vivobook handles the mix of strings and vocals well. Where it falls down is bass, pushing the trebles and mids too much to the fore, but I’m being picky.
Certainly you’ll love watching films on this laptop thanks to its sheer volume (with no sign of distortion), and it helps that Asus includes a top-quality OLED panel. It barely needs saying, but a 3,200 x 2,000 resolution ensures sharp edges on text, and black absolutely punches through to make dark scenes in films look fantastic.
It has DisplayHDR 600 Black certification, confirming that it will hit 600cd/m2 in HDR content, while its peak of 389cd/m2 in SDR mode means it’s easy to read in every condition. Except, as it turns out, bright sunshine, where the screen’s reflectivity became obvious.
Inside, though, it’s superb. You can choose from a variety of settings in the MyAsus app, but for testing I stuck to the standard mode and then switched between the preset gamuts: Native, sRGB, DCI-P3 and Display P3. Native makes most sense if you want to enjoy the widest color range (it stretches 19% beyond even the DCI-P3 gamut), but sRGB and DCI-P3 locked the screen down to those gamuts almost perfectly.
Color accuracy is strong – its average Delta-E never went above 0.72, with anything under one considered excellent – and anyone who values true whites will be pleased by a natural color temperature of 6479K, only 21K off the target 6500K.
The Vivobook Pro 16X is a fine choice for gamers and creatives alike(Image credit: Future)
Final thoughts
If you’re a demanding user, then, this is almost a perfect laptop. It even has the opportunity to upgrade over time: the 32GB of memory comes supplies as two 16GB SODIMMs, rather than being embedded, and if you’re a nimble hand with a Phillips screwdriver you can whip the bottom off this chassis within a minute.
This will reveal the fact that the 1TB M.2 2280 SSD is also replaceable, and note this isn’t the speediest Gen 4 drive around: 4,061MB/sec reads and 2,971MB/sec writes are strong but not exceptional. I would be tempted to replace it with a faster 2TB drive at some future date; sadly there isn’t a second M.2 slot, despite the amount of space available on the board.
Then again, we need to remember that this isn’t a £3,000+ mobile workstation. While hardly cheap at £2,500, it rewards you with all the power and quality that most creative professionals need. In terms of price, that’s certainly competitive when placed next to an equivalent 16in MacBook Pro. And yes, that laptop offers far superior battery life, minimal fan noise and better performance away from the mains, but it lacks the graphical grunt of Nvidia’s RTX chip along with easy upgrades.
Whether the Vivobook Pro is right for you, then, depends entirely on what you intend to use it for. All I can tell you is that Asus extracts the most from its components, while the supporting cast – particularly the screen – come from the top drawer in terms of quality.
Plesk has been around for a long time and is supported by many hosts. You also have the option to migrate to cPanel should you decide that Plesk isn’t for you. Plesk also supports a wide array of Linux and Windows operating systems, so you have a lot of options for installing it on various server setups.
Plesk has a straightforward and fair pricing model - you pay for how many websites you use. This makes it great for average web hosters who need the flexibility of Plesk and don’t plan on hosting tons of websites. It is also a good choice for web agencies who plan on hosting websites on behalf of their clients and want predictable pricing. If you plan on hosting lots of websites all for your own use, then cPanel or sPanel offer cheaper plans.
Ease of use
Plesk has the most cohesive user interface of all the admin panels, combining the server-side administration into the same user interface as the website management interface. This has benefits and drawbacks. On the one hand, it’s nice to have the server management presented in a manner that is friendly to non-technical users, but at the same time, it feels a little frustrating to use if you are technical. There’s considerably less of the underlying technical details exposed to users, which is great if you’re worried about breaking things, but if you’re a tinkerer, then you might prefer the more raw experience that cPanel provides. Plesk not only works great on mobiles but even provides a dedicated mobile app so you can manage your websites on the go.
Support
Web server support
It supports a wide array of different web servers and languages. Apache is installed by default, with the option to install Nginx as a reverse proxy, which gives you the best of both worlds. Litespeed is supported, but there’s no support for the free alternative, OpenLitespeed, so expect additional costs.
Database support
Microsoft SQL, MySQL, and PostgreSQL are all supported, making Plesk a great choice for those who need more powerful database options.
Language support
Support programming languages include PHP, Javascript/Node, Perl, Ruby, Python, .NET. There’s even docker support via an official extension, which means effortless support for virtually any language and setup.
Backups
Plesk offers a pretty standard array of backup options with good support for remote backup providers. FTP, Amazon S3, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive are all supported.
Extensions and apps
Plesk has the most impressive extensibility out of any of the admin panels we’ve tried. Along with the usual one-click installers such as Softacolous, you can also install extensions to manage your social media, page speed, harden your WordPress installations - it really does have it all. There’s even a pretty powerful site builder included, meaning you can build your website with zero coding knowledge.
Security
Not only does Plesk come with the usual security software, but it also goes the extra mile to make them more user-friendly. We particularly like how user-friendly the web application firewall is, providing an extra layer of security against malicious requests without overly complicating it. Plesk includes both VirusTotal and Imunify for virus scans with an option for paid upgrades. Kernelcare and other paid security hardening services are available.
Final verdict
Plesk is truly leading the way with the admin panel. It has remained fresh and up-to-date, offering a lot of the latest and greatest software. Everything is easy to use and packaged in a way that isn’t intimidating to non-technical users. It would be nice to see better out-of-the-box performance optimisation, something that sPanel really excels at, but Plesk offers a more broad set of capabilities. It does an incredible job of being both extremely powerful and customisable, without being overwhelming for non-technical users. The bottom line is that if you want an admin panel that does everything and packages it up nicely into a very user-friendly package, then it might be worth splashing a bit more on Plesk.
Operating system support: AlmaLinux, CloudLinux, Rocky Linux and Ubuntu
Portability to different platforms
cPanel is probably one of the most popular admin panels, so it’s no surprise that it’s supported by many hosts. They also include migration tools to migrate between servers and even from a Plesk control panel. Since cPanel is so popular, most alternative admin panels have a migrato,r meaning that if you decide cPanel isn’t for you, you can still easily switch to other admin panels such as Plex or sPanel.
Instead of charging by website, cPanel offers unlimited websites and chargers based on the number of users you have. If you’re planning on hosting a lot of websites, but all for your own use, then it can make it slightly cheaper, although not as cheap as SPanel. However, if you plan on hosting just a few websites or having lots of user accounts, then it will be more expensive than the alternatives. Reselling is available for their plans starting at 46.99/mo, making it slightly cheaper than Plesk for reselling.
Ease of use
cPanel’s ease of use is a mixed bag. It has areas that can be a little daunting for new users, but once you’re familiar with it, it becomes pretty easy to work out where things are. There’s no mobile-specific app, but that’s not required since the web version works well on mobile. The server admin part of cPanel is a lot more daunting than the individual website management section, and the server admin part definitely feels like it would be daunting to non-technical users - although it is nice to have the additional flexibility you get from exposing the raw, technical, internals. The beauty of cPanel’s popularity is that there are plenty of tutorials and videos you can watch if you’re not quite sure how to do something.
Support
Web server support
Nginx is supported via free plugins and some command line dabbling, but we’d expect to see a server as popular as Nginx to be supported out of the box. Lightspeed is available but that is a commercial application and requires an eye-watering $25/month license. It would be nice to see support for the free alternative OpenLightSpeed, which is available in sPanel. Overall, cPanel doesn’t offer the breadth of web server support that Plesk does, and it doesn’t provide the performance-optimized web server support that sPanel offers. It does offer clustering, meaning you can join multiple servers together and split the load between them, but that’s quite an advanced feature and not something the vast majority of users will need.
Database support
Supports both MySQL/MariaDB out of the box. Postgres is supported but involves running a command line script, which, again, isn’t ideal for less-technical users - although once it’s installed, then the user interface has very good support for it.
Language support
Supports PHP, Java, and Ruby out of the box, with support for more if you’re willing to install and manage them yourself. We’d expect a mature admin panel such as cPanel to support many more languages.
Backups
Supports offsite backups. Has a good selection of remote backup providers: S3, BackBlaze, FTP, Google Drive, Rsync and WebDAV.
Extensions and apps
Supports Softaculous. It also has a number of paid extensions but nothing that isn’t supported by Plesk. It is very extensible if you’re willing to dabble with the command line, and there’s lots of documentation provided on how to tweak things, but really, an admin panel as mature and expensive as cPanel should have more click-and-play extensions to justify its cost.
Security
Clam AV virus scanner, which is a good virus scanner, with support for more advanced ones such as ImunifyAV (at a cost). 2 factor auth, which is good. Automatic updates are an additional $3/month. This includes ModSecurity as a web application firewall, which I personally trust over an AI solution.
Final verdict
Hosting has changed a lot in the last decade, with new performance-focused web servers, advanced databases and powerful new languages becoming increasingly popular. Unfortunately, cPanel has done little to keep up with these advances, supporting pretty much the same setup it has for the last decade or more. Whilst there is plenty of documentation covering how to install these newer alternatives, it’s really something that cPanel should be supporting out of the box by now. Given the increase in pricing cPanel has seen over the years, it costs just as much as considerably better alternatives such as Plesk. cPanel is historically a very popular and well-known admin panel, so it will be familiar to a lot of seasoned hosters and, despite its shortcomings, its familiarity is often enough to make it people’s go-to admin panel. The bottom line is: unless you already feel most comfortable in cPanel or you plan on reselling, there’s no real reason to choose it over sPanel or Plesk.
