Intel’s graphics guru Raja Koduri on Wednesday once again teased his Twitter followers with an animated image of how the company’s Ponte Vecchio compute GPU will be made. He posted the teaser just a day after it was revealed that the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre will use Intel’s upcoming Sapphire Rapids CPUs as well as Ponte Vecchio compute GPUs based on the Xe-HPC architecture starting in 2022.
Some Ponte Vecchio Eye Candy pic.twitter.com/fCG2rZrozIMay 5, 2021
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Intel’s Ponte Vecchio will be one of the industry’s most complex chips ever made when it starts shipping in 2022. The compute GPU packs over 100 billion of transistors over 47 different tiles and promises to offer PetaFLOPS class AI performance. Building a GPU of such complexity is an extreme challenge, so it is understandable that Koduri and other Intel engineers are extremely proud.
Hardwareluxx reports that that the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre in Munich, Germany, will adopt Intel’s 4th Generation Xeon Scalable ‘Sapphire Rapids’ CPUs and Ponte Vecchio compute GPUs for its phase two SuperMUC-NG supercomputer due to be delivered in 2022. The system is also expected to use 1PB of Distributed Asynchronous Object Storage (DAOS based on Optane DC SSDs and Optane DC Persistent Memory.
(Image credit: Intel)
There is no word about performance expected from the new system, but the phase one SuperMUC-NG uses 12,960 Intel Xeon Platinum 8174 processors with 24 cores each. The system offers Linpack (Rmax) performance of 19,476.6 TFLOPS and Linpack Theoretical Peak (Rpeak) performance of 26,873.9 TFLOPS. At present, the supercomputer does not use any GPU accelerators for compute, but engineers from the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre reportedly use some Nvidia Tesla boards for testing their programs.
(Image credit: Intel)
Without a doubt, the Ponte Vecchio GPU looks very promising, but so far it has officially won only one design with Argonne National Laboratory’s Aurora supercomputer. The system is going to be one of the industry’s first supercomputers to feature over 1 ExaFLOPS FP64 performance and is going to be used to solve some of the world’s most complex compute challenges.
A huge security flaw has been found in Dell’s latest dbutil driver (version 2.3) that can allow hackers to escalate privileges on a Dell machine, use a denial of service attack and access sensitive information. The flaw, which requires physical access to a machine, could potentially affect hundreds of thousands of Dell systems.
Several months ago, a security researcher at Sentinel Labs managed to find the flaws found in the dbutil driver thanks to Process Hacker, which is a program that can debug software and detect malware. The researcher found 5 bugs in all: two memory corruptions, a security issue that allows the driver to interact with non-elevated processes and a code logic issue that can result in a denial of service attack.
Perhaps the worst part of it all is that the dbutil driver is over 12 years old. A list of affected Dell computers can be found here.
Fortunately, the dbutil driver isn’t critical to your system; rather, it’s a utility driver that works with Dell Command Update, Dell Update, Alienware Update, and other Dell updating programs to update your drivers and firmware.
Uninstalling the driver shouldn’t be a problem, and Dell is already on top of the situation with plenty of ways to uninstall the affected driver listed here. The link will also show you how to install the patched version of the driver that doesn’t have any security flaws.
The implications of this situation could be huge; all modern Dells use Dell’s updating software to update drivers and firmware, so this bugged driver could already be on tens to hundreds of thousands of Dell machine.
Microsoft and Dell were able to fix the issues and bring out a new version yesterday. Hopefully, the driver gets pushed to as many Dell systems as possible.
The Apple Watch Series 3 was first released in September 2017, bringing fitness improvements and a faster processor. Nearly four years later, in 2021, Apple is still selling the Series 3 as its entry-level Apple Watch model starting at $199, an $80 savings compared to the more recent Apple Watch SE. Only, as I’ve recently learned, “still selling” and “supporting in a reasonable manner” are two very different things, and updating an Apple Watch Series 3 in 2021 is a nightmare of infuriating technological hoops to jump through.
Normally, updating an Apple Watch is an annoyingly long but straightforward process: you charge your Watch up to 50 percent, plug it in, and wait for the slow process of the update transferring and installing to your smartwatch.
But the non-cellular Apple Watch Series 3 has a tiny 8GB of internal storage, a fair chunk of which is taken up by the operating system and other critical software. So installing a major update — like the recently released watchOS 7.4 — goes something like this:
Unpair and wipe your Apple Watch to factory settings
Set up the Apple Watch again and restore from backup
Realize you weren’t supposed to restore from your backup yet
Watch an episode or two of Brooklyn Nine-Nine while you wait for the backup to finish restoring
Start from step one again — but as a brand-new Apple Watch, without restoring from an existing backup
Update completely fresh Apple Watch, which now has enough free memory to update
Consider how much you actually want to use this face unlocking feature everyone keeps hyping up in the first place
Unpair and wipe the Apple Watch a third time
Restore from your backup and finally use normally
And the issue seems to apply whether you’ve installed a pile of apps or not. Apple’s support website doesn’t even recommend that Series 3 owners bother trying to clear up space — it just advocates that they go straight to the aforementioned reset cycle.
It’s clear that the current process is untenable.
I’m an editor at a technology news site and willing to put in the comical amount of time and energy to manage this, frustrating as it might be. But if you’re a more casual user — the same one who is likely to own an older, outdated Watch in the first place — why on earth would you bother with the worst update mechanism since GE’s instructions for resetting a smart bulb? And being able to update your hardware’s software is important: the just-released watchOS 7.4.1, for example, patches a critical security flaw. But with it being so difficult to install, there’s a good chance that plenty of Series 3 owners won’t bother.
I know that Apple loves to claim support for as many older hardware generations as it can with each new update. It’s one of the biggest appeals of Apple products, compared to the lackluster pace of updates on competing Android phones (like the just-deprecated Galaxy S8).
But the miserable update process for the Series 3 is a strong argument that Apple is being a little too generous with what it considers “current” hardware. Keeping the Series 3 around this long was always a money grab, a way for Apple to clear out old inventory and take advantage of mature manufacturing processes that have long since broken even in order to appeal to users who really can’t afford the extra $80 for the markedly better Apple Watch SE. It’s a similar trend to the inexplicably still-on-sale Apple TV HD, which is almost six years old and costs just $30 less than the brand-new 4K model. (Much like the Series 3, don’t buy a new Apple TV HD in 2021 either.)
But hopefully, with the announcement of watchOS 8 almost assuredly around the corner at WWDC this June, the company takes into account the basic functionality of its hardware when considering what it does and doesn’t offer support for. Because if Apple is going to insist on selling a product this old in the future, it’s going to need to be a lot more mindful of just how it actually handles its software support.
Nvidia appears to be getting ready to launch its RTX 3080 Ti graphics card later this month. Over the past few weeks, RTX 3080 Ti cards have reportedly been spotted on shipping pallets, in retail boxes, and now in the hands of someone. VideoCardz has been at the center of tracking down Nvidia’s rumored RTX 3080 Ti card, and it reports the GPU will be launched on May 31st, alongside the RTX 3070 Ti.
The RTX 3080 Ti will reportedly include 12GB of GDDR6X memory, a 2GB increase over what’s found on the RTX 3080. A wider 384-bit bus is rumored, matching the RTX 3090 — and an increase to the memory bandwidth over the RTX 3080. What this all means in terms of performance isn’t exactly clear yet, but it certainly looks like the RTX 3080 Ti will sit comfortably in between the RTX 3080 and the RTX 3090.
That may mean we’re looking at another GPU from Nvidia that’s over the $1,000 mark, but given the scalper prices for the RTX 3080, that’s not exactly unusual now. VideoCardz spotted an MSI 3080 Ti late last week, and today YouTuber Moore’s Law Is Dead now claims to know someone with an unannounced Gigabyte RTX 3080 Ti.
Just to confirm from my end – the RTX 3080 Ti 12GB is certainly real, and coming soon™️.
I obviously blacked out the background to protect someone, but that’s a real 3080 Ti someone I know has their hands on… pic.twitter.com/sn18aNbboa
— Moore’s Law Is Dead (@mooreslawisdead) May 4, 2021
If the reports are accurate, we should be getting a lot more details about both the RTX 3080 Ti and the 3070 Ti later this month. Both cards are also rumored to ship with the same Ethereum cryptocurrency mining limiter that Nvidia implemented with the RTX 3060. Nvidia accidentally removed this nerf with a driver update, before once again reinstating the hash limiter last week.
Either way, many people waiting to build PCs right now might not get overly excited about news of yet another GPU launch. It has been nearly impossible to buy RTX 30-series cards thanks to a global chip shortage and massive demand from PC gamers looking to upgrade. Launching yet another GPU won’t fix the supply and demand issues that Nvidia has already warned will continue throughout 2021.
Almost every SKU of the RTX 30-series line returns in today’s Newegg Shuffle, save for the RTX 3090. But making up for that high-end absence are new bundles for some of AMD’s best graphics cards, giving you a total selection between not only the RTX 3060, RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3070 and RTX 3080, but also the RX 6700 XT and RX 6900 XT.
Like most of Newegg’s recent shuffles, all of today’s cards do come bundled with another component. For the most part, that’s a power supply or motherboard, though there are a few RAM bundles in today’s shuffle as well. There’s also a bundle for an RTX 3070 and EVGA XR1 Capture Card that might interest streamers.
These bundles, unfortunately, don’t represent savings. Instead, Newegg’s just taking the opportunity to sell loosely related components by forcing prospective graphics card buyers to get them with their purchase. These additional parts aren’t overpriced, but you can’t opt out of buying them if you don’t need them. Certain parts, like the Gigabyte Power Supplies, also have low ratings and could prove unreliable over time.
Still, even with the extra parts, our eBay GPU pricing index shows that you’re still likely to pay less for a GPU here than you would with a scalper. You could probably trash the bundled item and still come out ahead, though reselling might be the wiser choice.
And that’s not a horrible tradeoff to be able to buy cards from all over the top half of our GPU benchmarks hierarchy. For an idea of the power we’re looking at here, know that RTX 3060 cards are about as fast as the RTX 2070 from 2018, but with more memory (and less memory bandwidth). The RTX 3080, meanwhile, is the Ampere flagship and offers the best performance you can find without going into the RTX 3090’s Titan RTX-level power.
AMD’s Radeon cards are also powerful when it comes to rasterized games, but our ray tracing face-off shows that they still have a ways to go when it comes to matching Nvidia’s ray-tracing and DLSS prowess.
For those unfamiliar with the process, Newegg Shuffle uses a lottery format. Just select the component(s) you’d like to potentially buy. Then Newegg will hold a drawing later today, after which the ‘winners’ will be notified by email with the chance to purchase an item (only one) within a several-hour period. Based on our experience, you won’t get selected most of the time. But hey, it’s free to try.
Here’s the full list of today’s options:
EVGA RTX 3060 with EVGA Supernova 750W Power Supply for $522
EVGA RTX 3060 with EVGA 750W Power Supply for $505
MSI RTX 3060 Ventus OC with OLOy WarHawk RGB 2 x 8GB RAM for $600
MSI RTX 3060 Ventus OC with OLOy 2 x 8GB RAM for $580
MSI RTX 3060 Ventus OC with OLOy 2 x 8GB RAM for $588
Asus TUF Gaming RTX 3060 OC with Asus TUF Gaming B450M Motherboard for $604
Asus TUF Gaming RTX 3060 OC with Asus ROG Strix GB450-F Motherboard for $644
EVGA RTX 3070 with EVGA Supernova 750W Power Supply for $761
EVGA RTX 3070 with EVGA XR1 Capture Card for $824
Gigabyte RTX 3060 Ti with Gigabyte 750W Power Supply for $759
Gigabyte RTX 3060 Ti with Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite Motherboard for $804
Gigabyte RTX 3060 Ti OC with Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite Motherboard for $814
Gigabyte RTX 3060 Ti OC with Gigabyte 750W Power Supply for $769
Gigabyte RX 6700 XT with Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite Wifi Motherboard for $1,084
Gigabyte RX 6700 XT with Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite Motherboard for $1,084
Asus ROG Strix RX 6700 XT with Asus TUF Gaming B450M Motherboard for $1,044
Asus ROG Strix RX 6700 XT with Asus ROG Strix B450-F Motherboard for $1,084
Gigabyte Aorus RTX 3080 with Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite Wifi Motherboard for $1,304
Gigabyte Aorus RTX 3080 with Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite Motherboard for $1,304
AsRock RX 6900 XT with ASRock B550M Steel Legend Motherboard for $1,859
With component shortages plaguing the PC industry, not to mention the smartphone and automotive industries, the latest word is that prices aren’t likely to return to ‘normal’ throughout 2021. If you can keep chugging along with whatever your PC currently has, that’s the best option, as otherwise prices are painful for all of the Nvidia Ampere and AMD RDNA2 GPUs.
Today’s Newegg shuffle starts at 1 pm EST/10 am PST. The Newegg Shuffle normally lasts for 2 hours, so if you’re interested in any of these components, act fast!For other ways to get hard-to-find graphics cards, check out our RTX 3080 stock tracker and our feature on where to buy RTX 30-series cards. And for more Newegg savings, visit out page of Newegg promo codes.
When you spend so much time building PCs and picking the best gaming monitor, gaming keyboard and gaming mouse, it’s easy to overlook the importance of the chair you use to navigate that setup. For PC gamers, sitting in the best gaming chair can add some personality to your gaming den and, more importantly, provide support to key areas, like your back and shoulders, that are often neglected by cheaper furniture . When you’re sitting for large chunks of the day, your body needs just as much attention as your next CPU buy, so you can focus on gaming and working, rather than scheduling your next chiropractor visit.
But the best gaming chair may not necessarily be a gaming chair per se. When you’re using your computer to work or study, you need to ensure that you’re sitting on something that’s comfortable, even when you’re not fragging with your friends or listening to Johnny Silverhand. . Whether that means a bright gamer aesthetic, a more subdued look fit for conference calls or a range of adjustments for when you need to lay back and regroup is all up to you.
Below we break down the best gaming chairs to hit the Tom’s Hardware lab (whether they’re explicitly targeted at gamers or not), but first, here are some things to consider when shopping for a new gaming chair.
What’s the chair’s maximum supported height and weight? If you don’t fit the chair’s recommendations or if you’re a smaller person and notice the chair is geared toward the big and tall crowd, look elsewhere.
Shoulder and lumbar support are key. Chairs without enough backrest height and width to support your shoulders and lumbar region via a dedicated mechanism or pillow may feel fine for a quick sit but won’t provide enough support for frequent hours of gaming or work.
Mind your seat too. Some chairs provide measurements for the whole seat, which may be smaller than the measurement for the actual sittable area of the seat. Make sure the seat’s point of contact is wide enough for your hips and how you like to sit.
Which adjustments do you need? Height adjustment is pretty standard, but you may also want to recline forward and/or backward, move the armrests in multiple directions or have the ability to rock.
What material and look do you want? There are a lot of gaming chairs that look like racecar bucket seats and use faux leather and are often easy to clean. Real leather will be pricier, and mesh chairs can be harder to clean. If you want something that looks more subdued, remember to also consider chairs that may not claim “gaming” in their title.
Can it fit under your desk? If pairing your chair with a certain desk, make sure the chair’s height and armrests will be able to fit under the desk, so you can push it in when not in use.
Best Gaming Chairs 2021
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
1. Secretlab Omega
Best Gaming Chair
Upholstery: PU faux leather (tested), leather or fabric | Maximum Weight: Maximum Height: Backrest Length: 31.5 inches | Backrest Width (Shoulder Level): 21 inches | Seat Width (Point of Contact): 14 inches
Padding is supportive but not stiff
Backrest has good range
Hard armrests
Backrest lever occasionally gets jammed
With a complete range of adjustments, including a backrest that can sit from 85-165 degrees, premium-feeling faux leather and some of the coziest extra pillows we’ve ever laid our heads and lumbars on, the Secretlab Omega is the best gaming chair. Secretlab’s homemade take on memory foam has just the right amount of hardness to support the whole body for hours without being overly rigid and stiff. In fact, I used this as my primary work chair for about a year and never got sore.
One of the Omega’s most standout features is the foam neck and lumbar foam pillows that use cooling gel to fight heat and are covered in a deliciously soft fabric. They’re not just decoration; the pillows conform to your body when in use and revert back to their original shape after. Plus, the armrests move up/down, in/out and toward/away the body and forward/back. It’s not perfect: these armrests could be softer for resting on, and the recline lever’s quality has room for improvement. However, with all of these advantages and a helpful tilt function , the Secret Labs Omega offers a comfortable position for most body types.
Note that the Omega also comes in different upholsteries and finishes. We tested the fabric upholstery in our Secretlab Titan SoftWeave review, as well one of the more colorful design options, the Secretlab League of Legends K/DA Edition.
At under $300, the AndaSeat Jungle is the best gaming chair for gamers who don’t want to break their back or the bank. A 1.5-inch-thick layer of memory foam prevents your body from sagging into the chair, and the foam lumbar support and neck pillows make it even harder to slouch.
Despite its more budget pricing, the Jungle offers breathable vinyl faux leather and the necessary adjustments for gaming and work. You get height adjustment, a rocking feature, recline from 90-160 degrees and height-adjustable armrests.
Those with wider hips or who just like to spread out, however, will lament the seat’s narrowness. Make sure the 14.2-inch width is enough room for you, otherwise you won’t last very long in the chair.
Supporting gamers up to 440 pounds — or 330.7 pounds if you want to use the rocking feature — and 6 feet 11 inches with a wider seat that’s 22.4 inches across, the AndaSeat Spider-Man Edition is the best gaming chair for big and tall gamers. In fact, taller gamers would fare better in this particular throne, as even our reviewer at 5 feet 8 inches found the neck pillow and headrest hard to access. The shoulder area could be a bit wider, but you do get a wide lumbar foam support pillow that covers the backrest well.
The molded foam proved hard enough to prevent fatigue during long gaming shifts while still offering some flexibility. Another bonus was that we didn’t find our skin sticking to the chair’s surface, as is the case with our vinyl faux leather chairs we’ve tested.
AndaSeat’s Spider-Man-themed seat also offers a solid range of adjustments, such as the ability to tilt and recline from 90-160 degrees. The armrests are nicely covered in PU faux leather and can move up/down, forward/backward, left/right and tilt inward/outward.
And, if Spider-Man isn’t the kind of hero you’d sit on, AndaSeat also makes this chair in Iron Man, Captain America and Ant Man styles.
More: AndaSeat Spider-Man Edition review
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
4. X-Chair X3 ATR Mgmt
Best Gaming Chair Splurge
Upholstery: Knit polymer mesh | Maximum Weight: 340 pounds | Maximum Height: Not disclosed | Backrest Length: 24 inches | Backrest Width (Shoulder Level): 26.5 inches | Seat Width (Point of Contact): 20.5 inches
Extremely customizable and adjustable
Heat and massage option
Expensive
Warranty not as robust as some competitors
Yes, the X-Chair X3 ATR Mgmt is expensive, but with configurable options that let you build a chair that fits your body type, it’s an investment in comfort. Primarily, the X3 ATR Mgmt blows most other gaming chairs’ approaches to lumbar support away by ditching the clunky pillow or adjustable firmness with a tension mechanism that properly adjusts to your size and lower back shape.
The X3 ATR Mgmt comes with a lot of optional features that can add to its price, from the massage/heat features we tested to the headrest and your choice of foam. The configuration we tested lets us work and play for hours without any back or body aches; although, the armrests could be a little softer. Those armrests can move up/down, forward/back and twist in/out. The seat’s also movable, as is the height, and the backrest and recline from 90-130 degrees.
Most people don’t need the $100 heat and massage feature add-on, which you can power it via your PC or a battery pack. It feels nice on the lower back but isn’t very strong.
Patch notes for a new update of HWInfo64 have confirmed that Intel’s next generation of CPUs, codenamed ‘Alder Lake’ will use gear modes on its memory controller, similar to Intel’s current Rocket Lake processors. The patch notes indicate that HWInfo64 can now report which gear mode an Alder Lake CPU is actively using.
Gear modes were introduced with the Rocket Lake architecture, and they allow users to change the way the memory controller behaves in order to achieve higher compatibility with more memory kits and higher RAM speeds.
You are given the choice of two gear modes with Rocket Lake. Gear 1 will allow the memory controller to operate at the same frequency as the system’s memory (known as a 1:1 ratio), allowing for the lowest latency possible. Gear 2, on the other hand, will cut the memory controller’s speed in half (2:1 ratio), compared to the system’s memory frequency allowing the memory controller to operate significantly higher frequency RAM.
However, because Gear 2 cuts the memory controller’s clock speed in half, your memory latency gets penalized, so this mode is only beneficial for workloads that are very sensitive to memory bandwidth over memory latency, which is found mostly in professional applications. If you’re a gamer or casual PC user, the lower latency with Gear 1 is the better choice.
What we don’t know yet is how gears will be implemented on Alder Lake. Intel could be upgrading the memory controller on Alder Lake, which would change the capabilities of each gear ratio. Or Intel might be using the same controller found on current Rocket Lake CPUs, we really don’t know at this time.
Either way, gears will most likely play a much bigger role in memory performance with DDR5 arriving on the scene. Alder Lake will be Intel’s first architecture to support not just DDR4 but DDR5 as well. With DDR5 frequencies hitting 8400MHz already, we could see a change in the way things currently stand, so that having a higher frequency at the expense of a slower memory controller speed is more important than lower latency in more situations.
(Pocket-lint) – They might not be the newest flagships, but the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro are still available to buy in a number of global markets and could well be worth grabbing now that they’re cheaper than they used to be. Still, which should you pick?
With its flagship phones, OnePlus prides itself on pushing the boundaries of performance, whether that be gaming speed, UI responsiveness or even fast charging speeds. Despite this, they still generally undercut the big name competition in terms of price.
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Design
OnePlus 8: 160 x 72.9 x 8mm, 180g
8 Pro: 165.3mm x 74.35mm x 8.5mm, 199g
OnePlus 8: Water-resistant, no IP rating
8 Pro: IP68 rated
Both models: Glacial Green, Onyx Black (Blue and Glow in selected markets)
As you’d assume from looking at any smartphone range with a regular model and a ‘Pro’ version, the OnePlus 8 Pro is the bigger of the two phones. It’s slightly taller and wider than the regular OnePlus 8, although it is a tiny bit thicker. There’s not really all that much in it though. While OnePlus touted the OnePlus 8 as its ‘compact’ model, it’s really not all that compact at all.
In the hand, you can still definitely tell the difference between the two. Unsurprisingly, the regular OnePlus 8 is a little more comfortable to hold, and doesn’t require as much stretching.
Apart from that, the two phones look very similar to each other. Unlike the previous 7T range, the camera housing is the same shape on the back, and the two phones both have curved glass on the front and the back with skinny bezels and a selfie camera cutout in the top left corner of the screen.
In fact, the only real difference apart from size is the waterproofing. Both phones are water-resistant, but the OnePlus 8 Pro is the only one with an official IP rating. Specifically: it’s IP68, which means it’s right up there with the likes of Samsung and Apple’s latest flagship in terms of water and dust resistance.
Both devices come in the same colours. In most markets that will just be the glossy Onyx Black and the matte frosted Glacial Green. Other select markets will also get the unicorn coloured Interstellar Glow and Ultramarine Blue variants.
Display
OnePlus 8: 6.55-inch Full HD+ AMOLED panel, 90Hz
8 Pro: 6.7-inch Quad HD+ AMOLED panel, 120Hz
Both models: Curved glass and 4mm hole-punch cutout
While both phones feature the same screen design in terms of shape, looks and camera cutout, the two are different panels with different capabilities.
Of the two, the 6.7-inch display on the Pro model is the most impressive. It features both Quad HD+ resolution and up to 120Hz refresh rate. That means it’s pin-sharp and super smooth in terms of animation speeds and frame rates.
The regular OnePlus 8 has a slightly smaller, Full HD+ resolution display. It doesn’t have the 120Hz refresh rate, but does feature the 90Hz refresh that both the previous 7T and 7T Pro had. And, by any standard, that’s more than fast enough for every day activities and gaming.
What’s interesting is that when you look at them side-by-side, OnePlush has done a great job of ensuring the two screens have the same colour reproduction, so if you have the callibration set the same on both devices, they look virtually identical in terms of colour.
Even with both set to their respective highest refresh rates of 90Hz and 120Hz respectively, we didn’t notice all that much difference in smoothness or speed between them.
However, with the 8 Pro set to its maximum resolution, the panel definitely looks sharper. You get more densely packed pixels, and so rounded edges and fine text is smoother and crisper than on the regular OnePlus. If you want the best quality panel, this is the one to go for.
Both devices use “Fluid AMOLED” panels, and both boasting the same colour accuracy. We’re unsure on the OnePlus 8’s peak brightness, but the OnePlus 8 Pro can reach as high as 1300 nits, which is pretty exceptional for a smartphone.
8 Pro: Regular/wide, ultra-wide, 3x telephoto zoom and photochromatic cameras
48MP main, 48MP ultra-wide, 8MP telephoto and 5MP photochromatic
If there’s one area that shows the biggest difference between the two phones, it’s in the camera department. OnePlus has gone all-out with the Pro model, offering an intriguing quad camera system.
The OnePlus 8 Pro has a primary camera alongside an ultra-wide camera, both featuring 48-megapixel Sony sensors, with the primary one using the better quality sensor. As well as that, there’s the 8-megapixel telephoto camera that has 3x optical zoom, and can zoom up to 30x digitally. Then, curiously, there’s a 5-megapixel photochromatic sensor, or colour filter camera.
In contrast, the OnePlus 8 has three cameras, but one of those is just a low resolution 2-megapixel macro sensor to help it focus to objects close up. It uses the same 48-megapixel in its primary camera that the 8 Pro uses in its ultra-wide one. It also has a 16-megapixel ultra-wide sensor.
In our testing, the 8 Pro’s main and ultra-wide cameras were capable of producing great photos with lots of detail and good levels of contrast, dynamic range and colour. The ultra-wide can also be used as a macro camera, to product great close-ups too. A feature we ended up using quite a lot.
Its telephoto zoom isn’t as strong, but it does mean the ability to zoom into scenes, even if they look a bit flatter. While the OnePlus 8’s main camera was decent and produced good results, the other two cameras underwhelmed.
Like the display, if you want the best all-round camera experience, the 8 Pro is the one to opt for.
Both phones feature the same 16-megapixel front facing camera in that tiny punch-hole cutout in the display.
Hardware and Performance
Both models: Snapdragon 865 processor with 5G
Both models: 8GB/128GB or 12GB/256GB RAM/storage options
8 Pro only: LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.0 storage
OnePlus 8: 4,300mAh battery
8 Pro: 4,510mAh battery
Both models: Warp Charge 30T fast wired charging
8 Pro only: 30W wireless Warp Charge
As is often the case, both of the OnePlus phones are based on the same platform: the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor with X55 5G modem. That essentially means, at their core, it’s the same performance capabilities in terms of brain power and cellular download speeds.
It’s a similar story with storage and RAM. Both regular and Pro models come as 8GB/128GB and 12GB/256GB variants, so you don’t lose any memory for choosing the regular over the Pro. The 8 Pro has faster, more modern LPDDR5 RAM versus LPDDR4, but it has the same amount of it.
The biggest phone of the two, obviously, has the bigger battery, but there’s not a whole lot in it. It’s 4,510mAh versus 4,300mAh, so you do get a bit of extra capacity on the Pro, but in daily use with a bigger, brighter, sharper and faster display, that may mean the actual battery life is very similar.
How much life you get out of the two obviously depends on how much you use the phone, and what you use it for. In our testing, both phones were very capable of getting through a full, busy work day. We ended each day with around 30 per cent on the OnePlus 8, and somewhere between that and 40 per cent for the Pro.
Both phones are also equipped with Warp Charge 30T capabilities, which is OnePlus’ bespoke fast-charging functionality. It can get from 0-50 per cent in about 23-25 minutes.
The OnePlus 8 Pro, however, is equipped with wireless charging. And not just any wireless charging. It has 30W fast charging too, so, while not quite as speedy as the wired version, it’s not far off.
Conclusion
The OnePlus 8 Pro isn’t just Pro in name, it has a lot of features that the regular OnePlus 8 doesn’t. Whether it’s the IP68 rating against water and dust resistance, wireless charging or faster, sharper and larger display. That’s without mentioning the more versatile camera system.
So if the absolute best is the only thing that matters to you, then the Pro is clearly the way to go. The fact it costs less than the big-name flagships from the likes of Samsung, Huawei and Apple is the cherry on the cake.
What’s more, we think the extra £200 for those additional features and capabilities are more than worth it. You’re not just paying to get a bigger version of the same phones.
With that said, the OnePlus 8 still has a great screen and is very fast. In the daily experience, it will still feel like a proper flagship phone and one that will save you money versus the Pro. It’s also smaller and lighter, which is something worth considering.
The specifications for Intel’s NUC 11 Essential (Atlas Canyon) device have emerged, courtesy of FanlessTech. The upcoming NUC utilizes the chipmaker’s 10nm low-powered Jasper Lake processors.
Armed with Tremont cores, Jasper Lake checks in with thermal limits between 6W and 10W, so it doesn’t require any serious cooling. The NUC 11 Essential will be available with three different processor options. The Pentium Silver J6005 and Celeron J5105 are quad-core parts, while the Celeron J4505 is a dual-core chip. Neither processor leverages Hyper-Threading technology.
Intel outfitted the NUC 11 Essential with two SO-DIMM memory slots so you can pair either Jasper Lake processor with up to 16GB of DDR4-2933 memory at 1.2V. Some select models will come equipped with 64GB of eMMC storage, but the NUC 11 Essential offers a single M.2 2280 slot for housing NVMe and SATA drives.
As FanlessTech has noted, this is the first time that an entry-level NUC is arriving with a M.2 slot as opposed previous designs with spacing for a 2.5-inch drive. This helps trim down the size of the NUC as the NUC 11 Essential has a 135x115x36mm footprint.
The NUC 11 Essential lands with one HDMI 2.0b port and one DisplayPort 1.4 output. Both connectors support HDCP 2.2 as well as 4K monitors, so you can connect up to two 4K displays to the NUC 11 Essential. You’ll still be limited by Jasper Lake’s Intel UHD graphics engine. The iGPU is an abysmal gaming performer, but should be sufficient for conventional workloads.
The NUC 11 Essential only has a single Gigabit Ethernet port. If you’re a wireless aficionado, however, you can take advantage of the speedy Wi-Fi 6 AX101 and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity on the NUC. There are two 3.5mm audio connectors on the front of the device. The NUC 11 Essential supports 7.1-audio through the HDMI port.
Don’t let the NUC 11 Essential’s small body fool you. The device offers enough connectivity options to be your daily driver. There are two front USB 3.1 ports, two rear USB 3.1 ports, and two rear USB 2.0 ports. The NUC sips power through a standard 19VDC 65W power supply.
Intel backs the NUC 11 Essential with a limited three-year warranty. There was no mention of pricing. According to FanlessTech, the NUC won’t arrive until the first quarter of next year.
The FuzeDrive P200 is a QLC-based hybrid SSD that defies the norm through clever tiering technology that delivers higher endurance, but the excessive pricing isn’t for everyone.
For
+ Large static and dynamic SLC caches
+ Competitive performance
+ Software package
+ 5-year warranty
+ High endurance ratings
Against
– High cost
– Capacity trade-off for SLC cache
– Low sustained write speed
– Initial software configuration
– Lacks AES 256-bit encryption
Features and Specifications
The Enmotus FuzeDrive P200 SSD takes an unconventional approach to increase SSD performance and extend lifespan by leveraging the power of AI to deliver up to 3.4 GBps and class-leading endurance. According to the company, artificial intelligence isn’t just about robots and decrypting future business trends — it can also enhance your SSD and tune it to your usage patterns, thus unlocking more performance and endurance.
Enmotus builds the FuzeDrive P200 using commodity hardware but says the drive delivers more than six times more endurance than most QLC-based SSDs through its sophisticated AI-boosted software and tiering techniques. In fact, a single 1.6 TB drive is guaranteed to absorb an amazing 3.6 petabytes of write data throughout its warranty. The company’s FusionX software also allows you to expand your storage volume up to 32TB by adding another SSD or HDD (just one). All of this will set you back the same cost of a new Samsung 980 Pro with a faster PCIe interface, though, ultimately making this drive attractive only for a niche audience.
Innovative AI Storage
(Image credit: Enmotus)
Traditional SSDs, like Sabrent’s Rocket Q, come with QLC flash that operates in a dynamic SLC mode. While this provides fast performance and high capacity, it has drawbacks that primarily manifest as low endurance.
However, QLC flash can operate in the full 16-level, low-endurance QLC mode or operate in a high-endurance SLC mode, which is advantageous for Enmotus’s FuzeDrive P200 SSD. By operating Micron’s flash solely in high endurance SLC mode, the flash’s endurance multiplies – its program-erase cycle rating increases from roughly 600-1,000 cycles to 30,000 cycles. The main reason being that in SLC mode, the flash can be programmed in just one pass, whereas QLC takes 3+ cycles to fine-tune the cell charge.
The 1.6TB FuzeDrive P200 comes with 2TB of raw flash, but not all of it is available to the user. This is somewhat similar to Intel’s Optane Memory H10 and soon-to-be-released H20, but instead of the complication of relying on two separate controllers and storage mediums, the P200 uses only one controller and one type of flash. The FuzeDrive leverages the advantages that both dynamic and high endurance SLC modes have to offer by splitting the device into two LBA zones. The first LBA range is the high endurance zone, and it sacrifices 512GB of the raw flash to provide 128GB of SLC goodness (4 bits QLC -> 1-bit SLC), but the user can’t access this area directly. The remaining QLC flash in the second LBA zone operates in dynamic SLC mode and is made available to the end user. The 900GB model comes with a smaller 24GB SLC cache.
The company’s intelligent AI NVMe driver virtualizes the zones into a single volume and relocates data to either portion after analyzing the I/O. In this tiering configuration, a large RAM-based table is set up in memory (roughly 100MB) to track I/O behavior across the whole storage device. Most active and write-intensive data is automatically directed to the SLC zone, and inactive data is moved to the QLC portion with minimal CPU overhead compared to caching techniques. Movements are done only in the background, and only one copy of the data exists. The NVMe driver manages the data placement, while the drive uses a special modified firmware to split it into two separate LBA zones.
Specifications
Product
FuzeDrive P200 900GB
FuzeDrive P200 1.6TB
Pricing
$199.99
$349.99
Form Factor
M.2 2280
M.2 2280
Interface / Protocol
PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3
PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3
Controller
Phison PS5012-E12S
Phison PS5012-E12S
DRAM
DDR3L
DDR3L
Memory
Micron 96L QLC
Micron 96L QLC
Sequential Read
3,470 MBps
3,470 MBps
Sequential Write
2,000 MBps
3,000 MBps
Random Read
193,000 IOPS
372,000 IOPS
Random Write
394,000 IOPS
402,000 IOPS
Endurance (TBW)
750 TB
3,600 TB
Part Number
P200-900/24
P200-1600/128
Warranty
5-Years
5-Years
Enmotus’s FuzeDrive P200 comes in 900GB and 1.6TB capacities. Both fetch a pretty penny, priced at $200 and $350, respectively, roughly matching the price of the fastest Gen4 SSDs on the market. The FuzeDrive P200 comes with a Gen3 NVMe SSD controller, so Enmotus rated it for up to 3,470 / 3,000 MBps of sequential read/write throughput and sustain up to 372,000 / 402,000 random read/write IOPS.
But, while Samsung’s 980 Pro may be faster, it only offers one-third the endurance of the P200. Enmotus rates the 900GB model to handle up to 750 TB of writes during its five-year warranty. The 1.6TB model is much more robust — It can handle up to 3.6 petabytes of writes within its warranty, meaning the P200 comes backed with the highest endurance rating we’ve seen for a QLC SSD of this capacity.
Software and Accessories
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Enmotus provides Fuzion, a utility that monitors the SSD and enables other maintenance tasks, like updating firmware or secure erasing the SSD. The software is available from the Microsoft Store and will automatically install and update the driver for the device. The company also provides the Enmotus-branded Macrium Reflect Cloning Software to help migrate data to the new SSD, as well as the FuzionX software for more complex tiering capability.
When adding a third device into the mix, such as a high-capacity SATA SSD or HDD (NVMe support under development), you can use FusionX software to integrate it into the P200’s virtual volume. The SLC portion of the P200 SSD will retain the volume’s hot data, the QLC portion will retain the warm data, while the HDD stores cold data.
A Closer Look
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Enmotus’s FuzeDrive P200 SSD comes in an M.2 2280 form factor, and the 2TB model is double-sided solely to place a second DRAM IC on the back of the PCB. The company uses a copper heat spreader label to aid with heat dissipation. The controller supports ASPM, ASPT, and the L1.2 sleep mode to reduce power when the drive isn’t busy.
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As mentioned, Enomotus builds the FuzeDrive P200 with commodity hardware – Phison’s mainstream E12S PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe 1.3-compliant SSD controller and Micron QLC flash, but the firmware is specifically designed to enable splitting the drive into two distinct zones – one high endurance, one low endurance. The controller has dual Arm Cortex R5 CPUs, clocked at 666MHz, and a DRAM cache. The controller interfaces with two Nanya 4Gb DDR3L DRAM ICs at 1600 MHz for fast access to the FTL mapping tables.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
There are four NAND packages on our 2TB sample, each containing four 1Tb Micron 96-Layer QLC packages. For responsive random performance and solid performance in mixed workloads, the flash has a four-plane architecture and interfaces with this eight-channel controller at speeds up to 667 MTps. To ensure reliable operation and maintain data integrity over time, the controller implements Phion’s third-generation LDPC ECC and RAID ECC along with a DDR ECC engine and end-to-end data path protection.
GPD’s latest iteration of its handheld gaming PC, the Win 3, is finally going on sale later this month. You’ll be able to grab it from multiple e-tailers such as Amazon starting May 15th or later.
The Win 3 is GPD’s latest handheld gaming device designed to run Windows 10 and play PC games. The biggest upgrade for the Win 3 over previous designs is its inclusion of a QWERTY keyboard along with gamepad controls (like joysticks, a d-pad, and triggers), all in a similar form factor as a Nintendo Switch.
The Win 3 is GPD’s first Tiger Lake-based gaming handheld, featuring an Intel Core i7-1165G7 or a Core i5-1135G7, with Intel’s big core count Xe graphics chip that comes in either an 80EU configuration (for the Core i5) or 96EUs (for the Core i7). To help boost Intel’s Xe graphics even further, the Win 3 comes with 16GB of LPDDR4x memory clocked at 4266MHz.
For the screen, GPC went with a 5.5-inch display with a resolution of 1280×720. A higher resolution isn’t really needed with such a tiny display. Plus, a 720P resolution will really help the integrated graphics push higher frame rates since it is still an integrated graphics chip, not a discrete Nvidia or AMD GPU.
If GPC’s performance metrics are to be believed, then the Win 3 is quite a capable gaming machine. In the most demanding games GPC tested, like Red Dead Redemption 2, Control, and Battlefield V, the Win 3 averaged 50FPS with the Core i5 version.
These were the worst-case scenarios as well, with other games like SEKIRO: Shadows Die Twice, World War Z, and other games maintaining 60FPS or higher, again on the Core i5 version. For the Core i7 model, frame rates were reportedly at least 10-15% better (thanks to the higher core count Xe graphics).
We don’t know what graphics details were used in these tests though so take those results with a grain of salt–and assume lots of things were turned down or off.
You will be able to grab the Win 3 from Amazon starting May 28th for $1130, Banggood for $1100 on May 15th, and IndieGoGo InDemand for $997 sometime in July. Specifically, those prices are for the i5 models; the i7 models are roughly $200 pricier.
Monday’s Newegg Shuffle comes with every SKU of Nvidia’s best graphics cards from the Ampere line, plus a single AMD GPU and a bunch of motherboards and power supplies that you probably don’t want. The RTX 3060 and RTX 3090 are both here, as well as every option in between, including Ti and overclocked models. Plus, the Radeon RX 6700 makes sure AMD has some representation.
Of note is that all of today’s bundles come with either a motherboard or power supply attached, save for one bundle that instead opts to include a 1440p @ 165Hz Asus Monitor. Some of these are decent gear, like the Gigabyte Elite and Master series motherboards, but be careful around those power supplies. The Gigabyte power supplies included here have some pretty low ratings, although the EVGA bundles are likely a safer bet. Maybe.
As for why you need to buy a bundle in the first place, it’s because Newegg knows these GPUs are rare, and it’s happy to take the opportunity to force you to buy extra gear if you want to get them. Not just any gear, either: It’s often gear that doesn’t sell as well on its own. Still, even with the extra parts, our eBay GPU pricing index shows that you’re still likely to pay less for a GPU here than you would with a scalper — the bundled item can be offloaded or trashed and you’d still come out ahead.
And this is a pretty strong lineup, featuring cards from all over the top half of our GPU benchmarks hierarchy. For an idea of the power we’re looking at here, know that RTX 3060 cards are about as fast as the RTX 2070 from 2018, but with more memory (and less memory bandwidth). The RTX 3090 meanwhile reigns as the king of the GPU hill, with 24GB of VRAM for good measure. It’s about 25% faster than the old Titan RTX, and right now costs nearly as much.
If you’re eyeing the lone Radeon card, refer to our ray tracing face-off to see how it stacks compared to Nvidia’s ray-tracing and DLSS prowess. It does a lot better in traditional rasterized games, however, where it keeps pace with the RTX 3070.
For those unfamiliar with the process, Newegg Shuffle uses a lottery format. Just select the component(s) you’d like to potentially buy. Then Newegg will hold a drawing later today, after which the ‘winners’ will be notified by email with the chance to purchase an item (only one) within a several-hour period. Based on our experience, you won’t get selected most of the time. But hey, it’s free to try.
Here’s the full list of today’s options:
Gigabyte RTX 3060 Vision OC with Gigabyte B550M Aorus Pro Motherboard or Gigabyte B550 Gaming X V2 Motherboard for $634
Gigabyte Aorus RTX 3060 Ti with B550M Aorus Pro Motherboard or Gigabyte B550 Gaming X V2 Motherboard for $774
Gigabyte Aorus RTX 3060 Ti with Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite Motherboard for $804
Gigabyte RTX 3060 Ti with Gigabyte B550 Gaming X V2 Motherboard for $784
Gigabyte RTX 3060 Ti with Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite Motherboard for $814
EVGA RTX 3070 with EVGA 750W Power Supply for $819
EVGA RTX 3070 with EVGA Supernova 750W Plus Gold Power Supply for $821
EXGA RTX 3070 with EVGA Supernova GT 750W Power Supply for $834
Gigabyte RTX 3070 Vision OC with Gigabyte 750W Power Supply for $879
Gigabyte RTX 3070 Vision OC with Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro Motherboard for $959
Gigabyte RTX 3070 with Gigabyte 750W Power Supply for $899
Gigabyte RTX 3070 with Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite Motherboard for $1,004
Gigabyte RTX 3070 with Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master for $1,064
Asus ROG Strix RX 6700 XT with Asus TUF Gaming B450M Motherboard for $1,044
Asus ROG Strix RTX 6700 XT with Asus ROG Strix B450-F Motherboard for $1,084
Asus TUF Gaming RTX 3080 with Asus ROG Strix B550-F Motherboard for $1,239
Asus TUF Gaming RTX 3080 with Asus TUF Gaming 27 inch 1440p @ 165Hz Monitor for $1,409
Gigabyte RTX 3080 Vision OC with Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite Motherboard or Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite Wifi Motherboard for $1,304
Gigabyte RTX 3080 Vision OC with Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master Motherboard for $1,364
Asus TUF Gaming RTX 3090 with Asus Prime B550M Motherboard for $2,309
Asus TUF Gaming RTX 3090 with Asus ROG Strix B550-F Gaming for $2,399
Gigabyte Aorus RTX 3090 with Gigabyte 850W Power Supply for $2,379
Gigabyte Aorus RTX 3090 with Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master Motherboard for $2,604
Gigabyte Aorus RTX 3090 with Gigabyte X490 Aorus Master Waterforce Motherboard for $2,854
With component shortages plaguing the PC industry, not to mention the smartphone and automotive industries, the latest word is that prices aren’t likely to return to ‘normal’ throughout 2021. If you can keep chugging along with whatever your PC currently has, that’s the best option, as otherwise prices are painful for all of the Nvidia Ampere and AMD RDNA2 GPUs.
Today’s Newegg shuffle starts at 1 pm EST/10 am PST. The Newegg Shuffle normally lasts for 2 hours, so if you’re interested in any of these components, act fast!For other ways to get hard-to-find graphics cards, check out our RTX 3080 stock tracker and our feature on where to buy RTX 30-series cards. And for more Newegg savings, visit out page of Newegg promo codes.
As spotted by TechPowerUp, MSI has just announced three new motherboards for the Z590 platform: the MEG Z590 Unify, Unify-X, and the MEG Z590 ACE Gold Edition. All three boards are aimed to extract the most from Intel’s Comet Lake and Rocket Lake CPUs, with very robust power delivery setups, plus tons of connectivity for storage, wireless and USB devices.
(Image credit: MSI)
The MEG Z590 Ace Gold Edition is as blingy as the name implies, layered with gold and silver touches from top to bottom. Rather than being completely gold, it’s more of a silver-themed board with gold accents. Still, it’s one of the most striking designs we’ve seen on a motherboard in a while. If you want a board to pair with your 24-Karat Adata keyboard, we can think of nothing better.
But the Ace Gold Edition isn’t all about aesthetics, it’s a flagship board just like the normal Ace variant. The board comes with a beefy 16 phase power delivery system with 90A power stages and a large aluminum heatsink that extends from the uppermost M.2 slot all the way to the memory DIMMs.
The Ace Gold Edition also comes with a ton of storage options and connectivity, including four M.2 slots, Wi-Fi-6E AX210, and eight USB ports, plus dual 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 connections. If you opt for this board and somehow don’t also install G.Skill Trident Z Royal memory, you’re clearly doing it wrong.
Z590 Unify/Unify-X
(Image credit: TechPowerUp)
MSI is also refreshing its ‘Unify’ brand for the Z590 platform, with the new Z590 Unify and Unify-X. These boards are all about ringing out as much performance from your system components as possible.
Both boards will feature a beefy power delivery system with a 16+2+1 phase design, built with 90A smart power stages, so you shouldn’t be bottlenecked by your VRMs when overclocking Intel’s most power-hungry chips.
The Unify-X turns things up a notch even further when it comes to memory overclocking, to increase memory stability at high clock speeds, MSI has deleted two of the DIMMS which allows support for up to 7200MHz.
Both boards also come with a boatload of connectivity, including four M.2 slots for storage, and 12 USB ports.
Aesthetically, the Z590 Unify and Unify-X are the polar opposite of the Ace Gold edition, with no LED or RGB lighting insight, and featuring a matt black aesthetic from top to bottom. A great look for those looking for stealth and simplicity.
We don’t know when any of these boards will be available to purchase, but the Z590 Ace Gold Edition is already upon MSI’s website, so we expect all three boards to be purchasable soon.
HWiNFO, which is increasingly becoming a source of new hardware information, has added support of ‘some Asus Z690 and Maximus XIV,’ according to blogger @Komachi_Ensaka. Interestingly, the mention of the Z690 has been removed since he wrote his post.
Since Intel has confirmed that it is developing an Alder Lake-based desktop platform, it’s not exactly a secret that its motherboard partners are working on appropriate mainboards. But Asus seems to be the first company to confirm these works, albeit unofficially.
Much is still up in the air about what exactly the Intel Z690 chipset will bring with it. Yet we do know that it is set to support Intel’s Alder Lake-S platform, which means DDR5 memory and PCIe 5.0 interconnections. We also know that the platform (not the CPU or chipset specifically) is set to support Thunderbolt 4.
While there’s still much to learn about Intel’s Z690 chipset, what is important in this story is timing. We know from Intel that Alder Lake-S is due in the second half of the year — which technically starts in July. And apparently Asus is pretty far along with at least one Z690 motherboard. Does this mean that the CPU will be out rather sooner than later? Who knows?
Being a top-of-the-range product, the ASRock Z590 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4 naturally has support for addressable RGB lighting (using the ASRock Polychrome Sync/Polychrome RGB software) and has a very sophisticated input/output department that has a number of unique features, such as three display outputs and multi-gig networking.
A production keyboard that feels like a custom build, the Ducky Mecha SF Radiant offers an excellent experience for both typing and gaming. It features sterling build quality and a gorgeous aesthetic you won’t find anywhere else, but the lack of software and hot-swappable switches are disappointing.
For
+ Unique aesthetic
+ Sturdy aluminum case
+ High-quality PBT keycaps
+ Compact design for portability and desk space
Against
– Lack of software can be limiting
– No hot-swappable key switches
With its beautifully iridescent aluminum case, custom-themed PBT keycaps and excellent typing experience, the Ducky Mecha SF Radiant combines the worlds of custom and production keyboards in a unique marriage of style and substance. At $159, it’s on the expensive side but is one of the top compact keyboards available today, competing nicely with the best gaming keyboards and offering a strong productivity experience. Assuming, that is, that you jive with the two available color ways and lack of software.
Ducky has been popular among enthusiasts for a number of years, but it wasn’t until the launch of the One 2 Mini back in 2018 that it really made it to the mainstream. Since then, it’s released a number of revisions and collaborations with major gaming brands like Razer and HyperX, but the 60% form factor can be difficult to adjust to with its lack of arrows, function keys and navigation buttons.
The One 2 SF, released in 2019, answered these challenges, adding back the arrow keys and a miniaturized nav-cluster, but was quickly overshadowed by the Mecha Mini, Ducky’s widely acclaimed aluminum-chassis take on the One 2 Mini. I was lucky enough to review each of those boards, but the Mecha Mini reigned supreme with its heavy aluminum build that made typing feel so much more satisfying.
The wait for an SF version is finally over with the Mecha SF Radiant. This new keyboard one-ups the Mini version with a brand new finish and themed keycap set for a package that is unlike anything else in the mainstream market today. It isn’t without its limitations compared to the competition, but may just be the best compact keyboard Ducky has produced yet. You’ll have to move fast if you want one for yourself, though, as only 2021 will be made of this limited edition item.
The Ducky Mecha SF Radiant is a compact keyboard that aims to achieve the size benefits of a 60% keyboard while adding functionality closer to a tenkeyless. In fact, the “SF” in the name stands for “sixty-five” alluding to its 65% layout. This is a bit of a misnomer in actual size but signifies the overall design.
The Mecha SF Radiant follows the Mini by doing away with the numpad and function row, but instead of removing the nav cluster entirely, it shrinks it to a column of three keys on the right side of the board. The buttons to the right of the spacebar and the right shift have also been shrunk to make room for dedicated arrow keys, which is a boon to gamers.
The result is a keyboard that is only slightly wider than a 60% but feels much more usable. It measures 12.8 x 4.1 x 1.6 inches and looks downright small on a full-size desk. The design is ergonomically sound and allows your hands to be spaced at a much natural distance versus spread out with a full-size keyboard. It’s also helpful in first-person shooters where big mouse movements can leave you craving more space. For my part, I most enjoy the clean, minimalist aesthetic of a compact keyboard on my desk.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The layout here is slightly different than many 65% keyboards, however. Rather than featuring four buttons on the right side like the much more traditional Drop ALT, Ducky only includes three and replaces last with an embossed case badge below the bottom key. The amount of keys follows the Ducky One 2 SF, but the addition of a case badge is a direct nod to the custom keyboard community where they have become a staple. The included keys are Delete, Page Up, and Page Down. Like most other keys on the keyboard, Page Up and Page Down also carry secondary functions, in this case Home and End.
Through clever use of function commands, the Mecha SF Radiant manages to pack most of the functionality of a tenkeyless keyboard into its tiny frame. By holding the Fn button, you can access a second layer that provides access to most of the absent keys. With Fn held, the number row will send function commands. Likewise, Print Screen, Insert, and Scroll Lock all have their own dedicated combo buttons, in addition to volume control and even buttons to control the mouse pointer. Holding Fn+Alt opens up the third layer to choose lighting presets, set custom color schemes, and program macros. It’s an impressive array that adds more software-free customization than even programmable gaming keyboards from Razer and Logitech can provide, but since there are no side legends on the keycaps, it may take a while to memorize every keymap.
All of this was true of the original One 2 SF, so what really sets Mecha apart is its metal case and PBT keycaps. The case is solid aluminum and lends the keyboard weight and density which both enhance the typing experience. It’s not the heaviest keyboard I’ve used, even compared to some sixty-percents I’ve tried, but at 1.9 pounds, it’s heavier than it looks. The most striking aspect of it is the iridescent finish which shifts from teal to blue to purple depending on the angle. Ducky has dubbed this version “Ocean” but the Radiant is also available in a green “Emerald” colorway.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The shifting, transforming quality of the keyboard is striking but a bit of a double-edged sword. The keycaps have been carefully curated with three shades of blue and white, but they don’t always match the case perfectly depending on the angle you’re viewing it from. From a normal seated or standing position, it looks great. Viewed from another angle where it appears purple, it can look mismatched against the blue.
The keycaps themselves are excellent. Ducky used its usual PBT plastic, which is more durable and resistant to shine than ABS plastic. The legends are double-shot, which means they’re made of a second piece of plastic that’s bonded to the outer shell, preventing fading or chipping over time.
The walls of the caps are also delightfully thick which lends typing a solidity that’s often lacking from the thin-walled keycaps we see on most gaming keyboards. The legends aren’t shine-through, so the RGB backlight is relegated to an underglow effect that’s more for style than helping you type in the dark. As usual, Ducky includes a selection of alternate keycaps, this time all white. I was surprised to find that the alternate arrow keys actually are backlit, if only slightly. The shape of the arrow has been carved out of the second shot of plastic, allowing them to glow a dull blue in the dark.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Despite the occasional angle-based mismatch, the keycaps ultimately work to tie the look of the keyboard together. The mix of shades of blue definitely brings sea waves to mind. When installed, the injection of white along the right-hand side is reminiscent of a rolling wave. This focus on aesthetics is another quality borrowed from the enthusiast community where look and sound often rival the feel of typing itself.
Pulling back a touch, the Mecha SF Radiant features per-key RGB backlighting. As you might expect from an RGB-enabled board, it features the usual suspects in terms of lighting presets: rainbow wave mode, color cycling, breathing, reactive typing, and more totaling ten preset modes. Five can be color customized using a built-in RGB mixer on the Z, X and C keys or by activating a built-in color palette and tapping your color of choice. This is already fairly impressive, but you can also use the lighting to play a pair of games based on Minesweeper and roulette.
The lighting looks great. The Mecha SF Radiant uses a floating key design that exposes the switch housings. This creates a common but still appealing aesthetic that highlights the illumination from the sides. The LEDs are bright and the switches are mounted on a white plate which allows the colors to blend together into a seamless pool of light. Given the highly-themed keycaps and case, matching lighting is inherently more limited but I found white, tinged blue thanks to the reflection from the keycaps, to look best.
Despite the keyboard clearly targeting the middle ground between custom and production keyboards, it doesn’t offer hot-swap support to quickly change switches. This isn’t unusual for Ducky (it just released its first hot-swappable keyboard last year) but is still disappointing. One of the most fun parts of the hobby is trying out new switches and being able to quickly change the whole feel of your keyboard but that won’t be possible here.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Typing Experience on Ducky Mecha SF Radiant
The Ducky Mecha SF Radiant is available with a wide selection of Cherry MX RGB key switches. Clicky MX Blue, tactile MX Brown, and linear MX Red are all present and accounted for, but you’ll also have the choice of Cherry MX Black, MX Silver, or MX Silent Red. Each of these switches are the updated models from Cherry and are rated for 100 million actuations instead of the 50 million they were previously.
My unit was sent with Cherry MX Silent Red switches. Silent Reds are similar to standard MX Red switches in their linear travel but feature internal dampers to reduce typing noise and cushion bottom-outs. They also have a slightly reduced actuation distance of 1.9 mm and a total travel of 3.7 mm but this isn’t really perceptible in normal use. The actuation force is the same at 45 grams. Silent Reds are not my first choice of switch for this reason but are audibly quieter and a much better fit for typing or gaming at work or with a roommate nearby.
Typing on the Mecha SF Radiant is satisfying on multiple levels. The keycaps are lightly textured and felt nice against my fingers and their thick walls lent the experience a more solid, substantial feel. The pillowy bottom-outs were also very nice and allowed me to use the keyboard at work without disturbing my co-workers.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The aluminum case itself plays an important role in the typing experience. Typing on it feels solid and dense, without much empty space inside the shell. Spring ping, which can sometimes be an issue in reverberant alloy cases, was barely audible and disappeared entirely after I lubed the switches (see our article on how to lube switches, but note that I could not remove these so only lubed them through the top). The density of the case enhanced the switch’s silencing effects.
I only wish I could have tried other kinds of switches, but if experience is any indicator, the case should lend typing a higher pitch with other switch types, though I wasn’t able to test this due to the lack of hot-swap support.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Another high-point was the stabilizers. Like most production keyboards, Ducky used plate-mount stabilizers but they came factory lubed out with absolutely minimal rattle. Gaming companies are catching up in this regard (Corsair and Razer now factory lube their stabs), so it’s good to see Ducky keeping its game strong. Stabilizers can make or break the sound of a mechanical keyboard and the Mecha SF Radiant was very good without the need for additional mods.
Transitioning to the Radiant was easy, and I didn’t lose typing speed making the jump. I went through several rounds of tests at 10fastfingers and averaged 103 words per minute. With my Drop Carina keyboard outfitted with tactile Holy Panda switches, ostensibly better for typing due to their pronounced tactile feedback, I averaged 104 words per minute.
Gaming Experience on Ducky Mecha SF Radiant
While the Ducky Mecha SF Radiant isn’t marketed as a gaming keyboard, it offered a solid gaming experience nonetheless. The form factor seems best suited to high-sensitivity shooters like CS:GO but even playing more relaxed games like Valheim, it was just as responsive and reliable as the Corsair K100 RGB Optical Gaming Keyboard I had on hand to test against.
If you prefer to have the entire keyset available to press at once, the keyboard supports n-key rollover or can be limited to only six simultaneous inputs using a DIP switch on the back. You can also permanently disable the Windows key using a second DIP switch or just while in-game using an Fn+Alt combination. The keyboard also supports customizable debounce delay from 5 – 25 ms to balance key chattering with responsiveness.
My go-to genre is first-person shooters where responsiveness reigns supreme. Even though the Mecha SF Radiant doesn’t boast an 4,000 Hz response rate like the Corsair K100, — it’s a more standard 1,000 Hz — I was hard-pressed to feel any difference in responsiveness when comparing the two keyboards0. Playing Doom Eternal, I was able to double-dash through the air, glory kill, and generally rip and tear just as if I were using a keyboard marketed explicitly for gaming.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Competitive gamers may really appreciate the condensed nature of theMecha SF Radiant. I’m used to gaming on a compact keyboard, so I spent some time “resetting” with the Corsair K100 before this review. Swapping back to the Mecha SF Radiant made playing Battlefield 5 more comfortable. Having my arms closer together felt immediately more natural. The smaller size also made it easier to manage repositioning the keyboard at a comfortable angle. The Mecha SF Radiant is small enough to move with one hand and doing the same with the K100 was cumbersome at best.
The biggest limitation I found came with World of Warcraft. MMO players and macro fans may find the compact size doesn’t lend itself well to storing lots of macros. The lack of dedicated macro keys is expected on a keyboard designed to save space, but their absence is mitigated by the column of additional keys along the right side. For gaming, these can easily be set to macro commands and thanks to built-in memory support for up to six profiles, it’s possible to maintain different key sets for different games and productivity tasks.
Programming Ducky Mecha SF Radiant
One of the greatest strengths of the Ducky Mecha SF Radiant is also its greatest Achilles heel: the lack of dedicated software. It’s an asset to the keyboard because it can be programmed on any machine, regardless of security limitations, and function the same between devices. That means you won’t be missing features because you can’t install the software. At the same time, it means programming requires multiple steps, more time, and is more limited than competing keyboards with full software suites.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
With a few different key combinations, you’re able to record macros and remap keys and even set custom lighting schemes. The keyboard supports five programmable profiles in addition to another that’s locked to default settings, so there’s plenty of latitude to create unique layouts and color schemes to match your different use cases.
In the case of macros, holding Fn+Alt+Tab for three seconds puts the keyboard into recording mode. You press the key you want to remap, enter your string, and press Fn+Alt+Tab a second time to end recording. This can also be used to change the position of different keys, though the keyboard also supports swapping the location of popular remaps like Fn, Ctrl, and Alt using another Fn+Alt+K combination.
For lighting, presets can be selected using Fn+Alt+T. The first five are color locked but the second half all allow you to customize the hue using the built-in palette or RGB mixer. The mixer allows for greater control by tapping Red, Green, and Blue values up to 10 times but takes much longer to dial in. Alternatively, Fn+Alt+Spacebar illuminates all of the keys in a rainbow and you can simply tap the color you want. Creating a custom color scheme is also possible following this same process after holding Fn+Alt+Caps Lock and tapping each key you want to illuminate a given color.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
If that sounds like a lot, it is. In comparison to opening a simple app and hitting a “record” for macros or “painting” the keys your color of choice, it’s just not as simple or intuitive. I love that it’s possible to completely customize the board without installing anything, but it demands a level of memorization that is initially frustrating.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Bottom Line
The Ducky Mecha SF Radiant isn’t the perfect compact keyboard but it is a very good one. The combination of unique looks, excellent build quality, and sterling typing experience make this an excellent choice for users not ready to take the plunge into custom mechanical keyboards. At the same time, the lack of hot-swap support or optional software really are disappointing for flexibility and ease of use. Still, the pros far outweigh the cons here and this is an incredibly solid buy if you enjoy the look.
At $159, the Radiant doesn’t come cheap. If you’re looking for an aluminum keyboard and don’t mind it coming in a larger size, the HyperX Alloy FPS Origins might be a good fit. Alternatively, if you want something compact but that still has all the bells and whistles of a high-end gaming keyboard, the Corsair K70 RGB TKL is definitely worth a look.
If you want the best of both worlds and don’t mind sticking with the switches you start with, the Ducky Mecha SF Radiant is definitely worth considering.
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