The Call of Duty League kicked off its inaugural season last year with a bang. The CDL launched with an ambitious vision to merge esports with city-based teams, and it all started with a live event at the Minneapolis Armory. Not long after, that vision was forced to change.
Like most gaming leagues around the world, the CDL was forced to shift to an online format, eschewing in-person events. Perhaps surprisingly, the season was still a success; the league says last year’s finals between Dallas and Atlanta was the most-watched Call of Duty match ever, with a peak of 330,000 viewers. (The winning team even won an actual throne.)
According to CDL commissioner Johanna Faries, the league was able to learn from the experience of running a remote competition last year and make some notable changes for season 2, which starts today. “There’s so much that we’ve done structurally with the season, but also strategically with how we celebrate our community and deliver world-class experiences, that I’d argue will be more of an improvement over last year,” Faries tells The Verge.
The list of changes for season 2 is large. The league is adopting a new structure centered on five “major” tournaments throughout the year, and it has shifted to 4 vs. 4 competition, meaning each team had to drop a starting player from its roster. Games will also be played on PC this year, and — in one of the more unique aspects of competitive COD — the game itself will shift to last year’s Black Ops Cold War. Other changes are slightly smaller in scope, like the ability for teams to design their own jerseys. There’s even a new team: Optic Gaming has moved from LA to Chicago, opening up a spot for the new Los Angeles Thieves.
Faries says players and teams are involved in all of these decisions, particularly the ones that impact them most directly, like the roster changes. “Players and teams were exceedingly involved in that process,” she says of the move to 4 vs. 4. “We tend to mine for feedback pretty rigorously. We don’t like to make decisions in a silo or a vacuum. And I love that the outcome was well received, but we had a sense that that would be the outcome given how collaborative the process was.”
The structural changes, meanwhile, were put in place to ensure that there are still plenty of big moments throughout the regular season, while also making each individual match feel important. “We love this notion of stage-based play, where nearly every month there’s going to be a new run at winning a major tournament in the regular season,” Faries explains. “That said, what’s also good about it is that every match is going to matter.” Teams will earn points from every match, and the top eight clubs will make it to the playoffs at the end of the season. “It all adds up,” she says.
The 2021 season is also kicking off at an opportune time. Call of Duty is arguably as popular as it’s ever been. Not only was Black Ops Cold War one of the top-selling titles of 2020, but the franchise has also reached new audiences through Call of Duty Mobile and the battle royale Warzone. It’s not clear how the CDL plans to take advantage of that, but Faries admits that there’s “such an opportunity” to bring new fans into the league through those games.
Of course, the other big question is when the league will return to in-person events. Faries says that having teams based in cities around the world playing matches in home arenas is still the ultimate vision for the CDL. “We all want that,” she says. “We’re going to do it when it’s safe to do so, responsible to do so.” So while the 2021 season will start out online, the future of the league depends on both the global popularity of COD and tapping into those major cities across the globe. “The two working together is really where the power of the vision of the CDL comes from.”
The Gigabyte M27Q is a very capable and speedy gaming monitor with few flaws. Though it has a huge color gamut, red is a little under-saturated, and it doesn’t offer extra contrast in HDR mode. But you do get superb gaming performance with 170 Hz and super-low input lag. As a value choice, it’s hard to beat.
For
170 Hz
Low input lag
Large color gamut
Accurate sRGB mode
KVM switch
Against
Aim Stabilizer causes ghosting
Lackluster HDR
DCI-P3 red is slightly under-saturated
Features and Specifications
Performance-to-price ratio is something we talk about often. While there are many seeking the lowest priced components and some for whom price is no object, most want the highest possible performance for the money.
Every computer component has a market sweet spot where you get most of the speed and power of top-level components for a lot less than the premium price, and it is no different for PC gaming monitors. We’re talking about the elements that gamers shop for: speed, resolution and screen size.
The Gigabyte M27Q ($330 as of writing) packs 1440p resolution into an IPS panel running at a speedy 170 Hz. The picture quality quotient is upped by a wide color gamut and HDR support. But is the best gaming monitor for value-seekers?
Gigabyte M27Q Specs
Panel Type / Backlight
Super Speed IPS / W-LED, edge array
Screen Size / Aspect Ratio
27 inches / 16:9
Max Resolution & Refresh Rate
2560×1440 @ 170 Hz
AMD FreeSync Premium: 48-170 Hz
Native Color Depth & Gamut
8-bit / DCI-P3
DisplayHDR 400
HDR10
Response Time (GTG)
0.5 ms
Brightness (mfr)
400 nits
Contrast (mfr)
1,000:1
Speakers
2x 2w
Video Inputs
1x DisplayPort 1.2
2x HDMI 2.0
1x USB-C
Audio
3.5mm headphone output
USB 3.0
2x up, 2x down
Power Consumption
21w, brightness @ 200 nits
Panel Dimensions WxHxD w/base
24.2 x 15.8-21 x 8 inches (615 x 401-533 x 203mm)
Panel Thickness
1.7 inches (43mm)
Bezel Width
Top/sides: 0.3 inch (8mm)
Bottom: 0.8 inch (21mm)
Weight
12.1 pounds (5.5kg)
Warranty
3 years
High-contrast VA panels make for amazing image quality on gaming monitors, but speedy IPS implementations are quickly moving to a position of domination in the speediest part of the genre. The M27Q opts for Super Speed (SS) IPS, Gigabyte’s branding for IPS tech that achieves lower response times by using a thinner liquid crystal layer and higher driving voltage than standard IPS screens. Our review focus runs at a 170 Hz refresh rate without overclock and supports AMD FreeSync Premium. It’s not an official G-Sync Compatible monitor, but we got the M27Q to run G-Sync (see our How to Run G-Sync on a FreeSync Monitor tutorial). A claimed 0.5 ms response time puts it in company with most 240 Hz monitors.
The backlight is a flicker-free white LED in an edge array that’s specced to deliver over 400 nits brightness for both SDR and HDR content. It also advertises a “Super Wide Color Gamut” on the box, and we confirmed that claim — although there’s a caveat that we’ll explain on page three.
For the price, the M27Q promises a lot of gaming performance and plenty of features for the enthusiast. Let’s dive in and see if it lives up to the spec sheet.
Assembly and Accessories
Unpacking the substantial carton reveals a panel already bolted to an upright. Just attach the large base with a captive bolt, and you’re ready to make connections. The power supply is a small external brick. Bundled cables include HDMI, DisplayPort and USB 3.0. Despite having a USB-C input, the M27Q does not include a USB-C cable.
Product 360
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(Image credit: Gigabyte)
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(Image credit: Gigabyte)
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(Image credit: Gigabyte)
To keep the price low, (and is is under $350), there are few frills in the M27Q’s design. The monitor doesn’t include an RGB effect, and styling is understated. Build quality, however, is in keeping with higher-priced monitors, and you get Gigabyte’s usual suite of gaming features, like aiming points and timers.
The M27Q is unassuming from the front with just a Gigabyte logo and a tiny white LED adorning the bottom trim strip. The remainder of the bezel is flush mounted with an 8 mm frame around the image. The anti-glare layer is the same 3H-hardness part found on almost all computer monitors. Here, it provides a sharp, bright image with no apparent grain or optical distortion.
There are a few styling cues around back with a shiny polished strip across the top underlined with a thin grill. “M27Q” is molded in below that and in the same gloss finish. The rest of the plastic cover is matte finished in two different textures. Futuristic-looking lines are set around a button for activating KVM mode, which lets you control two PCs connected to the monitor with one keyboard and mouse, and the joystick for controlling the on-screen display (OSD). The upright can be removed if you’d rather use the 100mm VESA mount for a monitor arm.
The stand is very solid with firm movements. The vertical movement has subtle detents, which make it even more positive. You get a 5.2-inch height adjustment plus -5 and 20-degree tilts. There is no swivel or portrait mode. Thankfully, we didn’t encounter any play or wobble when moving the M27Q around. It is very well-built.
The side view shows the M27Q to be a touch thinner than most 27-inch monitors. There are no USB or headphone jacks here. Instead, they’re on the bottom input panel. which includes two HDMI 2.0, one DisplayPort 1.2, one USB-C and three USB 3.0 ports, one upstream and two down. Input labels are easy to see, making connections easier.
OSD Features
Outside of the monitor’s integrated on-screen display (OSD), the M27Q is controllable via the Windows desktop if you download the OSD Sidekick app. You can also create up to three custom reticles in the app. The OSD, however, offers the full-featured menu.
The M27Q’s OSD looks just like the one found on all Gigabyte and Aorus monitors with a large rectangular window and four columns making up the menu tree. There are seven sub-menus, plus a reset all function. The top portion always shows signal information and the status of various settings at a glance.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The first menu is for gaming and includes Aim Stabilizer, Gigabyte’s term for backlight strobe-based blur reduction. Engaging it means turning off Adaptive-Sync and overdrive. It doesn’t affect peak brightness, like most backlight strobes do, but in our tests, it introduced significant ghosting around moving objects. Aim Magnifier enlarges the center of the screen, just the thing for sniping. Unfortunately, it also requires losing Adaptive-Sync and overdrive.
Further adjustments include Black Equalizer, which brightens shadow areas, and Super Resolution, which adds edge enhancement. Display Mode contains aspect ratio options and has a FreeSync toggle. The overdrive feature here is interesting in that you can’t completely turn it off. It has three levels (Balance is the best choice), plus Auto. In our tests, Auto corresponded to the Balance choice. At this setting, overdrive reduced blur nicely without ghosting.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The Picture menu offers seven picture modes, plus three custom memories for user settings. You can store more configurations on your PC by using the OSD Sidekick app. The best mode is Standard as it offers good out-of-box accuracy and calibration to a high standard. It locks the user into the full native color gamut, which as we found out is very large, over 100% of DCI-P3. The sRGB mode is completely usable though with accurate grayscale, gamma and color gamut rendering. That’s the choice for SDR content if you’re a color purist.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
You can get to the Game Assist menu by pressing the joystick once, then clicking right. The monitor has one crosshair included, but you can create three more of your own using the aforementioned OSD Sidekick app. Game Info offers timers that count up or down and a frame rate indicator. Dashboard requires a USB connection and displays CPU and GPU temps, fan speeds and usage stats in an on-screen box that can be placed anywhere you like. If you plan to use multiple M27Qs, this menu has alignment marks available too.
Gigabyte M27Q Calibration Settings
In the Standard picture mode, the M27Q is accurate enough to satisfy most. The native color space is DCI-P3, but you can use the sRGB mode for an accurate display of that gamut. Its only available adjustment is brightness.
For calibration though, the Standard mode offers five gamma presets and three color temps plus a user mode. We left gamma alone but tweaked the RGB sliders for excellent grayscale and gamma tracking.
Here are our recommended calibration settings for enjoying SDR content on the Gigabyte M27Q and what we used for our calibrated benchmarks:
Picture Mode
Standard
Brightness 200 nits
41
Brightness 120 nits
19
Brightness 100 nits
14
Brightness 80 nits
9
Brightness 50 nits
1 (min. 48 nits)
Contrast
48
Gamma
3
Color Temp User
Red 95, Green 98, Blue 100
When it comes to HDR signals, the only adjustment available is brightness. We found the best HDR quality by leaving that slider maxed.
Gaming and Hands-on
One unique feature included of thee M27Q is its KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switch. The ability to control two PCs connected to the monitor with one keyboard and mouse isn’t that common among PC monitors and is almost always found in general use/productivity monitors, rather than gaming ones. In a gaming monitor, a KVM switch makes it easy to toggle from your best gaming laptop, for example, over to your work-sanctioned work PC without unplugging and replugging all your peripherals. The M27Q’s OSD includes a wizard to easily assign video inputs and then switch between them with a dedicated button above the OSD joystick. The USB-C input can be a video connection and a USB upstream port.
With the M27Q calibrated to 200 nits brightness, the Windows desktop looked bright and sharp. Our office has a moderate light level with filtered sunlight coming in one window. We never had trouble with glare or other environmental factors affecting the image. Color looked well-saturated but not overly so. Greens and blues are especially vibrant. Pictures of sky and grass radiated with brilliant hues. Skin tones looked natural and robust without excessive warmth. Detail in tiny fonts and icons was well-resolved, thanks to the screen’s 109 pixel per inch (ppi) pixel density — right at our sweet spot.
Turning on HDR brightened the M27Q’s image considerably, but you can compensate with the brightness slider if it seems too harsh. We only used HDR for gaming and video, not for workday tasks. It offers no benefit when editing spreadsheets. Switchover is automatic and rapid when you select the HDR option in Windows’ Display Settings.
With HDR on we played a bit of Call of Duty: WWII. Comparing HDR to SDR in this game showed a brighter overall environment for HDR but better detail and color saturation in SDR mode. Your selection will come down to user preference. We preferred playing all games in SDR mode. Other titles, like Tomb Raider, looked fantastic with deeply detailed shadows, vivid color and defined textures in this mode.
The M27Q’s video processing was visually perfect in every game we tried when paired with high frame rates. Our GeForce RTX 3090 drove the frames per second (fps) counter to 170 every time. At this speed, there is no hesitation or stutter at all. Frame tears were non-existent, and control inputs were instantly responded to. Blur was also a non-issue.
On a machine running an Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card, the same games ran at around 120 fps and delivered a similar experience. To casual gamers, that additional 50 Hz makes little difference, but more skilled players will appreciate the M27Q’s extra speed. That performance was reliably delivered and never wavered in quality.
Our final takeaway was that this Gigabyte is a serious gaming monitor for an attractive price. Its performance-to-price ratio yielded favorable results on the battlefield.
Starting at $329, Apple’s most affordable iPad model comes at a very attractive price — but if you have been holding off in the hopes of buying it at an even better price, your patience has paid off. At Amazon and Walmart (in select colors), you can buy a 32GB model for $299; you can also get it for $300 at Best Buy. This is the lowest price we have seen for this model to date. If you need a little bit more storage, you can grab the 128GB model at Best Buy for $380.
While its design looks similar to its predecessor, the 2020 iPad model features a faster A12 Bionic processor.
Over at OnePlus’ website, now until February 17th, the company has a few discounts going. Most notably, you can grab an unlocked OnePlus 8 Pro with 12GB of RAM 256GB of storage for $799 ($200 off). If you buy the phone directly from the OnePlus website, you will also receive an Urban backpack at no additional cost.
OnePlus 8 Pro
$799
$999
21% off
Prices taken at time of publishing.
OnePlus’ current flagship smartphone has a 6.78-inch 3168 x 1440 screen and a 120Hz refresh rate.
$799
at OnePlus
Ori and the Blind Forest and its sequel, the Will of the Wisps, are 2D Metroidvania platformer titles known for their stunning visuals. Both games are available on Microsoft’s subscription service, Xbox Game Pass. If you don’t have a subscription or want to own the games in your digital library, you can grab Ori: The Collection for $12 at the Microsoft Store — that’s roughly $24 off its usual price of $35. The compilation includes both titles and is compatible with the Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X / S.
Ori: The Collection
$12
$35
68% off
Prices taken at time of publishing.
A compilation featuring copies of Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps.
$12
at Microsoft
Sling TV, Dish’s streaming service, recently increased its price to $35 per month. If you are interested in trying the service with no strings attached, Sling TV new customers free viewing between 5PM ET and midnight until February 14th. No credit card is required.
Additionally, if you’re a new customer and want to continue using the service, Sling TV is offering a $25 discount on the first month if you decide to purchase a Sling Orange or Blue package. Alternatively, you can choose an option to receive an AirTV Mini at no additional cost if you shell out $35 in your first month.
Do you miss phones with slide-out keyboards? Can you pretend you miss them long enough to hear about a cool Raspberry Pi project? Ok, great, because there’s a new open-source handheld computer project that basically turns your Raspberry Pi (or similar board like the Pine H64 Model B or the ASUS Tinker Board S) into a Motorola Droid.
It’s called the MutantC v3, and it’s actually the latest iteration of a concept that’s been around since its creator, Rahmanshaber, debuted the MutantC v1 back in 2019.
Essentially, what the MutantC v3 does is fit your Raspberry Pi into a tiny case with a thumb-friendly keyboard on top and a slide-out touch display fitted over it. In other words, you can either use it like a tablet, or slide the display up to reveal the keyboard for physical typing. The Mutant C v3 adds a trackpoint on the case’s right-hand side (along with buttons for both left and right-click), plus support for a buzzer, a real-time clock, a gyroscope, and a humidity/pressure/temperature sensor. The keyboard also uses less power, and there’s space for a 12-pin UART/12C/GPIO docking port, though there’s no official dock design yet.
Of course, being an open-source project, there’s not much official anything. It’s up to you to buy all the cables, transistors, and modules this project requires, and you’ll also need a 3D printer to get your hands on the enclosure.
Luckily, there’s also a parts list and multiple build guides over on the MutantC v3’s Gitlab page. Of note is that there are three display size options, ranging from 2.8-inch to 3.5-inch to a full 4 inches.
You won’t need any custom software or coding skill for this project, though, since it just runs off Raspberry Pi OS (or whatever equivalent OS your board uses). The most you’ll need to know is how to solder and how to install the drivers for your hardware.
Be sure to check out our list of Best Raspberry Pi Projects for more cool creations from the maker community.
Today, we bring you our first review of a custom design Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card in the MSI RX 6900 XT Gaming X Trio. When AMD originally announced the RX 6000 series “Big Navi,” with the RX 6900 XT release set for its own exclusive date, the company hadn’t made up its mind on whether to enable custom-design RX 6900 XT boards, which explains why it took some time for board partners to come up with custom designs. The MSI Radeon RX 6900 XT is the company’s flagship graphics card from the red team, designed to square off against NVIDIA’s fastest, such as the GeForce RTX 3080 or even RTX 3090. It supercharges the fully-unlocked “Big Navi” silicon with a custom-design PCB bolstered by a stronger VRM design, triple power inputs, and the company’s latest Tri-Frozr cooling solution.
The Radeon RX 6900 XT by AMD is the company’s fastest GPU from this generation, and the flagship product based on the new RDNA2 graphics architecture that debuted on next-gen consoles, before making it to the PC. This common architecture enables easy optimization of games to the PC platform, as they’re already optimized for the console hardware. RDNA2 is AMD’s first graphics architecture with full DirectX 12 Ultimate readiness, including real-time raytracing through Ray Accelerators, fixed-function hardware. The RX 6900 XT is based on the same 7 nm “Navi 21” silicon as the RX 6800 series, but maxes it out, with all its 5,120 stream processors enabled, as well as 80 Ray Accelerators, 320 TMUs, and 128 ROPs.
Real-time raytracing is the holy grail of consumer 3D graphics, and today’s GPU vendors have figured out how to combine conventional raster 3D with certain real-time raytraced elements, such as lighting, shadows, reflections, etc., to significantly increase realism. Even this much raytracing demands enormous amounts of compute power. AMD’s approach has been to deploy fixed-function hardware for the most compute-intensive part of the raytracing pipeline, while relying on a mighty SIMD setup for other raytracing-related tasks, such as denoising. A by-product of this approach is vastly improved raster 3D performance. Not only are the stream processors doubled over the previous generation RDNA, but they also run at significantly higher engine clocks.
AMD has also doubled the amount of memory to 16 GB and uses the fastest JEDEC-standard 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory, although the bus width is still 256-bit, yielding 512 GB/s memory bandwidth. AMD has worked around the bandwidth problem by deploying a fast on-die level 3 cache directly on the GPU, which it calls Infinity Cache. This 128 MB scratchpad for the GPU, when combined with the GDDR6 memory, belts out an effective bandwidth of 2 TB/s. AMD has also taken the opportunity to update the multimedia acceleration and display I/O capabilities of their GPUs.
MSI takes things a step ahead of AMD by giving the RX 6900 XT a powerful VRM solution that pulls power from three 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and using its premium Tri-Frozr cooling solution deployed across all Gaming X Trio graphics cards from both the RX 6000 and NVIDIA RTX 30 series. This cooler features a chunky aluminium fin-stack heatsink, the company’s latest generation TorX fans, a blinding amount of RGB bling, and other innovative features, such as a mechanism that counteracts PCB bending. MSI’s MSRP for the RX 6900 XT isn’t known, but we doubt it’s anywhere close to AMD’s original MSRP. We’re expecting this card to sell for $1800 or higher—that’s the price point of other premium-design RX 6900 XT cards on the market right now.
If you’re still on a PC that predates 2005, you might be in some trouble. Google is preparing to change its Chrome browser’s minimum CPU requirements to include the SSE3 instruction set in the near future. That means processors older than the Intel Core 2 Duo and AMD Athlon 64 will no longer support the browser, as anything older lacks the SSE3 instruction set.
In the future, Google wants to use more modern instruction sets with Chrome (specifically SSSE3; not to be confused with SSE3), and in doing so they are forced to increase the instruction set requirements to SSE3. Google also looked at the number of Chrome users running non-SSE3 capable processors and the population was small enough for them to make the change.
This news isn’t that surprising. If you are still working on a system that predates 2005, it’s amazing your system runs at all in the first place. The only real population that will be affected by this change is the retro community, which is already incredibly small, and frankly, they already know the potential problems they’ll encounter trying to run modern software.
We don’t know if this change will affect Chromium-based browsers like Edge, but it seems very likely that it will. Hope for older PCs isn’t lost, however, as Mozilla Firefox has no current plans of making SSE3 a system requirement, so you can always fall back to that web-browser if needed.
There is no concrete date for AMD’s Zen 3 APU announcement, but the latest sighting of the Ryzen 7 Pro 5750G indicates that the official launch may not be too far off. Unfortunately, the first sighting of the desktop PC APU comes as a Pro model, which could mean that AMD will reserve its Zen 3 APUs for OEM systems only, just like it did with Renoir. That certainly wouldn’t be of much help to enthusiasts in these times of GPU shortages, but only time will tell us if these chips will also come to the DIY market.
The Ryzen 7 Pro 5750G is basically the direct replacement for the Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G and the Pro version of the Ryzen 7 5700G that showed up last month. A user from the Chiphell forums has shared an alleged CPU-Z screenshot of the Ryzen 7 Pro 5750G that gives us a small taste of what’s to come for AMD’s Zen 3 desktop PC APU chips. As with all leaked information, we should take the info with a grain of salt, but the specifications line up with our expectations.
While not explicitly present in the screenshot, we expect the Ryzen 5000 APUs to possess similar traits as the mobile Ryzen 5000 (Cezanne) counterparts. The Ryzen 5000 desktop APUs are still on a monolithic die, but they wield the famed Zen 3 cores that brought substantial IPC uplifts to AMD’s army. The Ryzen 5000 APUs lack support for PCIe 4.0 and will probably just use an improved Vega graphics engine, just like the Ryzen 5000 Mobile variants.
Ryzen 7 Pro 5750G Specifications
Processor
Cores / Threads
Base Clock (GHz)
Boost Clock (GHz)
L2 Cache (MB)
L3 Cache (MB)
TDP (W)
Ryzen 7 Pro 5750G*
8 / 16
3.8
?
4
16
65
Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G
8 / 16
3.6
4.4
4
8
65
*Specifications are unconfirmed.
Zen 3 enabled Cezanne to sport up to twice the L3 cache compared to Renoir on the mobile parts. The same treatment goes for the desktop APUs, too. The Ryzen 7 Pro 5750G emerged with 16MB of L3 cache, twice what’s on the existing Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G. As expected, the 4MB of L2 cache remains unmodified.
In the case of the Ryzen 7 Pro 5750G, we’re looking at an eight-core 16-thread setup with a potential 3.8 GHz base clock. According to the forum user, the octa-core APU has a default full-core boost clock up to 4.05 GHz. However, the chip may boost over 4.75 GHz.
The author also claims that the Ryzen 7 Pro 5750G runs a bit cooler than the Ryzen 7 5800X. However, the Zen 3 APU has a stronger FCLK than Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer) processors. The Ryzen 7 Pro 5750G allegedly had its FCLK at 2,300 MHz, and there are rumors that engineering samples can even do 2,500 MHz.
The author bought his Ryzen 7 Pro 5750G for 2,750 yuan or $427.33. He seems to think that the retail pricing won’t be much cheaper than Vermeer.
After years of niche positioning in the music world, “high-resolution audio” (or “hi-res audio”) finally hit the mainstream, thanks to a huge raft of support in streaming services (such as Tidal and Amazon Music HD) and products (from smartphones to most digital hi-fi components).
So why should you care about hi-res audio? If you want the best digital music experience possible or at least better sound quality than you’re currently used to (and why wouldn’t you?), hi-res audio is definitely worth investigating.
It can be a daunting prospect. After all, what exactly constitutes hi-res audio, what do all the different file formats and numbers mean, where can you download or stream these high quality files, and what devices do you need to play it?
Indeed, where do you even begin?
That’s where we come in. Our handy guide will take you through the ins and outs of hi-res audio. By the end, we hope you’ll know everything you need to know (and then some) and will be well on your way to enjoying your new and improved sonic lifestyle.
50 of the best hi-fi albums for audiophiles
What is high-resolution audio?
Unlike high-definition video, there’s no single universal standard for hi-res audio. In 2014, the Digital Entertainment Group, Consumer Electronics Association and The Recording Academy, together with record labels, formally defined high-resolution audio as “lossless audio that is capable of reproducing the full range of sound from recordings that have been mastered from better than CD quality music sources”.
In its simplest terms, hi-res audio tends to refer to music files that have a higher sampling frequency and/or bit depth than CD, which is specified at 16-bit/44.1kHz.
Sampling frequency (or sample rate) refers to the number of times samples of the signal are taken per second during the analogue-to-digital conversion process. The more bits there are, the more accurately the signal can be measured in the first instance, so going 16bit to 24bit can deliver a noticeable leap in quality. Hi-res audio files usually use a sampling frequency of 96kHz or 192kHz at 24bit. You can also have 88.2kHz and 176.4kHz files too.
Hi-res audio does come with a downside though: file size. A hi-res file can typically be tens of megabytes in size, and a few tracks can quickly eat up the storage on your device or be cumbersome to stream over your wi-fi or mobile network. Thankfully, storage is much cheaper than it used to be, so it’s easier to get higher-capacity devices. And technologies such as MQA (see below) have arrived to help tackle that.
That’s not all: there are also several different hi-res audio file formats to choose from, all of which have their own compatibility requirements.
They include the popular FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) and ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) formats, both of which are compressed but in a way which means that, in theory, no information is lost. Other formats include the uncompressed WAV and AIFF formats, DSD (the format used for Super Audio CDs) and the more recent MQA (Master Quality Authenticated).
The relative merits of each of the formats can be argued, but the most crucial issue will be the file’s compatibility with your chosen products and software.
Here’s a breakdown of all the main file formats:
MP3 (not hi-res): Popular, lossy compressed format ensures small file size, but far from the best sound quality. Convenient for storing music on smartphones and iPods, but doesn’t support hi-res.
AAC (not hi-res): An alternative to MP3s, it’s lossy and compressed but sounds better. Used for iTunes downloads, Apple Music streaming (at 256kbps) and YouTube streaming.
WAV (hi-res): The standard format all CDs are encoded in. Great sound quality but it’s uncompressed, meaning huge file sizes (especially for hi-res files). It has poor metadata support (that is, album artwork, artist and song title information).
AIFF (hi-res): Apple’s alternative to WAV, with better metadata support. It is lossless and uncompressed (so big file sizes), but not massively popular.
FLAC (hi-res): This lossless compression format supports hi-res sample rates, takes up about half the space of WAV, and stores metadata. It’s royalty-free and widely supported (though not by Apple) and is considered the preferred format for downloading and storing hi-res albums.
ALAC (hi-res): Apple’s own lossless compression format also does hi-res, stores metadata and takes up half the space of WAV. An iTunes- and iOS-friendly alternative to FLAC.
DSD(hi-res): The single-bit format used for Super Audio CDs. It comes in 2.8MHz, 5.6mHz and 11.2mHz varieties, but isn’t widely supported.
MQA(hi-res): A lossless compression format that efficiently packages hi-res files with more emphasis on the time domain. Used for Tidal Masters hi-res streaming, and product support is picking up pace.
MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC: all the audio file formats explained
What’s so good about hi-res audio?
The main claimed benefit of high-resolution audio files is superior sound quality over compressed audio formats such as MP3 and AAC.
Downloads from sites such as Amazon and iTunes, and streaming services such as Spotify, use compressed file formats with relatively low bitrates – such as 256kbps AAC files on Apple Music and 320kbps Ogg Vorbis streams on Spotify.
The use of lossy compression means data is lost in the encoding process, which in turn means resolution is sacrificed for the sake of convenience and smaller file sizes. This has an effect upon the sound quality – those formats aren’t telling the full story of our favourite songs.
This might be fine when you’re listening to Spotify playlists on your smartphone on the bus on the morning commute, but serious audiophiles and music fans should want better. This is where high-resolution audio comes in.
To illustrate why it should sound better than MP3, for example, let’s compare the relative bitrates. The highest quality MP3 has a bitrate of 320kbps, whereas a 24-bit/192kHz file has a data rate of 9216kbps. Music CDs are 1411kbps.
The hi-res 24-bit/96kHz or 24-bit/192kHz files should, therefore, more closely replicate the sound quality the musicians and engineers were working with in the studio. And they could be that very same recorded file, too. These files are labelled as “Studio Masters” in some cases.
With more information on the file to play with, hi-res audio tends to boast greater detail and texture, bringing listeners closer to the original performance – provided your system is transparent enough.
What do I need to play hi-res audio?
There’s a huge variety of products that can playback hi-res audio. It all depends on how big or small you want your system to be, how much your budget is, and what method you’ll mostly be using to listen to your tunes. But it’s never been easier to get involved, now that plenty of the digital and streaming ecosystem supports hi-res, and especially as popular streaming platforms such as Google Chromecast (although not AirPlay 2) do.
These days, even, you don’t have to completely abandon your vinyl collection to go hi-res, either; turntables such as the Sony PS-HX500 let you digitise your vinyl collection by ripping your record tracks into hi-res audio files.
Smartphones If you’re going portable, smartphones are increasingly supporting hi-res playback. This is restricted to higher-end Android models, though – Apple iPhones so far don’t support hi-res audio out of the box (though there are ways around this by using the right app, and then either plugging in a DAC or using Lightning headphones with the iPhones’ Lightning connector).
Phones that have USB-C sockets instead of 3.5mm headphones jacks for music playback – as is becoming the norm – can boost their USB-C output with adapters such as Zorloo’s Ztella USB-C DAC.
Hi-res audio is increasingly easy to stream wirelessly thanks to new advancements in Bluetooth. Phones with aptX HD Bluetooth support (which many these days have, although Apple’s iPhones are an exception) can wirelessly transmit hi-res audio to aptX HD-supporting headphones (such as the Sony WH-1000XM4 and WH-1000XM3 and Bowers & Wilkins PX7 noise-cancelling headphones).
aptX HD Bluetooth: What is it? How can you get it?
Portable music players Alternatively, there are plenty of dedicated portable hi-res music players such as various Sony Walkmans and Award-winning Astell & Kerns and Cowons that offer more storage space and far better sound quality than a multi-tasking smartphone. More digital players than not support hi-res audio, although again an Apple product is the exception, this time the iPod Touch.
Desktop For a desktop solution, your laptop (Windows, Mac, Linux) is a prime source for storing and playing hi-res music (after all, this is where you’ll be downloading the tunes from hi-res download sites anyway), but make sure the software you use to play music also supports hi-res playback. Apple iTunes, for instance, doesn’t support it, even if your MacBook does, so you’ll need to buy and download separate music playing software. The likes of Channel D’s Pure Music and Amarra are worth considering for a Mac. On a PC? Try JRiver Media Center.
DACs We wouldn’t just rely on your computer or phone’s internal DAC to do hi-res audio justice, either. A USB or desktop DAC (such as the Cyrus soundKey, Chord Mojo or Audiolab M-DAC nano) is a good way to get great sound quality out of hi-res files stored on your computer or smartphone (whose audio circuits don’t tend to be optimised for sound quality). Simply plug a decent digital-to-analogue converter (DAC) in between your source and headphones for an instant sonic boost.
Best DACs: USB, portable and desktop DAC
Music streamers
If you’re after a proper hi-fi set-up, you’ll need to look into music streamers that support hi-res, and highly recommendable contenders include the Audiolab 6000N Play, Cambridge CXN V2 and NAD C 658. This is especially if you’ll be storing your growing hi-res library on a NAS (Network Attached Storage, essentially a hard-drive with processing built in), which we would recommend.
Systems
There are plenty of other products that also support hi-res playback, including hybrid DAC-amp-streamer systems (Moon Neo Ace), speaker systems with everything built into them (KEF LS50 Wireless II), just-add-speaker systems (Marantz PM7000N) and current AV receivers (Sony STR-DN1080).
The ever-popular Sonos multi-room system still has no plans to support hi-res audio, and neither does Apple. But that has led rival companies such as Bluesound to offer hi-res playback across their range of connected products (for a higher price, of course).
Wireless speakers At the higher end of the wireless speaker market you’ll find hi-res support the norm. The likes of the Naim Mu-so Qb 2nd Generation, Linn Series 3 and Bowers & Wilkins Formation Wedge are all able to handle hi-res file playback over wi-fi.
Best wireless speakers 2021
Where can I buy and download hi-res music?
Now that you’re armed with all this information on hi-res music, your next question should be: where can I get all these glorious hi-res music tracks?
There are currently a handful of UK download sites that let you buy and download single tracks and full albums in various hi-res formats. There are also plenty of US and European sites, though not all of them let you purchase from the UK.
Major music labels such as Sony, Warner and Universal have made their extensive music catalogues available to these hi-res download services – which is a real shot in the arm for fans of high-resolution audio. With all sites, make sure it’s clear what file format and bitrate you are buying. Ultimately, you may end up with a favourite go-to site, but even then, it’s worth checking across the different sites for the same album or track, too, as some stores can offer better prices than others.
Here are the top UK hi-res download sites:
7Digital With a strong catalogue offering hi-res music from all genres and a website that makes buying music easy, 7digital is an excellent all-rounder. There’s an accurate search function and the website is simple to navigate. You can easily spot hi-res recordings thanks to a ’24bit FLAC’ badge on an album or song’s thumbnail, and there’s also a dedicated hi-res section. The sole drawback is that it only offers downloads in the FLAC format. Prices are affordable, though, and you can buy individual tracks as well as full albums.
Qobuz Sublime
Music discovery and front-end intuitiveness get full marks on French download store Qobuz. Both the website and dedicated app are easy to navigate, and you can search by genre or new releases, which can be sorted by sample rate. There is a strong Francophile focus, although the catalogue is growing more varied every day. Pricing is competitive, but if you opt for the hybrid download-and-streaming Sublime+ service you do get discounts when buying hi-res albums.
HDtracks
HDtracks may be one of the most established hi-res download stores, but it’s in need of a refresh in looks and catalogue. It can feel aimed at an older audience (there’s strong focus on jazz, classical and dad rock), which can be off-putting for wider audiences, especially fans of more current, popular music. On the other hand, whereas other download sites offer FLAC as default, HDtracks lets you choose between FLAC, ALAC, WAV and AIFF (and the sampling rate for each) before downloading. There’s a selection of DSD tunes, too, which is great for audiophiles.
How to build the perfect hi-fi system
Where can I stream hi-res music?
Not ready to download hi-res files, or simply prefer streaming? Tidal and Qobuz streaming services have offered hi-res and CD-quality streams for years, putting them ahead of rivals Spotify and Apple Music. And now that Amazon has joined the party with its HD service, hi-res streaming is now firmly in the mainstream domain.
Tidal Masters Tidal and MQA’s partnership has brought us one step closer to mainstream hi-res music streaming. You’ll need to subscribe to Tidal’s HiFi tier (which offers CD quality streaming) to unlock the Masters section, and then you can stream hi-res MQA files through the desktop app and Android/iOS mobile apps.
Tidal claims a 30,000-strong catalogue of MQA files, with about 400 clearly labelled. The MQA files have a resolution of up to 24-bit/96kHz (any 192kHz files will be unpackaged to 96kHz by MQA’s core decoding). With the right kit, the streamed tunes sound great, too. It’s a solid foundation from which the hi-res streaming experience can only evolve.
Qobuz Sublime+ Qobuz strikes again here and says its hybrid download-and-streaming tier is ‘”the best music subscription in the world.” This top-tier package offers hi-res streaming up to 24bit/192kHz files (as well as CD quality tracks) on its desktop and mobile apps, with its 50-million-track catalogue including more than 240,000 hi-res albums.
The big downside is the price – you have to pay an upfront £250 annual fee to use Sublime+ and all its perks (which does include good discounts when buying hi-res albums). And in comparison, we found Tidal offers more drive and dynamism when it comes to sound quality. Qobuz’s hi-res streaming tier is a great venture, but only if you’re fully committed to hi-res streaming.
Amazon Music HD The most recent entrant into the hi-res streaming service world is Amazon – and its arrival at the end of 2019 largely marked hi-res streaming going mainstream. The cheapest hi-res service of the three, the value-packed streaming service is up there with the best thanks to its Intuitive desktop and mobile apps, good CD-quality and hi-res library and excellent value.
What’s next for hi-res audio?
With more support than ever before, hi-res audio is a viable choice for anyone interested in audio quality, whether part of your home audio system or when on the move.
Whether the biggest players – Apple, Sonos and Spotify – will ever natively support hi-res remains to be seen, but there are plenty of other, increasingly affordable ways that you can start delving into the hi-res audio world. (Interestingly, 360-degree or surround sound formats such as Sony 360 Reality Audio and Dolby Atmos Music respectively are also making headway in offering higher quality, if not necessarily ‘hi-res’, music experiences, so they’re other options for melomaniacs to explore.)
With this wider availability, more people are able to learn and understand exactly what high-resolution audio is, and the benefits it can bring to music. There’s plenty of content out there, and there’s plenty of hardware to go with it.
So if you want the ultimate sonic solution, you know what to do.
MORE:
Where is Spotify Hi-Fi? And do we still want a lossless Spotify tier?
3 of the best high-res audio systems
Here’s a superb-sounding hi-fi system with streaming skills
Over the past couple of months, I’ve been playing a lot of games on my Xbox Series X, and following the release of the iOS 14.5 beta, which added support for the Xbox Series X controller, I’ve been itching to stream my games from my console to my iPhone. However, I dreaded having to pair my controller with my phone — I figured that it might be a hassle, and I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to sync my controller between the two devices.
Turns out, it’s a smooth process to sync the controller to my iPhone. Better yet, it’s easy to swap the controller’s connection back and forth between my iPhone and my Xbox Series X.
Here’s how you set everything up:
First, you have to pair your Xbox Series X controller with your phone or PC. Activate sync mode on your controller by pressing and holding the sync button on the back, which is just above the USB-C port. After a couple seconds, the Xbox logo on the controller will flash rapidly.
Then, on the device you’re trying to sync the controller with, look for the controller in the Bluetooth settings menu. Select the controller to pair it. (Using iOS 14.5 beta, my Xbox Series X controller first appeared with the name “Accessory,” but once I tapped it, it autofilled to “Xbox Wireless Controller” followed by a combination of letters and numbers.)
Press and hold the sync button on the back of your controller to pair it with your phone or PC.Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge
Once the controller is connected to your new device, have fun playing some games!
To use your controller with your Xbox Series X again, double-tap the sync button. The Xbox logo will flash slowly, and then the controller should reconnect with your console.
To switch the controller back to the other device, hold the sync button. The Xbox logo should flash rapidly for a few seconds, and then it should connect to your device. Double tap the sync button to switch it back to your console.
That’s it! I’ve been really pleased with how easy it is to switch between my console and my iPhone, and I suspect I’ll be playing even more Xbox games away from my console than I originally imagined.
One thing you should be aware of: this quick-swap functionality only works with the last mobile device or PC that the controller connected with, according to Microsoft’s Timo Wolf. So if you want to quickly swap between your Xbox Series X and a different device, you’ll need to manually set up your controller with that new device first. And, Wolf says, this method apparently only works for jumping between your Xbox and another device over Bluetooth — it won’t let you swap between an Xbox and the Xbox Wireless Adapter.
In recent years, several representatives from PC case companies have told us that mini-ITX cases are a niche, without enough interest to be worth heavily investing in. Yet oddly, over that same period, more and more companies seem to be churning out these compact small form-factor (SFF) chassis.
The latest entry into the mini-ITX case space is the Meshlcious, from Ssupd (Sunny side up design), a new spinoff brand from Lian Li. As you might guess by the name, the Meshlicious is all about mesh–or nearly, as the case ships with one tempered-glass side panel, which can be attached to either the GPU or CPU side of the case. It will also be available in either black or white. Our review unit arrived dressed in black.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
At 14.17 x 9.65 x 6.55 inches, the Meshlicious is similar in size to the Jonsbo A4 case we used for the
RGBaby build
last year (the A4 is 13.39 x 10.75 x 6.65 inches), and much smaller than the last ITX case I built in,
Asus’ ROG Z11
(20.9 x 7.6 x 15.2 inches) pictured above. At $119 (MSRP) the Meshlicious is also much cheaper than either of those cases, while offering up lots of versatility (within the confines of its 14.67 liter volume), as well as a riser cable for showing off your graphics card. To help keep your components cool, it has mesh covering four of its six sides (or five if you spend $30 on a second mesh side panel to replace the glass side that ships in the box). As I found during testing, though, you’ll probably want to add at least one front intake fan.
Despite its small size, the Meshlicious supports graphics cards up to 12.6 inches and four-slots thick, thanks to a motherboard tray that can be slid forward or back to make room for thick cards. Just note that, as with all cases this small, there are a whole lot of limitations due to space constraints. Installing a long graphics card limits space for SATA storage, for instance. And while you can use a full-size ATX power supply, you may want to opt for a modular SFX PSU just so that there’s less excess cabling to hide. There’s really nowhere to hide excess bulky power cables.
Specifications
Type
Mid-ITX Tower
Motherboard Support
Mini-ITX
Dimensions (HxWxD, vertical orientation)
14.17 x 9.65 x 6.55 inches (360 x 245 x 166.4mm)
Max GPU Length
12.6 inches (320 mm)
CPU Cooler Height
2.87 inches (73mm) with 3-slot GPU, 2.09 inches (53 mm) with 4-slot GPU
External Bays
✗
Internal Bays
Up to 2x 3.5-inch and 3x 2.5-inch with SFF GPU, or 3x 2.5-inch with full-length GPU
Expansion Slots
1x
Front I/O
1x USB 3 Type-A, 1x USB-C
Other
Tempered Glass Side Panel
Front Fans
None (2x 120/140mm supported)
Rear Fans
None
Top Fans
None
Bottom Fans
None
Weight
8.16 pounds (3.7 kg)
Warranty
?
Panels Galore
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Working in the Meshlicious is fairly easy for an SFF chassis, thanks to its easily removable panels. Every side save for the bottom has one, and by default, all are mesh except for one side which is tempered glass with a moderate tint. As noted earlier, you can pop that glass side on either the motherboard side or the graphics card side, depending on which you want to show off.
Metal push pins hold all the sides on, and they stay on snugly and pop off with ease. This is a mechanism I wish more case makers would use, though I’m sure it works much better with small panels than it would with large full-ATX towers. The case and side panels are all steel (save for the glass panel) and reasonably thick and rigid. Nothing feels cheap or flimsy, which is nice given the case’s relatively low price for an ITX chassis.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
With the side panels off, the Meshlicious becomes a minimal shell, housing a PCIe 3.0/4.0 riser cable for vertically mounting your graphics card, and a few cables for the top-panel connections. (The $119 version we tested has a PCIe 3.0 cable, but a $159 version with a PCIe 4.0 cable will also be available.)
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Speaking of the top ports, things are fairly minimal (like the rest of the case’s design), with one USB 3 Type-A port and one Type-C. There’s no real need for an audio jack in a case this small, given that the audio ports around back are inches away from the front, and will generally deliver better audio than external ports would anyway.
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The included accessories are also minimal, and include a bracket for mounting SATA drives, which you’ll need to leave in the box if using a long graphics card — as I did for this build. Also included is an angled HDMI cable, which you’ll need if using a full-size graphics card, as the Graphics card ports are at the bottom in this layout. The cable I got was quite short at just over three feet (not quite enough to make it to my arm-mounted test monitor), but a company rep told me Ssupd would make a change to include a longer cable (and larger zip ties) on future shipments, although initial versions will likely include what you see above. The zip ties included aren’t nearly big enough to wrangle the excess mess of power cables I encountered with my ATX power supply.
The silver aluminum bar above is a shorter mount for the motherboard tray. You’ll use this if installing a four-slot graphics card, to shift the tray more toward the motherboard side. Keep in mind that doing this also minimizes the cooler clearance, which is also quite limited to begin with. You get 2.87 inches of CPU cooler clearance as standard, which shrinks to 2.09 inches if you make room for a thicker card. That means if you’re using a 4-slot card, there will even be some AIO coolers you’ll need to avoid. As I used a slim Noctua air cooler (more on this below), the limited space here wasn’t an issue.
The 2.5-slot Zotac RTX 2080 Amp Extreme I used fit without adjusting the motherboard tray, but left little room between the side panel and the case fans. So I’d recommend either opting for the mesh panel on the GPU side or moving the motherboard back. 240 or 280 mm radiators (or just 120/140mm fans) are supported in the front for cooling your CPU. But note if adding a fan and radiator, things will likely get very tight, since this is also where your excess power cable slack also needs to go. Even if you just install intake fans here, you may have issues with cables pushing up against your fan blades. So you’ll need to take extra care to keep this from happening.
The case supports either SFX or larger ATX power supplies, although the bracket of an SFX power supply comes pre-installed. And I’d recommend using one of these smaller supplies if at all possible, since it will give you extra space and you’ll likely have less cable slack. I used a modular ATX Seasonic Focus PSU and wound up with a big ugly bundle of cables zip-tied together and no place to hide them.
The Meshlcious supports basically two distinct component layouts, each with a mini-ITX motherboard. You can either use a small-form-factor graphics card mounted horizontally, up to 8.3 inches (or less with a front radiator), or a longer full-sized GPU up to 12.6 inches mounted vertically (which is what I installed). With the former, you can also install a drive rail system for 3.5 or 2.5-inch drives. With averically mounted longer GPU you’re limited to mounting two 2.5-inch drives on the bottom of the case. Rather than go over the full details of possible layouts, here are a couple of diagrams, direct from Ssupd.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The build scenario I went with was a combination of these two, using an air cooler like in the image above, left with a long GPU (below, right).
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Building in the Ssupd Meshlicious
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
With the four sides popped off in a matter of seconds, building in the Ssupd Meshlicious was fairly straightforward, at least at first.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
For the sake of simplicity, I carried over the core components from the Asus ROG Z11 case story, including an ROG Strix B550-I Gaming motherboard, an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X CPU, a low-profile Noctua NH-L9a-AM4 chromax.Black CPU cooler, and the aforementioned Zotac RTX 2080 graphics card. We would have loved to upgrade to a Rzyen 5 CPU and a 30-series graphics card. But in case you haven’t noticed, both have been extremely scarce since launch, and for our purposes here, the existing parts work just fine.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
I dropped the motherboard in first, complete with the cooler and RAM. Next I tried to jam the ATX power supply in before realizing the SFX bracket comes pre-installed. I removed that via four screws, then slotted in the Seasonic ATX PSU in the area to the right in the image above. That went without issue, until I realized the GPU riser cable wasn’t fully extended on the other side, and was stuck behind my power supply. So I had to remove the PSU momentarily and secure the PCIe slot near the bottom of the case for the vertical RTX 2080. For smaller cards mounted horizontally, the cable gets mounted near the top.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
That done, I was ready to install the graphics card and the sole SATA SSD for this build, an attractive Team Group T-Force Delta Max RGB model that added some extra RGB to this case that ships without lighting or fans. In this configuration, another 2.5 inch drive can be mounted on the bottom, in a tight spot below the power supply. But for that you’ll need remove the PSU, or install it and connect the cables before installing the power supply. Again, for those who want to install more than two 2.5-inch drives here, you’ll need to use the drive bracket, which necessitates you also use a much shorter graphics card, mounted horizontally. But given many ITX motherboards include two M.2 slots (one often hidden on the back like with our Asus board), plus the ability to install two 2.5 inch drives on the floor of the Meshlicous, that should suffice for most setups. If you’re looking to install lots of storage drives, you probably aren’t also looking for a super compact case.
With everything installed in the Meshlicious,it was instantly clear that I had a bunch of excess cabling, mostly from the power supply, but some from the SATA drive (which also requires a USB cable for its light show). And given that the case is so small, there was no place to effectively hide the mess. Had I installed a radiator and fans in the front and used an SFX PSU with shorter cables, perhaps I could have hidden the cables along the back edge of the radiator. But of course the radiator, pump and fans would have introduced more cabling and taken up a fair amount of space itself.
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
For the sake of hitting the launch day on this case, I bunched the cables together hastily with a few zip ties and velcro straps and called it a day. I clearly could have been a bit neater, but with the cables near the CPU/motherboard side of the case, they aren’t all that visible with either the tinted tempered-glass side over the GPU area, and even less so if you opt for using the mesh panel here.
Gaming and Conclusion
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Given that most of the sides on the Meshlicious are mesh, you could get away without adding intake fans for plenty of builds, as I did here. But adding at least one in the front would be a good idea. Either that, or if you’re using a large and powerful GPU, you might want to consider buying a second mesh side panel to replace the glass one — even if just during long gaming sessions. The panel can be popped off and replaced in just a few seconds.
After about a half hour of playing Borderlands 3 at high settings with the glass panel on, the panel got surprisingly hot, which isn’t exactly surprising given how close the fans are to the un-vented side panel. And while you could swap the side panels and put mesh in front of the graphics card, that would mean your glass panel is going to sit right up against the intake of your power supply. I don’t have to tell you that restricted airflow like that — at the very least — isn’t great for the longevity of your PSU.
Moving the motherboard tray back nearly an inch, as noted earlier, could alleviate this issue somewhat, but not if you’re using a graphics card that’s 3 slots or more thick. It would have been nice if Ssupd had included at least one fan to mount in the front, but I can also see why the company didn’t. Most people will likely either want to install a front radiator (which will come with a pair of fans on its own) or use specific fans, be they RGB or, say, quiet and efficient Noctua spinners.
And again, for many more modest builds with graphics card TDPs south of 200 watts, you could likely get by without any added fans. After all, the Meshlicious gets its name from the fact that three of its sides are all mesh by default. Opt for a fourth mesh side panel for an extra $30 and your CPU and GPU coolers shouldn’t have an issue dissipating heat themselves.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Just don’t expect the Meshlicious to be any quieter than your components of choice, especially if you opt to put the mesh panel in front of your graphics card. Just as small cases like this involve tradeoffs in terms of component support, a mesh-covered case is going to trade some noise for better thermal dissipation. You should always choose your components wisely. But if building in this Ssupd case is your aim, you’ll want to spend extra time making sure your parts will … mesh well with the Meshlicious.
Mustafa Mahmoud 19 hours ago Featured Tech News, Software & Gaming
Later this week at the Tokyo International Forum Hall, fans will gather to experience a live orchestral performance of the music of Final Fantasy VII Remake. In a surprise announcement, it was revealed that the concert will include information on some new Final Fantasy VII Remake “content.”
Making the announcement on Twitter, (as translated by aitaikimochi) the co-director of Final Fantasy VII Remake revealed that “There will be a special part of the concert where I’ll make an appearance and talk about a few FF7R contents to be revealed only during this event, so please tune in!”
Though no further details were given, fans have already begun to speculate about the many possible avenues that this announcement could take. Of course, Final Fantasy VII Remake, which released early last year, covered just the first part of the saga of the original Final Fantasy VII. As such, this new content could in fact be the reveal of the game’s sequel.
Alternatively, this announcement could be confirmation that a PS5 version of the game is on the way, fixing some of the technical issues found within the PS4 version. Alongside this, Square Enix could announce that the game will finally make its way onto PC and Xbox.
Whatever the announcement might be, fans won’t have to wait too much longer to find out, as the concert will be taking place on the 13th of February.
KitGuru says: What do you think this announcement will be? Do you enjoy the music of the original Final Fantasy VII or its remake more? When do you think part 2 will release? Let us know down below.
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Mustafa Mahmoud 20 hours ago Featured Tech News, PC, Software & Gaming
Historically, SEGA’s support for the PC platform has been underwhelming, especially when it comes to certain franchises. The publisher has slowly been improving on that front, bringing titles such as Persona 4 Golden to the platform. Next, it looks like a number of Sonic titles may also find their way onto PC soon.
In a LinkedIn post by the Director of Production Services at SEGA of America (as discovered by ResetEra user ‘stealthyfrog’), the publisher is reportedly set to “port popular Sonic titles to new-to-SEGA PC platforms, expanding availability of Sonic titles to a wider digital audience.”
Many of Sonic’s most popular titles never made their way onto the PC platform, for one reason or another. Titles such as Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Colours, Sonic Lost World and more never received a PC release, meaning that these games are now stuck on old hardware.
Furthermore, SEGA delisted a number of Sonic titles which received “average” review scores back in 2010, making some of these games even harder to find and play nowadays. While much of Sonic’s history has been mired with mediocre releases, each game has its own set of fans who would undoubtedly enjoy seeing these games come to a modern platform.
It will be interesting to see which games SEGA is referring to specifically, and what store front the publisher will release these onto.
KitGuru says: Do you enjoy playing Sonic games? Which is your favourite? What other SEGA franchise would you like to see come to PC? Let us know down below.
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Matthew Wilson 22 hours ago Featured Tech News, Software & Gaming
At this point, Halo: The Master Chief Collection is complete on both Xbox consoles and PC. So what’s next for the MCC development team? It looks like we’ll be finding out quite soon, with 343 Industries teasing a ‘new place and way to play’.
In the latest Halo Waypoint developer blog, community manager ‘Postums’ discussed the future for MCC community flighting. Some of the additions are expected, like FOV slider support on Xbox consoles and improved keyboard/mouse support across platforms. One note on the list stands out from the rest though, teasing “a new place and way to play”.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection is already playable on xCloud, so this isn’t teasing a cloud launch for the game. It is also very unlikely to be related to a release on a rival console like the Nintendo Switch or PlayStation.
Currently, the leading theory is that Microsoft will be bringing Halo to the Epic Games Store on PC to widen the player base. The game is already available on PC via Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft Store and Steam.
KitGuru Says: We should hear more on this in the next few weeks. What do you think this tease means? Is this indicating an EGS launch, or could it be something bigger?
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Matthew Wilson 1 day ago Featured Announcement, General Tech
If you are looking at picking up some new PC gaming gear this month, then we’d like to help you out. We’ve teamed up with ASUS to offer KitGuru readers an exclusive discount on some of their best gaming peripherals.
We have an exclusive 10% discount code for KitGuru readers buying directly through the ASUS store. Using code ‘KITGURUSAVE’ you can get 10% off the following peripherals:
ROG PUGIO II Mouse
ROG Strix GO USB-C Headset
ROG Strix Scope RX Keyboard
ROG Sheath Mouse Pad
We’ve reviewed a lot of ASUS gear over the years, including the ROG PUGIO II mouse and ROG Strix GO headset – which earned our ‘Worth Buying’ and ‘Must Have’ awards respectively.
The ROG PUGIO II is a tri-connectivity mouse, featuring wired, 2.4GHz wireless and Bluetooth, so it can be hooked up to almost any device. Meanwhile, the ROG Strix GO headset features 2.4GHz wireless modes and USB-C for wired connectivity and charging. Be sure to check out our reviews of both to get the complete rundown.
The ROG Strix Scope RX keyboard is the first to feature Asus’s own ROG RX red optical mechanical switches, which offer faster response times compared to standard mechanical switches. As you would expect, it is an RGB keyboard too, so it’ll look great as part of any gaming setup.
KitGuru Says: Let us know if you end up picking any of these up!
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AMD’s answer to DLSS could be coming in March
Back when AMD announced the Radeon RX 6000 series, the company mentioned that it would introduce an alternative to Nvidia DLSS for its products. Named Super Resolution, this AI upscaling technology is apparently coming out in March, alongside an update to Radeon Boost.
darkFlash has released a new mini-ITX case with RGB lighting for compact DIY PC builds. Despite its small size, this case supports 240mm radiators and 320mm long graphics cards without sacrificing airflow thanks to the meshed panels of the case.
Available in pink, black, white, and neomint, the darkFlash DLH21 is made of 0.8mm SECC metal. The case consists of 5x meshed panels with pre-installed magnetic dust filters to prevent dust from getting into the system. Moreover, this case was designed to offer a trouble-free disassembly of the case through easily detachable side panels and a magnetically connected top panel.
The RGB LED strip on the bottom of the case has 13x different lighting effects to cycle between using the LED button on the top I/O panel, but users can also synchronise it with other components through motherboard RGB software.
The DLH21 case features 2x expansion slots and supports mini-ITX motherboards, up to 2x 2.5-inch drives or a single 3.5-inch drive, and SFX/SFX-L power supplies (125mm long). CPU tower coolers can’t be more than 134mm tall and GPUs can’t exceed 320mm in length and 147mm in width. Radiator and fan support is a bit limited, allowing users to mount a 120m/240mm radiator on the side, a 92mm fan on the back, and 2x 120mm fans on the side. The top I/O panel has 2x USB-A ports, a USB-C port, and a 3.5mm audio jack.
The darkFlash DLH21 ITX chassis is available now starting at $189.99.
KitGuru says: Have you ever built a mini-ITX system? What’s your opinion on the darkFlash DLH21 case?
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Antec launches P10 FLUX chassis
Last month, Antec began expanding on its FLUX series of cases with the airflow-focused DF700. …
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