Amazon is taking a bigger step into cars today by integrating Alexa into Lamborghini’s Huracán EVO, and not just to ask questions or remotely control your home — it’s giving the assistant the ability to control settings inside the car, hands-free. The partnership was originally announced last year as part of Amazon’s push into cars, but the integration goes beyond Alexa’s usual bag of tricks.
Alexa’s integration allows users to control “climate and comfort settings including air conditioning, heater, fan speed, temperature, seat heaters, defroster and air flow direction, as well as lighting,” Lamborghini says. (It can also pull up a screen showing you the car’s torque vectoring and traction control.) Of course, Alexa also has its own suite of skills for interacting with your smart home appliances, playing music and podcasts, and basic navigation.
If Alexa-integration means less time looking at the Huracán EVO’s center console, I think that’s a win for everyone.Image: Lamborghini
The Huracán EVO has some physical controls on the steering wheel and driver side door, but a majority of the car’s features are adjusted through a screen in the center console. Giving Alexa more control over the actual car itself means less time hunting and pecking through menus — “Alexa, I am hot” is apparently enough to get air conditioning going — and more time with eyes actually on the road, which could be a win for safety and convenience.
It’s not like Alexa will be driving your car, but give it time.
The automotive industry’s switch from controls like knobs and dials to entirely touchscreen-based displays has been ongoing, and we even ran a review series examining in-car displays as gadgets a few years ago. Amazon’s tried to help smooth the transition with the Alexa-enabled Echo Auto in the past, but we found the accessory worked best as a simple speakerphone and Bluetooth adapter in our review — tasks that required knowledge of location or a consistent cellular connection did poorly. The Huracán EVO’s implementation of Alexa, with all the benefits of actually having real control over a connected car, might be a better version of the idea.
Amazon and Lamborghini isn’t the only automaker / tech company team-up tackling the problem of built-in car software. Volvo’s Polestar 2 launched in 2020 with Android Automotive built-in and Google Assistant integration for similar control over settings like air conditioning, something that wasn’t part of the old Android Auto. We liked the Polestar’s Google-built software, though much like Lamborghini, it comes with a high price tag.
New Huracán EVOs should have the feature from the jump, but Lamborghini says all existing Huracán EVO customers can be retrofitted with support for Alexa, free-of-charge.
Ring’s new $249.99 Video Doorbell Pro 2 is the best video doorbell yet from a company that has nearly become a household name for video doorbells. It has an excellent field of view and video quality; plenty of customizable features for notifications and recording zones; and speedy performance, whether that’s sending alerts to your phone or smart speaker when someone rings the bell or pulling up the live feed from the Ring app on a phone. If you can tolerate the price tag, are able to install a wired doorbell at your door, and aren’t put off by Ring’s Neighbors app or police partnerships (both of which you can opt out of), the Video Doorbell Pro 2 is one of the best video doorbells you can get right now.
The new Video Doorbell Pro 2 is Ring’s top-of-the-line model, replacing the original Video Doorbell Pro from 2017. Unlike Ring’s other doorbells, the Pro 2 does not have a battery option; you have to have wiring running to it for power. But because it doesn’t have to house a battery, the Pro 2 is much smaller than Ring’s battery-powered options and has faster response times when you want to pull up the feed on your phone or an Echo Show smart display. It also can work with an existing doorbell chime in your home if you have one.
Despite its higher-than-average price tag, the Pro 2 doesn’t really look all that much more premium than other Ring models. The housing is made entirely of plastic, and there’s a big Ring logo stamped on the bottom. If sleek design is what you’re after, Google’s Nest Hello or the Logitech Circle View Doorbell are better choices.
Ring has added a number of new features this time around, but the most significant change is how the Video Doorbell Pro 2 captures video clips. Unlike the prior model and every other Ring doorbell before it, the Pro 2 shoots 1536 x 1536-pixel square video, which lets you see visitors from top to bottom. It also makes it much easier to see if packages have been left at your doorstep because you can see the ground right in front of the doorbell.
On my doorway, the Pro 2’s wide and tall field of view was able to let me see the entirety of my small porch much better than the older 16:9 format Ring doorbells or others that have a tall but not as wide aspect ratio, like Logitech’s Circle View Doorbell. The Pro 2 captures a sharp and detailed image, complete with HDR for balancing bright skies and visitors’ faces. It also has a dedicated infrared night mode that will come on automatically if the light levels are low enough. The porch light I have at my doorway was sufficient enough to keep the Pro 2 in normal video mode, so I was able to have full-color video captures at night without blinding visitors with a light on the doorbell itself like what happens with the Circle View Doorbell.
Thanks to support for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi, pulling up the Pro 2’s video feed through the Ring app on my phone is a painless process that just takes a couple of seconds. Likewise, asking an Echo Show to display the feed is quick and easy. The Echo Show and Fire TV devices will even automatically display the feed from the camera whenever the doorbell is rung. Older video doorbells used to take an agonizing amount of time to show their video feeds. I’m glad to see this newest crop is much faster than before.
The Pro 2 also has a new “3D Motion Detection” feature that lets you see the movements of someone on your property even if they are out of frame of the camera. The name oversells what this is doing a bit: the app will show a top-down view of movements represented as colored dots on the map of your home overlaid over the recorded video clip. It’s designed to let you see where someone has been on your property before they show up on the primary camera. But the range for this feature is limited to only 30 feet — that’s about enough to reach a third of the way down my driveway — and while it’s a neat demo of technology, I didn’t find much utility in it.
The Video Doorbell Pro 2 shows more of my front porch than other doorbells. The new 3D Motion Detection feature provides the bird’s-eye view of movement on my property, seen in the right image.
The other thing I didn’t find much use for is the Alexa Greetings feature, which lets you have Alexa answer the door through the Ring doorbell if you don’t get to it within a set amount of time.
There are two reasons I didn’t really like this feature. One is since we’re still spending the majority of our time home due to the pandemic, I don’t really need someone else to answer the door for me — I’m always there. The other is the idea of having Amazon’s Alexa robot speak to a visitor in my place. Alexa can ask couriers to leave a package in a particular place you specify or record a message from other visitors that will be sent to your phone. In my tests, it works like a typical Alexa interaction, with a slight delay between each prompt.
But in general, it feels a bit off-putting and rude to force visitors to interact with an unexpected robot. I feel the same way about using the two-way audio to talk to someone at the door through my phone. While there may certainly be great accessibility use cases for these features, they weren’t helpful for me, and I left them turned off. I think basic package detection and notifications, which other doorbells offer, would be more useful, but Ring doesn’t have any features like that.
The Alexa responses feature requires a subscription to Ring’s Protect plan, which starts at $3 per month and enables other features such as a six-second pre-roll recording for motion alerts, the option to only get alerted when a person is detected, video history for up to 60 days, and the ability to save and share clips. You can use the Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 without paying for this subscription, but you’ll be limited to motion alerts, live view, two-way talking, and six preset responses if you’re not home. Neither one of Ring’s plans, paid or free, offers continuous 24/7 recording. If that’s something you want, Google’s Nest Hello is a better choice.
The Video Doorbell Pro 2 has a traditional grayscale infrared night mode (right), but if you have enough light, it will fall back to its color feed at night (left).
Since Ring is an Amazon company, the Pro 2 works best and offers the most utility if you have Amazon Echo speakers or smart displays. In addition to the ability to automatically show the feed when the bell is pressed, you can have Echo speakers announce when someone’s at the door so you never miss a visitor. This feature isn’t available with Google Nest smart speakers or displays; again, the Nest Hello would be a better choice if you’re running a Google smart home. (Likewise, if you’re running an Apple HomeKit smart home, the Logitech Circle View Doorbell is a better choice.)
Lastly, I can’t cover a Ring product without mentioning its controversial Neighbors app and police partnerships. The Neighbors app is a separate app that collates crime and safety reports from other Ring owners in your neighborhood. By default, the Neighbors feed is integrated into the Ring app, allowing you to see other posts and share video clips from your camera.
Similarly, the Public Safety feature allows police and other public service agencies to request video clips from your camera to aid in solving crimes. You then have the option to approve or deny the request.
Ring has made it easier to manage these features. Both of them are controlled in the app’s Control Center section, where you can disable the Neighbors feed and block public agencies from requesting clips from your video camera. You can also enable end-to-end encryption, which will disable these features and limit the ability to share video clips with others. But I wish Ring would go even further and disable both of them by default, letting owners decide if they want to opt in or not during setup.
Ring’s portfolio of video doorbells has grown significantly over the past couple of years, and it can be confusing to figure out which one is right for your needs. The Pro 2’s pitch is simple: this is the best video doorbell camera Ring sells, provided you have the ability to hook it up to existing doorbell wiring or run new wiring to it. If you want the best performance and are in Amazon’s Echo ecosystem, the Pro 2 is the doorbell to get.
(Pocket-lint) – The LG Gram 16 is never going to make sense to some people. For many, a large-screen laptop has to be a super-powered desktop-replacer. And if it’s not, why does it exist?
LG’s Gram series has quietly challenged that view for the last few years. And the LG Gram 16 should make this concept less of a leap for those still struggling.
The pitch: the LG Gram 16 costs around a grand less than the MacBook Pro 16, but still has a big screen, a colour-rich display and long battery life. Oh, and it weighs 800g less and has a better keyboard, for some tastes at least.
Suddenly LG’s weirdo huge-but-light Gram laptops don’t sound so strange. Indeed, this 16-inch version is quite the stunning proposition.
Design
Dimensions: 313.4 x 215.2 x 16.8mm / Weight: 1.19kg
Magnesium alloy casing
Interested now? Let’s start by slapping the LG Gram 16 down to earth with one of the big issues you need to accept.
While the LG Gram 16 is a nicely made laptop, it doesn’t feel like a four-figures slab of the future when you pick it up. Carry it around like a notepad, give it a light squeeze between thumb and finger, and the base and lid panels will flex a bit.
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LG has not made the Gram 16 on a shoestring budget. But large, low-weight body panels come with compromises. And you feel them each time you pick the laptop up like this.
The LG Gram 16’s casing is magnesium alloy, which is the best material for the job. It’s lighter than aluminium for the same level of strength, and a lot nicer than plastic. Just don’t expect the dense unibody feel plenty of 13-inch laptops at this price level.
The issue is all about feel, not utility. The LG Gram 16’s touchpad doesn’t stop clicking because you lift it by one corner of the base. You can’t stop the internal fans spinning by pressing down on part of the keyboard surround. And, yes, we’ve seen these issues in laptops smaller and heavier than the LG Gram 16.
Its keyboard panel, the most important of the lot, is pretty rigid – if not immaculately so. A little outer panel flex is only a big issue if you think it is.
Despite being a new entry in this series, the LG Gram 16 nicks its style from its siblings. This is a very plain, serious-looking laptop that isn’t out to dazzle eyes or fingers with flashy finishes. All panels are matte black with a very light texture similar to a soft-touch finish.
There’s a kind of confidence to a lifestyle laptop this plain, one that weaves a style out of sharp-cornered keyboard keys and a semi-distinctive font. If anything, LG could actually go plainer on this key typeface, which looks a little close to that of a gaming laptop.
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But the aim is pretty clear: the LG Gram 16 is a laptop that can fit in just about anywhere. You can take is anywhere too, as the 1.19kg weight is lower than that of the average 13-inch portable.
The footprint isn’t tiny, of course, but it couldn’t get all that much smaller considering the 16-inch display has fairly small borders on all four sides.
Display
16.0-inch LCD panel, 2560 x 1600 resolution
99.1% DCI P3 colour coverage (as tested)
Glossy plastic finish
The LG Gram 16’s screen also helps keep the shape sensible, as this is a 16:10 aspect display, one taller than the standard widescreen style. This maxes out the perception of space when you use apps, rather than video. There’s no issue with the quality of the panel either.
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Colour depth is truly excellent, matching what you get in a top MacBook Pro. Brightness is strong enough for outdoors use, which is pretty impressive considering the sheer square inch count the LG Gram 16 has to light up.
Contrast is not the best around, but is still good for an LCD-based screen. And resolution is, well, the one LG should have chosen. It’s at 2560 x 1600 pixels, sitting above Full HD, but a way below 4K.
The MacBook Pro 16 has a sharper screen still, at 3072 x 1920 pixels. But the LG Gram 16 still adds the crucial pixel density it needs to avoid the obvious pixellation that can happen in a larger display like this.
If you use a 13-inch laptop at the moment that supersize boost is the first thing you’ll notice. The LG Gram 16 makes it seem so much more like you’re using a monitor that happens to be hooked onto a laptop, rather than a laptop screen. That’s great for dull work apps, even for games.
However, the actual character of the screen doesn’t quite make the most of the top-quality panel underneath, because of another concession made for size: its plastic screen coating. Plastic is often used in matte finish laptops, to scatter reflections. But this is a glossy screen, telling us weight is the issue here. Glass is the usual choice, but glass isn’t that light.
The plastic film is also far less rigid than glass, causing reflections to distort at the corners a little. And if there’s meant to be a reflection-busting coating here, it’s not a very good one. There’s also no touchscreen, and the hinge only folds back to around 130 degrees, to stop the thing tumbling off your knees through weight imbalance.
Like the flexy lid and bottom panels, the plastic surface is one you’ll have to suck up for the sake of low weight. But does the LG Gram 16 have a high quality screen with plenty of space that you can use outdoors? Absolutely.
Keyboard & Touchpad
Textured glass touchpad
Two-level backlight
1.65mm key travel
The LG Gram 16’s keyboard fills out the appeal of this laptop for us. We type all day, every day, more or less. Keyboard quality matters, and this is a keyboard made for that sort of work.
Pocket-lint
Key travel is excellent, and not just if you limit your comparisons to ultra-light laptops. The keyboard plate feels rigid, even if – sure – you can get it to flex slightly under significant finger pressure. And springy resistance offers good feedback with each depress.
We also like that LG has thinned-down the NUM pad, which lets the main set of keys sit more towards the centre of the laptop. Being shunted too far to the left rarely feels good. Here there’s just a mild lurch leftwards. Think universal healthcare, not a state-led redistribution of all wealth.
The LG Gram 16 also has a two-level backlight and a fingerprint scanner hidden in the power button, just above the NUM pad.
Plenty of space in the keyboard plate leaves plenty of room for a giant touchpad. This thing is huge – and you probably can’t appreciate it from photos alone, where it seems in proportion with the rest.
The LG Gram 16’s touchpad has a smooth glass surface, zero floaty wobble, and an easy-to-depress yet well-defined clicker. It’s on the loud side, but that’s it for negative points to note.
A larger laptop opens the doors to a different approach to the keyboard. But apparently it doesn’t allow for a better webcam. The LG Gram 16 has the same sort of stogy 720p video call camera we see in most other high-end laptops.
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Its speakers aren’t even close to those of the MacBook Pro 16 either. LG uses familiar-sounding drivers with just the tiniest hint of low-frequency output and only moderate max volume. Their tone is pleasant, we could watch a movie using them happily enough, but it would be good to see LG improve this area in future generations.
The main grilles for the treble drivers also sit on the underside, giving them just a couple of millimetres of clearance provided by the tiny rubber feet. Put the LG Gram 16 on a thick carpet or your bed and the treble is attenuated, although it does seem impossible to block the sound fully, which is good.
Performance
Intel i7-1165G7 processor
16GB LPDDR4X RAM
1TB NVMe SSD
The LG Gram 16 is an Intel Evo laptop. This is a new standard introduced by Intel to make laptops with its processors seem more attractive than those with AMD or Apple CPUs. It’s marketing, but not useless marketing, as it means you know you get standards like Thunderbolt 4, an 11th Gen processor, and at least nine hours of battery life (if the screen is a 1080p one).
Pocket-lint
Our Gram 16 has Intel’s Core i7-1165G7 CPU, 16GB RAM, and 1TB of very fast SK Hynix SSD storage.
Some CPU overclockers who design their own water cooling systems will disagree, but we think this is enough to make the LG Gram 16 a viable desktop replacement for the vast majority of people.
Windows 10 feels great, there’s more than enough power to run apps like Photoshop well. So why would you buy a MacBook Pro 16 with a more power consuming 9th Gen CPU? Or a much heavier Windows laptop with an Intel Core i7-10750H?
The top-end Mac has around 60 per cent additional CPU power, in part because it has an “i9” equivalent processor. A Core i7 alternative made for the more traditional desktop-replacing laptop offers around 20 per cent more power, and these processors are designed to hold max power for longer. Because chunky laptops tend to have fans that can shift more air.
But if you’re not sure if the LG Gram 16 has enough power or not, and you don’t use apps that make your current laptop slow down during exports, imports – whatever procedures they do – then it probably does have enough to satisfy.
The LG Gram 16 also gets Intel’s Xe graphics, which is a fantastic addition for a laptop like this. It turns slim laptops from poor gaming machines to at least acceptable ones. GTA V? No problem. The Witcher 3? Sure, even at 1080p if you play with the settings a bit. Alien Isolation runs well at just below Full HD resolution with a mix of Medium and High settings.
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Absolutely loads of stuff is playable with Intel Xe graphics, because it gets to the level of separate entry-level gaming hardware from the last generation. And that’s not too shabby: it’s gaming skills you seem to get ‘for free’. If you buy an LG Gram 16 and find games don’t run as well as you hoped, make sure to try them at different resolutions. Intel Xe graphics chips may have a bit of punch to them, but 2560 x 2600 pixels is a bit much to ask in most console-grade titles.
There’s more good news. The LG Gram 16 is almost silent under all workloads, even if you max out the CPU for half an hour. There is a fan, but it’s barely audible if you play something through the speakers even at 30 per cent volume. This is probably the quietest laptop we’ve reviewed with one of these 11th Gen Core i7 processors. It’s another benefit of all that extra room inside: better airflow.
Battery Life
80Wh battery – up to 22 hour battery life (claimed)
65W charger
LG doesn’t sacrifice battery life for low weight either. More brownie points for LG’s engineers. The Gram 16 has an 80Wh battery, far larger than the 56Wh standard battery of the Dell XPS 15, if smaller than the more power-hungry (and powerful) 100Wh MacBook Pro 16.
Pocket-lint
Match that sort of capacity with a processor already fairly light on the battery drain and you are guaranteed good results. The LG Gram 16 lasts roughly 14 hours 30 minutes when streaming video at moderate screen brightness.
LG claims 22 hours, but this is one of those cheeky claims that involves using a benchmark from 2014 – and letting it sit in standby mode half the time.
Still, it’s excellent real-world stamina for light work, and way above the nine hours the Intel Evo”sticker guarantees. That guarantee only applies to a lower screen resolution than you get here too.
Use it with the display maxed and the CPU pushed to its limits the whole time and the LG Gram 16 will last around three hours and 25 minutes. Which still isn’t bad – a gaming laptop wouldn’t give you a third of that.
Pocket-lint
Want to know about the LG Gram 16’s connections? There are two Thunderbolt USB-C ports, and one is taken up by the charger while plugged-in. You get two classic USB ports, a microSD slot, a full-size HDMI, and a headphone jack too. So it doesn’t demand you keep a USB adapter handy, and you can plug it right into your TV or a monitor. Bliss.
Best laptop 2021: Top general and premium notebooks for working from home and more
By Dan Grabham
·
Verdict
It’s a wonder the LG Gram concept hasn’t been nicked more times already. The LG Gram 16 is a large-screen laptop that’s genuinely light enough to carry with you everywhere, every day.
There are barely any substantive compromises involved. The LG Gram 16 is as powerful as smaller laptops that weigh more, it lasts as long off a charge as some of the best Intel-powered laptops, and the keyboard is no lightweight either.
You don’t get the ultra-dense metallic feel of some of the smaller-screened alternatives at a similar price. And, sure, the Gram 16 uses a low voltage processor designed to minimise heat and save battery life, not for blistering power. However, it has enough of it to work perfectly as a desktop-replacer for most people.
Sure, a 13-inch laptop is better for some. A more powerful, thicker one will be better for others. But the LG Gram 16 takes some elements from both and, through clever design, makes it work far better than you’d imagine. For the right user it’s a stunning proposition.
Also consider
LG Gram 17
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Want something even bigger? LG has made a 17-inch Gram for a few years now. All the appeals are the same: low weight, good screen, good keyboard. Battery life is slightly shorter as it has a bigger screen and the same battery capacity. But the choice is all about the screen size you’d prefer. We think 16-inch is a more accommodating size for the masses.
Read our review
MacBook Pro 16
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The 16-inch MacBook Pro isn’t really in the same category if you look right up close. It has a more powerful processor and weighs about 800g extra. Oh, and it costs a grand more. Ouch. However, the MacBook seems a more expensive laptop as it has that amazing Apple build, which feels like perfection. The glossy glass screen finish looks better too, making the most of its similarly brilliant colour depth.
Performing as well as premium air cooling and costing less than expensive 360 AIOs, the IceGiant ProSiphon Elite makes for an interesting alternative for high-end performance builds. Standing tall as a monstrous, monolithic cooling solution with a commanding presence, the IceGiant ProSiphon Elite shows that big air really doesn’t get any bigger than this.
For
Retail version designed for HEDT for both Intel and AMD (incl. Threadripper)
Great cooling performance
Four fans allow for push+pull
Against
Huge and heavy
Premium price
Features and Specifications
Back in 2019 we were one of the few media outlets to get an early look at the prototype IceGiant ProSiphon, an innovative CPU-cooling behemoth that uses natural convection of warmer and cooler states of coolant to effectively ‘pump’ the energy-rich evaporated vapor through the cooler. The months since have brought us to the final version of the IceGiant ProSiphon Elite, and while it still maintains its massive stature, it is noticeably thinner due to a redesigned condenser, which improves upon the original prototype.
The new and improved IceGiant doesn’t break any records, but it does provide a great alternative for system builders who want big and bold, yet still opt to avoid large AIO liquid cooling. Currently available for order from the IceGiant website, it will soon be available for purchase at MicroCenter retail stores as well as available at e-tailers Amazon and Newegg.
Ice Giant Prosiphon Elite Specifications
Height
6.5″ / 165.1mm
Width
9.88″ / 251mm
Depth
2.0″ / 50.8mm (4.0″ / 102mm w/ fans)
Base Height
1.75″ / 44.5mm
Assy. Offset
1..0″ / 25.4mm up
0.75″ / 19.1mm forward
Cooling Fans
(4) 120 x 25mm
Connectors
(4) 4-pin PWM
Weight
70.8 oz / 2007g
Intel Sockets
1366, 115x, 1200, 2011, 2066
AMD Sockets
AM4, TR4, sTR4x
Warranty
10 years
Web Price
$170
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The IceGiant ProSiphon Elite includes mounting hardware to accommodate current processor models for both Intel and AMD, including high-end desktop (HEDT) variants like Intel’s i9 Comet Lake chips and the multi-core behemoths that are AMD’s Threadripper processors. The IceGiant makes use of four 4-pin 120mm cooling fans to allow for push+pull airflow configuration out of the box.
Mounting brackets, backplates and supports are incredibly over-engineered to account for the 2-kilogram (4.42 pounds) mass they must support. In fact, just about everything about the IceGiant feels industrial-grade, down to the syringe of high-performance Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut thermal compound included.
IceGiant covers the ProSiphon Elite with an unprecedented 10-year warranty, which includes the cooling fans.
For those who might have missed our original definition of how the IceGiant ProSiphon Elite thermosiphon cooler differs from a traditional heatpipe cooler, please allow us to gratuitously plagiarize our own coverage of the original ProSiphon Elite Protopype:
Heatpipe coolers rely on the boiling and evaporation of a liquid (typically distilled water) within each individual heatpipe, which travels up the hollow center of the pipe, begins cooling and then fully condenses further up the cooling tower, while dissipating thermal energy in the process. Once that liquid has fully converted back to liquid form, a sintered wicking material along the heatpipe walls then draws the liquid back down to the base to begin the process once again.
A thermosiphon works on similar principles, as it also requires the boiling, evaporation and condensation of a liquid–in this case, a dielectric fluid. A thermosiphon instead makes use of natural convection of warmer and cooler states of coolant to effectively ‘pump’ the energy-rich evaporated vapor through the cooler. Using large, flat condenser cores, the IceGiant ProSiphon Elite utilizes greater surface area to effectively transfer thermal energy out of the fluid vapor, into the cooling fins and away from the cooler.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The primary heat exchanger features three condenser cores, which dissipate heat provided from the evaporator in the cooler’s base. The original ProSiphon prototype featured only two condenser cores, allowing the newer retail version of the cooler to have a thinner overall profile when compared to the original. Retention hardware is engineered into the cooler’s base pedestal, which provides an anchored mount once the cooler is installed.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The ProSiphon Elite makes use of four 120mm, 4-pin PWM fans rated up to 2300 RPM for push+pull operation. The front pair push cool, ambient air into the heat exchanger and over the condenser cores, while the rear fans pull the warmed air out and away from the cooler. This provides the IceGiant plenty of fresh air in which to breathe (or rather, cool) freely.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The entirety of the IceGiant ProSiphon is made of high-grade aluminum, including the precision-milled pedestal base and mounting contact which is large enough to fully cover an AMD Threadripper CPU. Tension screws are permanently affixed to the primary tension bar on the cooler base, which ultimately adds to your advantage later during the installation process.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The base of the ProSiphon Elite is milled perfectly flat; we are unable to see any residual light peeking beneath the face of a steel rule.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The thermal paste contact patch from our i9-10850k is dwarfed by the untouched backdrop of clean, remaining aluminum of the mounting base.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
By comparison, the thermal compound patch from our Threadripper 2990WX consumes the entire canvas of the cooler base.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Remember those tidbits about the rugged mounting hardware and the tension screws mounted into the cooler base? Once the backplate and brackets are secured, the cooler base centers itself neatly into position atop the CPU, which aligns the tension screws with their sockets. Both Intel and AMD/Threadripper mounts benefit from this design.
To secure the IceGiant ProSiphon Elite, the front fans are removed and the tension screws torqued into place. Once secure, the front fans are added back and connected via PWM pigtail splitter to the other fans of the cooler to be managed by your favorite fan controller or motherboard header.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
We’ve tested some large coolers before (including the prototype predecessor to the current IceGiant), yet it always manages to bring a bit of a smirk to our faces seeing such a large piece of cooling hardware in operation. The base height of the IceGiant does allow for relatively tall memory modules to be used. But as usual, check for clearances for specific hardware as needed.
Four years after accusing Qualcomm of abusing monopoly power to charge phone makers additional licensing fees for its modems — and seven months after seemingly losing that battle in a federal circuit court — the Federal Trade Commission has decided to throw in the towel. It’s no longer planning to appeal to the Supreme Court, which means the case is done.
If that were all, I probably wouldn’t be writing it up for The Verge since things are exactly where we left off in August.But then I saw the FTC’s explanation for why it’s dropping the case, and… well, just read it:
Given the significant headwinds facing the Commission in this matter, the FTC will not petition the Supreme Court to review the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in FTC v. Qualcomm. The FTC’s staff did an exceptional job presenting the case, and I continue to believe that the district court’s conclusion that Qualcomm violated the antitrust laws was entirely correct and that the court of appeals erred in concluding otherwise. Now more than ever, the FTC and other law enforcement agencies need to boldly enforce the antitrust laws to guard against abusive behavior by dominant firms, including in high-technology markets and those that involve intellectual property. I am particularly concerned about the potential for anticompetitive or unfair behavior in the context of standard setting and the FTC will closely monitor conduct in this arena.
Let me get this straight: the FTC believes it was right about this case, believes it was important, believes that “now more than ever” it needs to “boldly enforce the antitrust laws” and is “particularly concerned” about cases like this… and yet, it’s not even taking the step of seeing whether the Supreme Court will agree to hear the case because of “significant headwinds”?
Perhaps the FTC has bigger fish to fry right now, or perhaps it’s afraid it will simply lose again. It’s not cheap to petition the Supreme Court, after all; in 2013, a lawyer who’s done it repeatedly told Marketplace that a petition can easily cost a quarter of a million dollars. Or perhaps the FTC’s acting chair simply doesn’t think a vote to petition the Supreme Court would pass, given the current staffing split between two Republican and two Democratic FTC commissioners.
But the FTC’s tortured public statement doesn’t say those things. It feels a little more like a cry for help from America’s antitrust enforcer, an enforcer with a budget that’s admittedly less than $350 million a year and an enforcer that’s repeatedly let big tech companies go with a slap on the wrist — such as fining Google roughly 37 hours worth of profit for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) with YouTube or issuing a record-breaking $5 billion fine to Facebook that was so weak, Facebook’s stock price actually went up.
There are signs the FTC might possibly change in meaningful ways, and my colleague Makena Kelly has written about them at length, including Congress potentially modifying the law to make it easier to bring lawsuits against Big Tech, and the strong possibility that influential antitrust scholar Lina Khan may soon help run the FTC with President Biden’s nomination. In the meanwhile, the agency that believes Qualcomm has a monopoly — the agency we expect to bust such a monopoly if so — is just going to let this one go.
XMG today announced its first laptop equipped with Intel’s new Rocket Lake processors, interchangeable RTX 30 Series graphics, and a bevy of other features that are supposed to ease the pain enthusiasts have suffered because of the ongoing chip shortage. It’s called the Ultra 17, and the first units could reach consumers as early as May.
Let’s start with the CPU. The XMG Ultra 17 can be configured with 10th Gen Core processors for people willing to sacrifice performance for affordability, but the focus is on the 11th Gen CPUs that debuted today. XMG offers seven models: the i5-11500, 11600, and 11600K; the i7-11700 and 11700K; and the i9-11900 and 11900K. Check out our review of the i9-11900K and the i5-11600K for details on their performance.
The company offers fewer graphics options—just the GeForce RTX 3060 (6GB), 3070 (8GB), and 3080 (16GB). But there’s a lot of flexibility here, too, with XMG claiming that “this GPU takes the form of an interchangeable card, opposed to being soldered into the mainboard,” and that it’s “the first graphics card in the mobile sector that is already connected via a full 16 PCI Express 4.0 lanes” and capable of a TGP of 165W.
XMG also offers a bunch of M.2 SSD storage options between 200GB and 2TB from a variety of manufacturers, two different Wi-Fi modules, and support for up to 128GB (4 x 32GB) of DDR4-3200 memory from Samsung. (As well as smaller kits from Crucial.) The keyboard features per-key RGB back-lighting and is available in many languages, too, in case you worried the company had forgotten to add pretty lights.
But the main arguments for the Ultra 17 being a desktop replacement—aside from the CPU and GPU of course—are the laptop’s display and connectivity options. There are two 17.3-inch display options: a 1080p version with a 300Hz refresh rate and a 4K version with a 60Hz refresh rate that also covers 100% of the Adobe RGB spectrum. Both versions of the display offer Nvidia G-Sync support as well.
XMG Ultra 17-E21
Processor
Up to Intel Core i9-11900K
Graphics
RTX 3080, RTX 3070, RTX 3060
Memory
4 x SO-DIMM, 128GB Max
Storage
4 x M.2 2280
Display
17.3-inch IPS: 1920 x 1080 @ 300 Hz or 3840 x 2160 @ 60 Hz
Networking
Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.1, 2.5Gb Ethernet
Ports
2 x Thunderbolt 4, 1 x HDMI 2.1, 2 x Mini DisplayPort 1.4, 1 x USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, 3 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, SD card slot
Battery
97 Wh
Power Adapter
2 x 280W
Dimensions
399 x 319 x 43.5mm (W x D x H)
Weight
ca. 4.6kg
XMG equipped the Ultra 17 with a lot of ports as well. There are two Thunderbolt 4, one HDMI 2.1, and two Mini DisplayPort 1.4 ports for external monitor support; one USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 and three USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports as well as an SD card slot for accessories; and separate audio ports for headphones and a microphone. Oh, and there’s also a 2.5Gb Ethernet port to complement the built-in Wi-Fi 6 connectivity.
There are some caveats. XMG said that utilizing the Ultra 17 to its full potential requires it to be connected to a pair of 280W power supplies in addition to the battery. The system is limited to 110W on a single power supply and restricts the CPU to just 30W. Performance would be further limited on the internal battery, of course, so we suspect most people will actually treat it as a desktop.
That could be enough in today’s market. The ongoing chip shortage has made it harder than ever to find CPUs, graphics cards, and other components, and even when they’re available, there’s a good chance they’re going to be exorbitantly priced. (Assuming one can even find them before cryptocurrency miners buy ’em up.) This might actually be one of the easiest ways to build a system with the latest parts.
The Ultra 17’s price will of course vary based on the configuration. XMG’s default configuration features an Intel Core i7-11700K, GeForce RTX 3060, 16GB of DDR4-3200 memory, 500GB of storage via the Samsung 980 PRO, and the 1080p display; it costs roughly $3,300 (€2,799) before shipping via Bestware. The retailer estimates that configuration will be available in mid-April with a shipping time of 3-5 weeks.
(Pocket-lint) – The Google Nest Hub (second gen) updates Google’s first smart display, which originally launched as the Google Home Hub.
Sporting a 7-inch display, it rivals Amazon’s Echo Show models, looking to bring a visual experience to Google Assistant, and slot the Mountain View company into the centre of your home.
This time around, however, Google has eyes on your bedroom.
Design and build
120.4 x 177.4 x 69.5mm, 558g
Four colours
Floating display design
Glance and you’ll miss it. The design of the second-gen Nest Hub is essentially the same as the old, but there are some minor differences on the spec sheet – not that you’ll really spot that from across the room.
The new Nest Hub remains a cute smart display and we’ve always liked this design. It fits in with the mesh covered designs we’ve seen from other Google devices over the past few years, using safe fabric colours to help it blend into your home décor.
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It’s a 7-inch display, so not huge – but glance at the offering from Amazon and you’ll find it sandwiched by the likes of the Echo Show 5 and the Echo Show 8, although we do think it looks a little more sophisticated.
There’s some bezel to the display – now incorporating a range of expanded sensors and mics – while there’s a volume rocker on the rear right and a physical mute switch on the centre rear, within easy reach.
It’s still a great looking device and while some might think that a 7-inch display is too big to have on your bedside table, that’s exactly where Google wants you to put it.
Setup and introducing sleep sensing
Google Home app
Sleep tracking calibration
Setting up the Nest Hub is easy. You’ll need to have the Google Home app on your smartphone, as this serves to control the device and gets setup underway. Once plugged in, it’s a few simple steps to get the Nest Hub up and running – the important part being connecting to your Wi-Fi and logging in with your Google account.
If you’ve used any Google devices before, this will now be familiar – and like Amazon’s Echo devices, signing in gets Google Assistant ready and so you’re quickly connected with everything that you have setup without Assistant already.
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That’s great, because it means that all your connected smart home devices will now work from your Nest Hub, if you have Voice Match in Google Assistant active then it will know who you are and tailor results to you, so you’re good to go.
That would be just about it for a regular Google device, but sleep sensing brings with it some additional requirement: calibration.
Sleep sensing on the Nest Hub uses a range of sensors, including temperature, light, sound and the Soli radar chip we previously saw in the Pixel 4 phones. Together, these sensors will be able to give you a complete picture of how you slept and the conditions you were sleeping it.
But first and foremost you need to make sure that the Soli radar will be able to see you. It sends out low power short-range electromagnetic waves allowing it to detect motion. It’s important to understand that it’s not using cameras for this, so it’s not visually spying on your while you’re asleep.
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This means that positioning is important and there’s a calibration process you’ll have to run through to get the Nest Hub in the right position so it will work. It doesn’t take long and all you have to do is basically lie in bed with the device on your bedside table and it will do its stuff. If it’s in the wrong position, it will ask you to adjust it.
There’s a few things you need to know here: firstly, it needs to be focused towards your upper body and secondly, it actually needs to be about level with you. If it’s too low, it won’t be able to detect anything because it’s looking at the side of the bed, so it’s no good putting it on the floor or on a bookcase a metre higher than you.
For most, it should be simple and within a few minutes it was all setup – but you have to remember you can’t then move it too much and you can’t put things in front of it, like a glass of water, because you’ll block the view.
Sleep tracking and bedside performance
Sensors to detect sleep
Personalised sleep summary
Syncing to Google Fit
Using all the sensors, the Nest Hub gathers data and, using an algorithm, can understand what’s going on.
From this data it can tell when you get into bed, when you go to sleep, when you’re disturbed during the night and when you get up. It also knows when you’re awake but lounging in bed refusing to get up.
This is the first converged device to offer sleep tracking that doesn’t require any physical touch. We’ve seen and used sleep tracking from the likes of Apple, Fitbit and Garmin where you need to wear a watch. We’ve used systems like ResMed SleepScore and Withings Sleep Analyzer – but the Nest Hub is likely to be more popular.
The problem with wearing something is that it can disturb you as you move around – and you’re sweating into it all day and all night. The problem with some of the other detection devices is that they only do one thing – whereas Nest Hub is your familiar Google-based smart display and your sleep tracking buddy.
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We’ve been sleeping with the Nest Hub over the last week and found the sleep tracking to be pretty accurate. But first of all, there’s no need to be concerned about having a 7-inch LCD display next to the bed – it dims really well so it’s not glowing at the side of the bed and keeping you awake.
Detection on getting into bed appears to happen at any point that you get into bed. Come back from a run and flop onto the bed while you check your Strava stats and you’ll see the on-screen notification telling you that it has detected you.
But the Nest Hub is smart enough to figure out what’s happening when. Because there’s processing to be done there are moments when you’ll be told that it’s processing – for example when you wake up. That’s mostly because it’s waiting to see when you leave bed so that it can report on how long it took you to get up and so on.
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Data is available to tap though on the display in the morning or you can ask Google Assistant. The results also sync to Google Fit so you can examine them on your phone, but again, these will vary and might change slightly depending on when you look at Google Fit and how that corresponds with any processing that the Nest Hub is doing.
The results are interesting and certainly accurate, but there’s no breakdown of heavy or light sleep like you’ll get from Fitbit. It also won’t think you’re asleep on the sofa when you’re watching a movie like Garmin sometimes does, but there are limits.
For example, on a disturbed night, you might try to sleep, then do some reading, toss and turn a bit and as a last resort, attempt to get to sleep by putting yourself into a meditative state. Anyone reading who suffers from insomnia will know what it’s like to clear your mind, calm your breathing and just lie still, hoping that you’ll get to sleep – and it’s here that Google thinks you are asleep, when you’re not.
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Otherwise, on normal sleeping days, we’ve found the reports to be accurate, detecting those middle of the night toilet breaks, and knowing when you’ve woken up earlier than you wanted to. It also detects snoring and coughing, which can be a bit thing that disturbs sleep.
Google’s analysis then attempts to give you feedback to improve your habits. For us, our average sleep time has been a little short and the Nest Hub tells us that we’re sometimes going to bed too early and staying in bed awake when we should be getting up in the morning. It’s trying to establish a better routine.
It all makes sense too: those days where we’re told sleep is “fairly restful” we’re awaking feeling refreshed; on the days when it’s been “restless”, we can feel that too. The thing is, we don’t need telling that. Whether this information is useful will be a personal decision.
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What Google doesn’t seem to be doing is putting this into context with anything else. There’s no relationship between sleeping and activity like you get from Garmin’s Body Battery. It’s also unclear what you might have to pay for this data in the future.
That’s right – it’s a free preview through to the end of 2021, but then Google says: “After the preview ends, paid subscription may be required.” Currently we don’t know what that cost might be. We also don’t know how this data might integrate with Fitbit, but Google has said it’s looking at how that might work.
Of course, if everything above fills you with horror, it’s an opt-in service. You don’t have to have sleep tracking at all.
Display, interface and sound quality
7-inch 1024 x 600 pixels
3 mics, 1.7-inch speaker driver
Google Assistant
There’s a 7-inch display on the front of the Nest Hub, with a 1024 x 600 pixel resolution. That’s not hugely high in terms of resolution, but we’ve nothing to complain about when it comes to quality.
There’s a visually engaging interface presented by Google and we think it’s better than Amazon’s equivalent on the Echo Show models: it just looks and feels a little more useful. Much of that comes down to the fact that Google has more information to pull in to serve you content you like, like relevant news.
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You can swipe through the screens to access various sections – wellness, home control, media, communication, including the discover section. The media option will already be connected to your Spotify account (if you’ve linked the two) while YouTube is front and centre.
Google can also take advantage of Chromecast support, allowing you to cast content to the Nest Hub too – so it can be a little more dynamic than Amazon’s device.
Google Assistant remains as smart as ever and has progressive developed over the past few years. We’ve one criticism and that’s the hiss that accompanies spoken replies. That was detectable on the Nest Audio too – something that Google really should fix to increase the overall offering – it’s not something that Alexa does.
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Of the two, we’d say that Google is a little smarter, often being able to give smarter replies, but there are some services better optimised for Echo devices – like requesting the BBC news: it’s just better when Alexa serves that up.
When it comes to speaker quality, the Nest Hub has a single 1.7-inch driver. It has boosted bass over the previous version for a richer overall sound and we think it’s great as a bedside unit, perhaps a little weak if you’re planning to use it as a main speaker in a room – you’d want the Nest Hub Max for that instead.
Comparing that to Alexa briefly and the Echo Show 8 – slightly larger than this model – does have a bigger sound too. The smallest Echo Show 5 also has a 1.7-inch driver, giving you an idea of how these devices compare.
Smart home and expanded functions
Thread, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi
Chromecast built in
There’s no camera by design on the Nest Hub and Google had to opportunity to put one on this refreshed version and decided not to. For some people that will be a major downside, for others, a significant advantage.
There are a range of other connectivity technologies however and we’ve covered most already – Wi-Fi for the connection to the internet, Chromecast via the same route, Bluetooth to use your Nest Hub as a speaker or to connect it to a Bluetooth speaker.
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Then there’s Thread. Thread is a relatively new wireless smart home protocol which works on a mesh network. The Nest Hub can be part of a Thread system, just as the Apple HomePod Mini can be – very much working in the same was a Zigbee on the Echo models.
As this is a technology that’s just starting to establish itself, we haven’t tested it. We did test the Nest Hub with the wider set of smart home devices we’ve already linked to Google Assistant via the Home app and found no problems – and in the future, if you are buying Thread-equipped devices, the idea will be that you can control those directly from the Nest Hub without the need to a dedicated hub for whatever those devices are.
All in, the Nest Hub is still a super-connected device, able to play its part as the centre of your smart home, just as the name suggests.
Verdict
This new version of the Nest Hub only makes a couple of changes from the previous version: indeed, if you’re not interested in the sleep tracking, then you might be better off trying to find the older model at a discounted price, because you’re not missing out.
The sleep tracking adds a new dimension. As people are increasingly turning to technologies to track wellbeing, and sleep being a growing area. While the technology works, uncertainty about future subscription costs might give pause for though – or you might want to try it and cross that bridge in 2022.
Fundamentally, the Nest Hub 2021 is a good device. It’s connected, good quality, a refreshingly simple interface and offers the best voice assistant in the business. If you want your home to be smarter, this is a great place to start.
Alternatives to consider
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Lenovo Smart Clock
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The Lenovo is a compact bedside device that gives you all the advantages of Google Assistant in a small package.
Read the full Lenovo Smart Clock review
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Amazon Echo Show 8
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The Echo Show 8 is larger, but features a camera as well as the full skills of Alexa.
The ASRock Z590 Steel Legend WiFi 6E is an inexpensive yet capable Rocket Lake board that should handle any ambiently cooled CPU you can throw at it. It packs integrated Wi-Fi 6E, three M.2 sockets and six SATA ports. This roughly $210 board looks to be a well-rounded option to jump into Intel’s latest platform.
For
+ Wi-Fi 6E
+ Three M.2 sockets
+ Capable 14-Phase, 50A Power Delivery
+ Reasonable price for Z590
Against
– Only six rear USB ports
– Mediocre audio codec
– Appearance may not be for everyone
Features and Specifications
Editor’s Note: A version of this article appeared as a preview before we had a Rocket Lake CPU to test with Z590 motherboards. Now that we do (and Intel’s performance embargo has passed), we have completed testing (presented on page 3) with a Core i9-11900K and have added a score and other elements (as well as removing some now-redundant sentences and paragraphs) to make this a full review.
In our first close look at Z590 motherboards, ASRock’s Z590 Steel Legend leads the way. The Steel Legend SKUs have been around for a couple of generations now and are typically a lower-priced option in ASRock’s product stack. But just because the price is lower doesn’t mean the features are sparse. The new Z590 Steel Legend WiFi 6E brings the latest in Intel Wi-Fi, solid power delivery, 2.5 Gb Ethernet and more, all for around $210. If you’re after a reasonably affordable Z590 option, it may just be one of the best motherboards for your next build.
ASRock’s Z590 lineup is similar to the previous-generation Z490 stack. At the time we wrote this article, the ASRock site has 12 Z590 motherboards listed. At the top is Z590 Taichi, followed by the PG Velocita and three Phantom Gaming boards, including a Micro-ATX option. Additionally, there are two professional boards in the Z590 Pro4 and Z590M Pro4, two Steel Legend boards, two Extreme boards (also more on the budget end), and a Mini-ITX board round out the product stack. Between price, size, looks, and features, ASRock should have a board that works for everyone looking to dive into Rocket Lake.
Now that we can talk about performance using Rocket Lake-based CPUs (in this case, i9-11900K, the Steel Legend held its own in most of our tests. Where it lagged behind is in the long-running tests. By default, the Steel Legend follows Intel specifications, so you’ll see the board throttle back clock speeds as the PL1 and PL2 time limits expire. Simply raising the power limits allows it to compete with other boards that go above the Intel specifications out of the box.
On the overclocking front, after disabling AVX-512 (as we do with all other boards for overclocked testing) and raising all the power limits, the Z590 Steel Legend was able to run our i9-11900K at 5.1 GHz without issue. VRM temperatures were the hottest we’ve seen so far. However, they run well within the MOSFETs operating parameters.
The budget-friendly Steel Legend comes in two flavors: the base Steel Legend and the Steel Legend WiFi 6E that includes the latest Wi-Fi. The 6E version includes WiFi that uses the new 6 GHz band (as well as the existing 2.4 and 5 GHz bands) for faster performance on an uncluttered wavelength. Note you’ll need a 6E-capable router to utilize the additional bandwidth. The board also comes with 2.5 GbE, a 14-phase VRM, a USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C port, reinforced slots, the ASRock graphics card holder and more. We’ll cover those features in detail below.
Opening up the retail packaging, we find the typical array of SATA cables, support DVD, screws and more. ASRock also includes an adjustable graphics card holder that connects to the motherboard and chassis. This is a sight for sore eyes as some of the latest generation video cards are bigger and heavier than previous versions and could use a little support. Below is a complete list of all extras inside the box.
Quick Installation Guide
Support CD
(2) SATA cables
(4) Screws for M.2 sockets
(2) Standoffs for M.2 sockets
Graphics card holder
Image 1 of 3
(Image credit: ASRock)
Image 2 of 3
(Image credit: ASRock)
Image 3 of 3
(Image credit: ASRock)
When removing the ASRock Z590 Steel Legend WiFi 6E for the box, we’re greeted by a black PCB with grey and white patterns stenciled on its entirety. The heatsinks and shrouds are all grey/silver, providing a stark contrast against the dark board. I’m personally not a fan of all the patterns, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That said, the Steel Legend will fit into most build themes without issue.
No board is complete these days without RGB lighting and the Steel Legend continues this trend. You’ll find an “S” lit up on the IO shroud, while the chipset heatsink lights up the words “Steel Legend.” From below, the right-hand edge (along with “Steel Legend” again on that same edge) is lit up by several RGB LEDs, which gives it a nice glow from underneath. The integrated RGB lighting was saturated and bright, with control handled through ASRock’s Polychrome RGB software.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Focusing on the top half of the board, you get a better look at the large silver heatsinks, along with a shroud that covers the rear I/O bits. In the upper-left corner are two 8-pin EPS connectors (one required) that send power to the CPU. The socket area is relatively busy, with many caps dotting the space around the socket. To the right are four DRAM slots capable of supporting up to 128GB of DDR4 RAM at speeds listed up to DDR4 4800+(OC).
The first of seven 4-pin fan/pump headers is located just above the DRAM slots. You can find the rest scattered around the bottom half of the board. As far as power goes, The CPU fan connector supports up to 1A/12W, while the CPU/Water Pump and Chassis/Water Pump support a maximum of 2A/24W. All headers except for the CPU header auto-detect if a 3-pin or 4-pin spinner is connected.
We find the first two (of four) RGB headers in the same area. On top in grey is the 3-pin ARGB, and the 4-pin in white below it is for RGB. The 4-pin headers support 12V/3A, 36W strips, while the ARGB is 5V/3A and 15W. Both values are standard. Also located in this area is an RGB feature where the LEDs below shine through the 6-layer PCB, showing off the Steel Legend branding. Continuing down the right edge is the 24-pin ATX feeding power to the motherboard, a front panel USB 3.2 Gen2x2 (20 Gbps) Type-C header, and finally a front panel USB 3.2 Gen1 front panel header.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
ASRock lists the Steel Legend as a 14-phase Dr.MOS VRM, which breaks down to a 12+2 configuration for the Vcore and SOC. A Richtek RT3609BE 6-channel controller handles the CPU while a Renesas RAA229001 controls the SOC. The six-channel controller feeds 12 Vishay Sic654 50A MOSFETs for CPU Vcore in a teamed/parallel configuration. In other words, ASRock does not use phase doublers on this board. This configuration is plenty for both 10th and 11th generation CPUs intended for this platform.
(Image credit: ASRock)
Moving down to the bottom half of the motherboard, we’ll start on the left side with the audio. Here we see a fully exposed Realtek ALC897 codec and four Nichicon audio caps. The ALC897 codec is from the budget side of things, though most should still find it sufficient.
In the middle of the board are five PCIe slots and three M.2 sockets. On the PCIe front, we welcome native support for PCIe 4.0 when using a Rocket Lake processor. The primary PCIe slot and an M.2 socket receive the extra bandwidth. The Z590 Steel Legend includes two full-length slots, with the top one reinforced to prevent shearing and reduce EMI (ASRock calls this Steel Slot). The top full-length slot is PCIe 4.0 x16, sourcing its lanes from the CPU, while the other is PCIe 3.0 x4 and from the chipset. This configuration supports AMD CrossfireX, but not Nvidia SLI (which requires an x8 slot). The three small x1 slots support PCIe 3.0 x1 and are fed from the chipset.
Around and between the PCIe slots are three M.2 sockets, the top and bottom with heatsinks. There is technically a fourth M.2 socket, but it’s Key-E and already populated with the Intel Wi-Fi 6E adapter. The 6E portion brings users up to 14 additional 80 MHz channels or seven 160 MHz channels in the 6 GHz space and increased bandwidth. In essence, you can maintain faster high-speed connections, and more of them, without having to scan for the least-congested channels.
On the storage side, the top socket, M2_1, is dubbed Hyper M.2 and runs at PCIe 4.0 x4 (64 Gbps) speeds. It supports PCIe-based modules only, up to 80mm in length. The second slot down, M2_2, is PCIe 3.0 x4 (32 Gbps) and supports both PCIe and SATA modules up to 80mm. This slot shares lanes with SATA port 1. When using a SATA-based module, SATA 1 is disabled. The bottom socket, M2_3, is also PCIe 3.0 x4 and supports both PCIe and SATA drives, but this one holds up to 110mm modules. With M2_3. SATA port 5 will be disabled when using a SATA drive in this socket.
To the right of the PCIe area, we see the large chipset heatsink, and to the right of that are four of the six SATA ports. This board supports RAID0, 1, 5 and 10. Below is the POST status checker. The four LEDs, labeled CPU, Boot, RAM, and VGA, correspond to POST activities. If something goes wrong at any of those points, the LED where the POST stopped stays lit, showing you where the problem is.
Across the board’s bottom are several headers and even a few SATA ports. You won’t find any buttons here. Below is the full list, from left to right:
Front panel audio
ARGB header
RGB header
USB 3.2 Gen1 header
Clear CMOS jumper
(2) USB 2.0 headers
(2) Chassis/Water Pump fan header
System panel header
(2) SATA ports
Chassis/Water Pump fan header
TPM header
(Image credit: ASRock)
The Z590 Steel Legend’s rear ports use a preinstalled and adjustable IO plate that matches the board’s white/grey pattern. There are a total of six USB ports out back: two USB 3.2 Gen2 ports (one Type-A and Type-C), two USB 3.2 Gen1 ports and two USB 2.0 ports, all of which support ESD protection. I would like to see more than six USB ports here as they can all get used up quickly. Video outputs consist of an HDMI (v2.0) port and a DisplayPort (v1.4). The Realtek Dragon 2.5 GbE port sits above the USB 3.2 Gen1 ports, just to the right is the 5-plug plus SPDIF audio stack. Outside of that is a legacy PS/2 port for a keyboard/mouse, and the Wi-Fi antenna.
Priced at $499, the MEG Z590 Ace is a premium option for Intel’s new platform. But with four M.2 sockets, Wi-Fi 6E, robust power delivery, plus premium audio and styling, it delivers on the feature front. Just be aware when running AVX-512 loads with the power limits unlocked temperatures skyrocket.
For
+ Robust 16-phase 90A VRM
+ Four M.2 sockets
+ Premium Audio Solution
+ 2.5 GbE / Wi-Fi 6E
Against
– Premium price
– Can’t run AVX-512 at stock
Features and Specifications
Editor’s Note: A version of this article appeared as a preview, before we had a Rocket Lake CPU to test with Z590 motherboards. Now that we do (and Intel’s performance embargo has passed), we have completed testing (presented on page 3) with a Core i9-11900K and have added a score and other elements, as well as removing some now-redundant sentences and paragraphs, to make this a full review.
The latest version of the Ace board features robust power delivery, four M.2 sockets, a premium audio codec and more. The new Ace also has updated styling on the heatsink and shrouds while still keeping the black with gold highlights theme from the previous generation. Emblazoned on the rear IO is the MSI Dragon (with RGB LEDs) and the Ace name (no lighting). Pricing on the board comes in at a hefty $499, a significant markup over the previous generation. MSI states that includes the 25% tariffs and the reason for the increase.
MSI’s current Z590 product stack consists of 11 models, with most falling into the MEG (high-end) MPG (mid-range) and MAG (budget) lineups. We’re greeted by several familiar SKUs and a couple of new ones. Starting at the top is the flagship MEG Z590 Godlike, the Ace we’re looking at now, and a Mini ITX MEG Z590I Unify. The mid-range MPG line consists of four boards (Carbon EK X, Gaming Edge WiFi, Gaming Carbon WiFi and Gaming Force), while the less expensive MAG lineup consists of two boards (Z590 Tomahawk WiFi, and Torpedo). Wrapping up the current product stack are two ‘Pro’ boards in the Z590 Pro WiFi and Z590-A Pro. The only thing missing out of the gate is a Micro ATX board, but it’s likely we see one or two down the line.
On the performance front, we’re finally allowed to share information on these Z590 based motherboards using the Rocket Lake-based i9-11900K. In our tests, we saw the 8c/16t CPU hold its own against the previous generation 10c/20t CPU, especially in single-threaded tests. On the multi-core front, the IPC increase just isn’t enough to overcome the core/thread difference due to the IPC performance uptick. During our testing, the MSI MEG Z590 Ace performed well, showing solid results in our timed tests, PCMark 10 suite, and more. With the latest BIOS, the slight memory latency increase we observed (on this and other boards) was all but eliminated.
The problem with this board, and any board with power limits removed/raised significantly, is using AVX-512 instructions and stress testing. When using the ‘water cooling’ option in the BIOS (that removes all power limits) and running AIDA64, the temperature peaks at 100C in a matter of seconds, rendering it unusable. Other boards follow more closely to the Intel specification and throttle the AVX-512 clock speeds back to something more reasonable, while the Ace tries to run it at 4.8 GHz. In order to run AVX-512 on this board and complete some stress tests to verify stability, we had to run it with limits in place, setting Boxed cooler or Tower Air Cooler, or a significant offset.
To that end, we were able to push the new Rocket Lake CPU up to 5.1 GHz with all cores and threads enabled while keeping temperatures around 90 degrees Celsius. The overclocking process on the MEG Ace was painless as we simply set the voltage, multiplier and enabled LLC.
MSI’s MEG Z590 Ace includes all the bits you expect from a premium motherboard. The board has a stylish appearance, very capable power delivery (16-phase 90A Vcore) and the flagship Realtek ALC4082 audio codec with included DAC. We’ll cover these features and much more in detail below. First, here are the full specs from MSI.
(1) Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX210 (MU-MIMO, 2.4/5/6GHz, BT 5.2)
USB Controllers
??
HD Audio Codec
Realtek ALC4082
DDL/DTS Connect
✗ / DTS:X Ultra
Warranty
3 Years
The accessories included with the board are reasonably comprehensive, including most of what you need to get started. Below is a full list.
Manual
Quick Installation Guide
USB drive (Drivers)
Cleaning brush
Screwdrivers
Stickers (MEG/Cable)
(4) SATA cables
(4) Screws/standoff sets for M.2 sockets
Thermistor cable
1 to 2 RGB LED Y cable, Corsair RGB LED cable, Rainbow RGB LED cable
DP to mini DP cable
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Looking at the Z590 Ace for the first time, we see the black PCB along with black heatsinks and shrouds covering most of the board. MSI stenciled on identifying language such as the MEG Ace name and the MSI Gaming Dragon in gold, setting this SKU apart from the rest. The VRM heatsinks are both made from a solid block of aluminum with lines cut out. Additionally, the shroud is made of metal and connected to the heat pipes, increasing surface area significantly. Also worth noting is the VRM heatsinks share the load connected via heatpipe. RGB LED lighting is minimal here, with a symbol on the chipset shining through a mesh cover on the chipset heatsink and the MSI dragon above the rear IO. While tastefully done, some may want more. With its mostly black appearance, the board won’t have trouble fitting in most build themes.
(Image credit: MSI)
Focusing on the top half of the board, we’ll get a better look at what’s going with the VRM heatsinks and other board features in this area. In the upper-left corner, we spot two 8-pin EPS connectors, one of which is required for operation. Just below this is the shroud covering the rear IO bits and part of the VRM heatsink. On it is a carbon-fiber pattern along with the MSI Gaming Dragon illuminated by RGB LEDs. The socket area is relatively clean, with only a few caps visible.
Just above the VRM heatsink is the first of eight fan headers. All fan headers on the board are the 4-pin type and support PWM- and DC-controlled fans and pumps. The CPU_FAN1 header supports up to 2A/24W and auto-detects the attached device type. The PUMP_FAN1 supports up to 3A/36W. The rest of the system fan headers support up to 1A/12W. This configuration offers plenty of support for most cooling systems. That said, I would like to have seen all pump headers auto-detect PWM/DC modes instead of only CPU_FAN1.
To the right of the socket are four reinforced DRAM slots. The Z590 Ace supports up to 128GB of RAM with speeds listed up to DDR4 5600 (for one stick with one rank). The highest supported speed with two DIMMs is DDR4 4400+, which is plenty fast enough for an overwhelming majority of users.
Moving down the right edge of the board, we see the 2-character debug LED up top, a system fan header, five voltage read points (Vcore/DRAM/SA/IO/IO2), 4-LED debug, 24-pin ATX connector, and finally, a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C front panel header. Between both debug tools and the voltage read points, you’ll have an accurate idea of what’s going on with your PC.
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With the MEG Z590 Ace towards the top of the product stack, you’d expect well-built power delivery and you wouldn’t be wrong. MSI lists the board as 16+2+1 (Vcore/GT/SA) and it uses a Renesas ISL69269 (X+Y+Z = 8+2+1) PWM controller that feeds power to eight-phase doublers (Renesas ISL617A), then onto 16 90A Renesas ISL99390B MOSFETs for the Vcore. This configuration yields 1440A of power for the CPU, which is plenty for ambient and sub-ambient/extreme overclocking. It won’t be this board holding you back in any overclocking adventures, that’s for sure.
(Image credit: MSI)
As we focus on the bottom half, we’ll take a closer look at the integrated audio, PCIe slot configuration and storage. Starting with the audio bits on the left side, under the shroud, is the Realtek latest premium codec, the ALC4082. Additionally, the Z590 Ace includes an ESS Sabre 9018Q2C combo DAC, a dedicated headphone amplifier (up to 600 Ohm) and high-quality Chemicon audio capacitors. This audio solution should be more than adequate for most users.
In the middle of the board are four M.2 sockets and five PCIe slots. With the PCIe connectivity, all three full-length slots are reinforced to prevent shearing and EMI, while the two PCIe x1 slots don’t have any reinforcement. The top slot supports PCIe 4.0 x16 speeds, with the second and third slots PCIe 3.0. The slots break down as follows, x16/x0/x4 x8/x8/x4 or x8/x4+x4/x4. This configuration supports 2-Way Nvidia SLI and 2-Way AMD Crossfire technologies. All x1 slots and the full-length bottom slot are fed from the chipset, while the top two full-length slots source their lanes from the CPU.
M.2 storage on the Z590 Ace consists of four onboard sockets supporting various speeds and module lengths. The top slot, M2_1, supports PCIe 4.0 x4 modules up to 110mm. Worth noting on this socket is that it only works with an 11th Gen Intel CPU installed. M2_2, M2_3, M2_4 are fed from the chipset, with M2_2 and M2_3 supporting SATA- and PCIe-based modules up to 80mm, while M2_4 supports PCIe only. M2_2/3/4 are all PCIe 3.0 x4.
The way this is wired, you will lose some SATA ports and PCIe bandwidth depending on the configuration. For example, SATA2 is unavailable when using a SATA-based SSD in the M2_2 socket. SATA 5/6 are unavailable when using the M2_3 socket with any type of device. Finally, the bandwidth on M2_4 switches from x4 to x2 when PCI_E5 (bottom x1 slot) is used. The M.2 sockets support RAID 0/1 for those who would like additional speed or redundancy.
Finally, along the right edge of the board are six horizontally oriented SATA ports. The Z590 Ace supports RAID 0, 1 and 10 on the SATA ports. Just be aware you lose a couple of ports on this board if you’re using some of the M.2 sockets. Above these ports is a USB 3.2 Gen1 front panel header along with another 4-pin system fan header.
Across the board’s bottom edge are several headers, including more USB ports, fan headers, and more. Below is the full list, from left to right:
Front Panel Audio
aRGB and RGB headers
(3) System Fan headers
Supplemental PCIe power
Tuning controller connector
Temperature sensor
(2) USB 2.0 headers
LED switch
BIOS selector switch
OC Retry jumper
TPM header
Power and Reset buttons
Slow mode jumpers
Front panel connectors
(Image credit: MSI)
Moving to the rear IO area, we see the integrated IO plate sporting a black background with gold writing matching the board theme. There are eight USB Type-A ports (two USB 3.2 Gen2, four USB 3.2 Gen1 and two USB 2.0 ports). On the Type-C front, the Z590 Ace includes two Thunderbolt 4 ports capable of speeds up to 40 Gbps. Just to the right of those are Mini-DisplayPort inputs for running video through the Thunderbolt connection(s). Handling the video output for the CPU’s integrated graphics is a single HDMI (2.0b) port. We also spy here the Wi-Fi antenna connections, 5-plug plus SPDIF audio stack, Intel 2.5 GbE and finally, a Clear CMOS button and BIOS Flashback button that can be used without a CPU.
The MSI Aegis RS 11th is a powerful gaming desktop with the latest parts from Intel and Nvidia and off-the-shelf components that allow for easy upgrades.
For
+ Off the shelf parts
+ Powerful gaming performance
+ Decent pack-in peripherals
Against
– MSI Center software is clunky
– Middling file transfer speeds
It’s hard to build a computer right now, because many of the key parts are sold out everywhere you look . If you can get a quality desktop prebuilt, it may be worth springing for it just to get the components you want. The MSI Aegis RS11th ($1,999 to start, $2,499) as tested, delivers the latest with Intel’s 11th Gen Rocket Lake and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080. If those are the parts you’re looking for, this PC should be in your consideration.
MSI isn’t using a weird, proprietary
chassis
that’s hard to open; This is made of standardized parts, just mostly MSI-branded ones. That does mean that when parts are easier to buy, this is a PC you’ll be able to upgrade and grow with.
The MSI Aegis RS 11th’s gaming performance is strong, which makes one of the
best gaming PCs
, but Rocket Lake’s modest core count holds it back in productivity workloads.
Design of the MSI Aegis RS 11th
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How much you like the design of the Aegis RS will rely heavily on how much you like one of MSI’s existing PC cases, the MPG Gungnir 110R, s a mid-tower chassis with both tempered glass and black aluminum.The front is split between the two, making it look like the
Two-Face
of computer cases. Considering our review unit had three RGB fans up front, I didn’t love that they were half covered up. It’s a weird design choice.
The rest of it, however, is far more conservatve. The left side panel is tempered glass, which lets you see your components, while the right side is opaque and covers up the cable management. There are two dust filters: a magnetic one on top of the case, and a second one in front of the intake fans.
There are three 120mm intake fans on the front. There’s another on the rear, as exhaust, but it also cools the radiator on the MSI Coreliquid 120 liquid cooler for the CPU. I would like to see the radiator mounted up top, where there is room for one up to the 240mm in size, and have a regular exhaust fan in the back, since there is no obstacle to that with this case. (In fact, I wouldn’t mind a beefier cooler for this processor, too.) Still, unlike many custom chassis we’ve seen lately, this one doesn’t seem to have particular issues with where to put fans.
The front three fans and CPU cooler have RGB lighting, which can be controlled with a button labeled “LED” on the top of the case, or with a module in the MSI Center software.
At 17.72 x 16.93 x 8.46 inches, the Aegis RS is smaller than the Alienware Aurora R11 (18.9 x 17 x 8.8) and iBuypower Gaming RDY IWBG207 (18.9 x 19.2 x 8.5 inches). The HP Omen 30L, however, is slightly smaller at 17.7 x 16.8 x 6.6 inches.
2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 3.5 mm headphone and microphone jacks
Rear Ports (Motherboard)
4x USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 Type-C, PS/2, DisplayPort, HDMI, audio connectors
Video Output (GPU)
3x Displayport 1.4a, HDMI 2.1
Power Supply
MSI MPG A750GF – 750W
Cooling
MSI Coreliquid 120R liquid cooler, 3x 120mm case fans
Operating System
Windows 10 Home
Dimensions
17.72 x 16.93 x 8.46 inches
Price as Configured
$2,499
Ports and Upgradeability on the MSI Aegis RS 11th
There are five ports on the top of the Aegis RS chassis: a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, a pair of USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, and separate 3.5 mm headphone and microphone jacks.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The rear ports are from the MSI Z590 Pro Wi-Fi motherboard, and include four USB 2.0 Type-A ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 Type-C, as well as audio connectors and PS/2 for legacy peripherals. There’s also DisplayPort and HDMI, though you’ll likely use the options on the graphics card.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Internally, the Aegis is easy to update or repair, because it’s built just like a PC you might put together yourself. There aren’t any weird custom chassis tricks or hidden parts. MSI makes the case, power supply, graphics card, motherboard and liquid cooler as separate components. There’s nothing proprietary about this that you couldn’t change or update later.
You can get to most of the parts by removing the tempered glass side panel. It’s held into the back of the chassis with two thumb screws, so no tools are needed. There’s a handle to pull it straight back from the case. One highlight here is a sled for a 2.5-inch drive for easy extra storage. The RAM and M.2 SSD are easy enough to access without moving anything.
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The right side panel comes off the same way as the glass door, and it’s the easiest (only, really) way to access the HDD and the PSU, which are hidden beneath a shroud. The case’s RGB controller is also back here, and there’s another 2.5-inch drive sled.
I’m not going to say the cable management is beautiful compared to some other prebuilts, but it’s functional enough (I honestly probably don’t have the patience to do any better) and, unlike some cases, you can easily access it.
Gaming and Graphics on the MSI Aegis RS 11th
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 and Intel Core i7-11700K proved potent for gaming.
I played a bit of Control on the Aegis RS, which I like to try because of how well it integrates ray tracing and stresses even the most powerful components. I ran it at 4K with the high preset and medium ray tracing.
In the beginning of the game, which features exploration sequences, combat with hiss guards in the Oldest House and fights on the Astral Plane, the game typically ran at around 57 frames per second. During fights inside the house, the rate dropped as low as 37 fps when I used lots of Jesse’s melee attacks, which bring about large telekinetic explosions with lots of objects moving. In the Astral Plane, which is rendered on a largely white background, it often stayed in the low 70’s, even during combat. With a slightly lower resolution or a few tweaks, you could be at a steady 60 fps fairly easily.
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On the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark (highest settings), the game ran at 147 fps in 1080p and 57 fps at 4K. It was beat in both only by the Alienware Aurora R11 (149 fps at 1080p, 64 fps at 4K) with an RTX 3090.
In Grand Theft Auto V (very high settings), the Aegis RS had superior 1080p performance at 163 fps and ran in 4K at 54 fps. The Aurora won out in 4K, while the Omen and iBuypower both had identical 4K performance to the Aegis.
On the Far Cry New Dawn benchmark, The Aegis dominated again at FHD, running at 134 fps. In 4K, it ran at 94 fps, behind the iBuypower and the Aurora by a few frames but tied with the Omen.
The Aegis came just behind the Alienware in Red Dead Redemption 2 (medium settings) at 113 fps, but had the highest 4K score at 40 fps. It beat the Omen by 10 frames, though the iBuypower was closer.
On Borderlands 3 (badass settings), the Aegis RS hit 136 fps at FHD and 58 fps in 4K. That’s the worst of the 4K showings, but on par with the HP Omen 30L for 1080p. The Aurora, with its RTX 3090, did the heavy lifting, winning at both resolutions.
Productivity Performance of the MSI Aegis RS 11th
This is the first pre-built desktop we’ve reviewed with the Intel Core i7-11700K. MSI has paired it with 16GB of RAM, a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD and a 2TB HDD. The CPU has 8 cores and 16 threads. Its competitors, though, pose a threat, as many high-end PCs come with Core i9 processors that have more cores. It should be noted that even the Core i9 Rocket Lake has just 8 cores, so this isn’t a limitation of testing the Core i7.
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On Geekbench 5, an overall performance benchmark, the Aegis RS 11th notched a single-core score of 1,676 and a multi-core score of 10,102. While that was the highest single-core score, the other three desktops had higher multi-core scores. All of those used Intel Core i9-10900K chips, which have 10 cores rather than the 8 cores in the 11700K.
The PCIe Gen 4 SSD in the Aegis didn’t show off. It transferred 25GB of files at a rate of 635.3 MBps, just edging past the iBuypower and falling far short of the Omen (978 MBps) and Aurora (1,201.87 MBps).
On our Handbrake video editing test, the MSI Aegis RS 11th transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in 5 minutes and 19 seconds. That’s faster than the iBuypower, but the Aurora and Omen both beat the Aegis’ time by five seconds.
MSI Vigor GK30 Keyboard and Clutch GM08 Mouse
MSI includes a keyboard and mouse in the box, which are good enough to use if you don’t have a lot else lying around, but that you may want to replace if you already have favorite peripherals.
The mouse, the Clutch GM08, has rubberized grips on the side, though it felt a bit narrow for my wide claw grip. Still, there are some higher-end features here, including adjustable weights (two 3-gram weights and one 5-gram weight) to make the mouse lighter or heavier. It has a PixArt PAW351 sensor that goes up to 4,200 DPI. The mouse has a DPI switch button that lets you adjust sensitivity, and has two buttons on the left side of the mouse, but they aren’t programmable in MSI Center. It typically
sells separately for around $20
, so don’t get your hopes up too much, but it gets the job done in a pinch. The red LED light can’t be changed in MSI’s software, either.
The keyboard, the Vigor GK30, is the same one that came with the MSI Aegis Ti5 I recently reviewed. It’s just OK. The keyboard, which MSI suggests is “mechanical-like” has keys that are stiff and not quite clicky. There’s perhaps too much RGB lighting in a sea around the keys. They can’t be controlled in MSI’s software, either, but can be customized with buttons on the keyboard.
MSI Center, Software and Warranty on the MSI Aegis RS 11th
This is the first MSI PC that’s crossed my desk with MSI Center, the company’s replacement for its two previous swiss army-knife applications, Dragon Center (for gaming) and Creator Center (for, well, creating).
MSI Center, though, seems barebones. Sure, it has an optional light/dark mode switcher, which is nice, and you can still see CPU and GPU temperatures and usage, and there are still different usage scenarios to choose from, though they’re buried behind menus. But some features from Dragon Center are nowhere to be found, including one-click optimization for games, Mystic Light and the LAN manager are optional modules to add on. This feels like it’s in beta; there’s an area to “downlaod, update or uninstall” (MSI’s typo, not mine).
But MSI still includes its share of bloat, including MSI App Player, its version of BlueStacks, which runs Android apps, as well as LinkedIn. It notably doesn’t have the Cyberlink suite that I’ve complained about on previous systems, though no one can escape the bloat that comes with
Windows 10
, like Facebook Messenger, Hulu and Roblox.
MSI sells the Aegis RS 11th with a one-year warranty.
MSI Aegis RS 11th Configurations
We reviewed the Aegis RS with a new Intel Core i7-11700K “Rocket Lake” processor, 16GB of RAM, and MSI RTX 3080 Ventus 3X OC GPU, a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD and a 2TB, 7,200-rpm HDD. When the system becomes widely available in mid-April, it will run for $2,499.
When we were reviewing this model, MSI told us that the RS 11th series would start at $1,999. It didn’t have completely finalized specs, but suggested the base model would have an RTX 3070 and 650W GPU and ditch the HDD. Several configurations may continue to utilize a Z490 motherboard and then transition to Z590 as supply levels out. The Aegis RS series is expected to top out at a Core i9-11900K, RTX 3090, 32GB of RAM, an 850W power supply and a 240mm CPU cooler, going possibly as high as $3,899.
Bottom Line
If you’re looking for the latest and greatest, the MSI Aegis RS 11th delivers you the most recent parts from Intel and Nvidia (at least, as long as it’s in stock).
Unlike some other prebuilts, there’s nothing proprietary here. It’s all standardized parts, mostly from MSI, that you can easily upgrade down the line.
Intel’s Core i7 Rocket Lake and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 in our review configuration worked potently together. In productivity, though, Rocket Lake’s limited core count didn’t stand up to some competition, which affects some workloads.
MSI needs to add polish to its MSI Center utility.. If you use the app to monitor CPU usage, check temperatures or change RGB colors, it will feel a bit like beta. If you prefer other applications, you may not notice.
As a whole package, the Aegis RS 11th is a powerful gaming rig with few frills. If you need a PC to play games, this will stand up, even in 4K with the right settings.
Pretty much the only wireless headset you should consider if you’re a PS5 gamer
For
Punchy and exciting sound
Convincing 3D audio
Comfortable over long sessions
Against
Mic picks up background noise
Extravagant design
One of the best features of the Sony PlayStation 5 is its support for 3D audio. Sony’s so-called Tempest Engine does all of the hard work so that any standard pair of wired headphones can deliver immersive 3D sound when plugged into the DualSense controller.
But what if you want to go fully wireless? Currently, the only wireless headset compatible with the PS5’s 3D audio feature is this, the official PlayStation Pulse 3D Wireless Headset.
Having just one option is rarely a good thing, but the Pulse 3D headset comes from good stock – its predecessor on the PS4 combined excellent core sound quality, excellent comfort and (limited) 3D audio to the tune of a five-star rating.
Comfort
(Image credit: Sony)
Sony has decided to visually tie the Pulse 3D headset to the controversial design of the PS5, opting for the same white finish for the headband as on the faceplates of the console. It is instantly clear that the two products are related, but the headset’s design may be too attention-grabbing to consider using it as a standard pair of headphones when out of the house.
The plastic band also feels a bit cheaper than the brushed metal of the Platinum Wireless Headset, but that can be forgiven because the Pulse 3D headset genuinely is cheaper by some margin. Besides, having now used the headset for several months, there’s no sign of the slightly cheap feel translating into flimsiness. We have no reason to believe that the headset won’t last for many years.
It feels comfortable, too. The earcups are firmer than some headphones, but they create a good seal around the ears and the headband provides just the right amount of pressure. There’s no obvious heat generated around the ears in use, either.
Build
(Image credit: Sony)
The Pulse 3D headset’s controls are located around the edge of the left cup. They include a rocker to adjust the balance between game audio and chat, a switch for turning monitor mode on or off (useful for ensuring you don’t speak too loudly), volume, mute and power on/off. Most button presses are accompanied by an on-screen notification, something you won’t get from third-party headsets.
Sony PS5 Pulse 3D Wireless Headset tech specs
(Image credit: Sony)
Compatibility PS5, PS4 and PC (wireless), Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S (wired)
Wired Yes
Wireless Yes
Surround sound Yes
Battery life 12 hours
Weight 295g
There’s no button to enable or disable the 3D audio feature as there was with the Platinum Wireless Headset, but that’s because the tech is built in more at a system level.
Using the headset wirelessly involves plugging a dongle-like USB transmitter into your PS5 (you can use the socket on the front or rear) and from that point, the console will automatically output sound to the headset whenever you switch it on. Battery life is 12 hours, which isn’t huge by Bluetooth headphone standards but should cover even the longest of gaming sessions. Charging is via USB-C.
As well as the PS5, you can also use the Pulse 3D headset wirelessly with a PC or PS4, and there’s also an included 3.5mm cable for when you run out of batteries or want to use the headset with an Xbox, phone or tablet. The microphone works in wired mode, too, but you only get 3D audio when wirelessly connected to a PS5 or PS4.
The microphone picks up and projects your voice clearly, but it’s also prone to picking up background noise more than most, which will be of concern to anyone who plays online while there are others in the room. We understand why Sony would opt for a slick and minimalist appearance, but an optional stalk mic would be a nice touch.
Sound
(Image credit: Sony)
While you probably won’t be using the Pulse 3D headset primarily as a standard pair of wired stereo headphones, there’s value in benchmarking against models in this class to get a sense of the core sound quality of the headset.
Surprisingly, despite all of the additional tech on board, the Pulse 3D headset more than stands its ground against sub-£100 wired headphones in most areas. There’s energy, enthusiasm and a crispness to the delivery that’s foot-tappingly enjoyable. While some go deeper, there’s still more than enough bass here and it’s punchy and tuneful.
The treble, meanwhile, has a sparkle and zing that never veers into brightness, and the midrange is textured and clear, with vocals delivered directly. Dynamics are decent, too, with the headset able to convey subtle shifts as well as epic crescendos, and there’s more than enough detail for a pair of headphones costing this much.
But they fall down slightly on timing. When music tracks become particularly busy, the Pulse 3D headset struggles to maintain a complete grip on each strand, and that can make these sections a little hard to follow. Luckily, though, this timing issue isn’t apparent when gaming and the generally strong core sound quality translates well when you use the Pulse 3D headset for its intended purpose.
(Image credit: Sony)
Of course, the quality of the 3D effect depends on the way it has been implemented into the game, but opt for Spider-Man: Miles Morales or even PS4 game Ghost Of Tsushima and you get not only a sense of the direction that each sound is coming from, but also how far away it is. The sonic presentation becomes all-enveloping and it’s easy to audibly pinpoint effects.
Switch to Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and the 3D audio gives a real sense of the cavernous nature of the CIA safehouse, the distance of each character as they speak and the echo as their voices hit the interior walls of the warehouse. You get none of this when listening in standard stereo.
Though you can get 3D audio by plugging a pair of standard wired headphones into the DualSense controller, the crispness and precision of the Pulse 3D headset makes for a more engaging and exciting experience than is offered by most similarly-priced wired headphones. It feels as though the 3D audio delivery has been tailored for the official headset – there’s every chance that in some cases it has been – which is a benefit of having just one product on the market.
That’s not to say that the Pulse 3D headset is an adequate replacement for your surround sound speaker package. The Pulse headset is surprisingly accomplished at creating a 3D soundfield, but the placement of effects is even better with a properly calibrated home cinema system. Effects placed directly in front of or behind the listening position are a particular struggle for 3D audio via headphones, which is no issue with physical speakers in those positions.
Verdict
The Pulse 3D Wireless Headset is really the only option here, but it’s also particularly good at what it does. Those slight timing issues aside, it boasts an accomplished core audio performance that can take your gaming to new levels when combined with the PS5’s 3D audio processing.
If you don’t have the money, space or circumstances for a home cinema system, this is pretty much the next best thing as far as PS5 gaming is concerned, and that makes it a great buy.
SCORES
Sound 5
Comfort 5
Build 4
MORE:
Read our guide to the best gaming headsets
Read our Sony PlayStation Platinum Wireless Headset review
Intel today launched its 11th Generation Core “Rocket Lake” desktop processor family led by the Core i9-11900K—this is its long-awaited review. With the Core i9-11900K, Intel wants to respond to the AMD Ryzen 5000 series, which snatched overall performance leadership away from the company. Rocket Lake is Intel’s first attempt at improving per-core (single-threaded) performance in several years, through the introduction of the new “Cypress Cove” CPU core. Intel claims IPC gain over the previous generation of up to 19%. The i9-11900K is an 8-core/16-thread processor, which is a step backward from its 10-core/20-thread predecessor, the i9-10900K, but Intel believes that the IPC gain and enhancements to the multi-core boosting algorithm should help recover some of the multi-threaded performance despite the two-core deficit. This is also their attempted hint at the market and software developers that eight cores should be plenty for cutting-edge gaming and client desktop tasks.
The reason Intel had to stop at eight cores for Rocket Lake has more to do with the fact that the processor is still manufactured on the 14 nm silicon fabrication node Intel has been lugging along for six years now. The Core i9-11900K is built on the same Socket LGA1200 package as its predecessor, and the package is physically of the same size as the i7-860 from 2009. The new Cypress Cove CPU cores are significantly larger than the “Skylake” cores on “Comet Lake,” and the new Gen12 Xe LP iGPU is larger than the Gen 9.5 unit, too. As a result, elongating the die to cram in more cores wasn’t an option. Add to this that the 14 nm node limits the power budget, and the 10-core Comet Lake was already flirting with 250 W package power draw. Physically removing the iGPU to make room for the extra two cores wasn’t an option either, as Intel emphasizes the iGPU to sell these chips to the vast majority of desktop users that don’t need discrete graphics. Intel plans to significantly change its mainstream desktop socket with the future generation “Alder Lake,” however.
Why Intel stuck with 14 nm is another mystery. Intel’s position is that to accomplish the performance target of Rocket Lake on the desktop platform, 14 nm was sufficient. Intel already has a more advanced silicon fabrication node, the 10 nm SuperFin, which it’s using to make 11th Gen “Tiger Lake-U” mobile processors with plans to launch a new 8-core “Tiger Lake-H” mobile chip later this year. Mobile processors make up a major share of Intel’s client CPU sales, and with the recent surge in notebook sales, the company wants to maximize its 10 nm foundry utilization for mobile chips. The desktop platform has a relatively “unlimited” power budget compared to mobile, and with 10th Gen “Comet Lake-S,” Intel seems to have decided that it’s willing to take the heat for selling a hot and inefficient desktop chip as long as it’s competitive.
We’ll go into the nuts and bolts of Rocket Lake on the following pages, but put briefly, the chip combines eight new Cypress Cove CPU cores with a Gen12 Xe LP integrated graphics core and an updated platform I/O that includes PCI-Express Gen 4. The chip also puts out eight more PCIe lanes than the previous generation. These contribute to a CPU-attached NVMe interface, much like those of AMD Ryzen chips, and a double-width DMI x8 chipset-bus. The general purpose PCIe connectivity put out by the new Intel 500-series chipsets continues to be PCIe Gen 3.
With this generation, Intel has an ace up its sleeve—DLBoost, or hardware acceleration of AI deep-learning neural net building and training. Intel claims DLBoost accelerates DNN training performance by up to six times compared to normal x86 execution. DLBoost made its debut with the company’s 10th Gen “Ice Lake” mobile processors, and Intel sees huge potential for AI in several client-relevant media tasks, such as quick image and video manipulation—just like on the latest smartphones. The company also put out plenty of developer documentation and is working with ISVs to promote DLBoost. Another feature making its desktop debut is the new AVX-512 instruction set, or at least a truncated version of it, with only client-relevant instructions.
The Core i9-11900K 8-core processor is clocked at 3.50 GHz, with a maximum Turbo frequency of 5.30 GHz using Thermal Velocity Boost and an all-core boost frequency of 4.70 GHz. Each of the eight Cypress Cove cores comes with 512 KB of dedicated L2 cache, and the chip has 16 MB of shared L3 cache. The i9-11900K is unlocked and ready for overclocking. Intel has introduced several new features for overclockers, which we’ll detail on the following pages. The i9-11900K is priced at US$539 in 1,000-unit tray quantities, which should put its retail starting price at around $550, the same pricing territory as AMD’s 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X. In this review, we put the Core i9-11900K through an exhaustive new set of CPU and gaming tests to show you if Intel has managed to take back the crown from AMD.
After almost a decade of total market dominance, Intel has spent the past few years on the defensive. AMD’s Ryzen processors continue to show improvement year over year, with the most recent Ryzen 5000 series taking the crown of best gaming processor: Intel’s last bastion of superiority.
Now, with a booming hardware market, Intel is preparing to make up some of that lost ground with the new 11th Gen Intel Core Processors. Intel is claiming these new 11th Gen CPUs offer double-digit IPC improvements despite remaining on a 14 nm process. The top-end 8-core Intel Core i9-11900K may not be able to compete against its Ryzen 9 5900X AMD rival in heavily multi-threaded scenarios, but the higher clock speeds and alleged IPC improvements could be enough to take back the gaming crown. Along with the new CPUs, there is a new chipset to match, the Intel Z590. Last year’s Z490 chipset motherboards are also compatible with the new 11th Gen Intel Core Processors, but Z590 introduces some key advantages.
First, Z590 offers native PCIe 4.0 support from the CPU, which means the PCIe and M.2 slots powered off the CPU will offer PCIe 4.0 connectivity when an 11th Gen CPU is installed. The PCIe and M.2 slots controlled by the Z590 chipset are still PCI 3.0. While many high-end Z490 motherboards advertised this capability, it was not a standard feature for the platform. In addition to PCIe 4.0 support, Z590 offers USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 from the chipset. USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 standard offers speeds of up to 20 Gb/s. Finally, Z590 boasts native support for 3200 MHz DDR4 memory. With these upgrades, Intel’s Z series platform has feature parity with AMD’s B550. On paper, Intel is catching up to AMD, but only testing will tell if these new Z590 motherboards are up to the challenge.
The Maximus family serves as ASUS’s flagship line for Intel motherboards, with premium looks, premium features, blazing performance, and broad overclocking support. The Maximus lineup typically comprises four models: the Hero, Apex, Formula, and Extreme. Intel’s Z590 chipset is no exception. The ASUS ROG Maximus XIII Hero serves as the mainstream entry for the Maximus family, providing many of the extreme features and benefits of the lineup while maintaining an attainable price tag.
The ASUS ROG Maximus XIII Hero features a robust VRM cooling solution, all paired with no less than 16 power stages from Infineon. BIOS flashback has also been included, as well as ASUS’s excellent BIOS designed to provide an optimal, stress-free overclocking experience. The ASUS ROG Maximus XIII Hero also offers great connectivity with not only WiFi 6, but also dual 2.5 Gb/s Ethernet, Thunderbolt 4 and four M.2 slots. All of this performance is bundled into a sleek, modern package with excellent RGB options for those who want more flare in their final build.
Let’s take a closer look at what the ASUS ROG Maximus XIII Hero has to offer.
After almost a decade of total market dominance, Intel has spent the past few years on the defensive. AMD’s Ryzen processors continue to show improvement year over year, with the most recent Ryzen 5000 series taking the crown of best gaming processor: Intel’s last bastion of superiority.
Now, with a booming hardware market, Intel is preparing to retake some of that lost ground with the new 11th Gen Intel Core Processors. Intel is claiming these new 11th Gen CPUs offer double-digit IPC improvements despite remaining on a 14 nm process. The top-end 8-core Intel Core i9-11900K may not be able to compete against its AMD rival Ryzen 9 5900X in heavily multi-threaded scenarios, but the higher clock speeds and alleged IPC improvements could be enough to take back the gaming crown. Along with the new CPUs, there is a new chipset to match, the Intel Z590. Last year’s Z490 chipset motherboards are also compatible with the new 11th Gen Intel Core Processors, but Z590 introduces some key advantages.
First, Z590 offers native PCIe 4.0 support from the CPU, which means the PCIe and M.2 slots powered off the CPU will offer PCIe 4.0 connectivity when an 11th Gen CPU is installed. The PCIe and M.2 slots controlled by the Z590 chipset are still PCI 3.0. While many high-end Z490 motherboards advertised this capability, it was not a standard feature for the platform. In addition to PCIe 4.0 support, Z590 offers USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 from the chipset. The USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 standard offers speeds of up to 20 Gb/s. Finally, Z590 boasts native support for 3200 MHz DDR4 memory. With these upgrades, Intel’s Z series platform has feature parity with AMD’s B550. On paper, Intel is catching up to AMD, but only testing will tell if these new Z590 motherboards are up to the challenge.
The AORUS line from Gigabyte spans a broad range of products—laptops, peripherals, and core components. Across the enthusiast spectrum, the AORUS name denotes Gigabyte’s gaming-focused products. The AORUS motherboard range features a consistent naming scheme that includes the Pro, Elite, Ultra, Master, and Extreme motherboards.
The Gigabyte Z590I AORUS Ultra features a robust VRM utilizing 90 A power stages, along with Q-Flash for a redundant safety net for ambitious overclocking. Along with the standard Z590 updates, the Gigabyte Z590I AORUS Ultra has also added two additional Vcore power stages, which takes the total from 8 to 10. The Gigabyte Z590I AORUS Ultra also offers a full-coverage aluminium backplate for added rigidity and additional VRM cooling. Let’s see how the Gigabyte Z590I AORUS Ultra stacks up against its predecessor!
Specifications
Specifications
CPU Support:
Intel 10th Gen or later processors
Power Design:
CPU Power: 11-phase* Memory Power: 2-phase
Chipset:
Intel Z590
Integrated Graphics:
Dependent on installed CPU
Memory:
2x DIMM, supports dual-channel DDR4-4600 (OC) MHz
BIOS:
AMI UEFI BIOS
Expansion Slots:
1x PCIe 3.0 x16 slot
Storage:
4x SATA 6 Gb/s ports 2x M.2 ports (SATA3/PCIe x4)
Networking:
1x Intel 2.5 Gb/s LAN 1x Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200
Rear Ports:
1x DisplayPort 1x HDMI port 1x USB Type-C® port, with USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 support 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports (red) 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports 2x USB 2.0/1.1 ports 1x Q-Flash Plus button 1x RJ-45 port 2x SMA antenna connectors 3x audio jacks
We would like to thank Corsair for supplying the review sample.
After almost three years in production, Corsair decided to update its popular RMx line. There are again five members with capacities ranging from 550 W to 1000 W. All are fully modular, and the OEM is still Channel Well Technology. Listed below are the crucial changes over the RMx 2018 units with the RMx 2021 revision:
Magnetic levitation fan for increased lifetime under high operating temperatures
Modern standby compatibility for fast wake from sleep times
High efficiency under very light and light loads
Three EPS connectors with the 1000 W and 850 W units
Cybenetics and 80 PLUS (in the reviewer’s guide) certifications
This is the first time I see an ML fan in a power supply. This is excellent news because this bearing has the great endurance of double ball-bearings under high operating temperatures and the low noise output of a fluid dynamic bearing. The only downside is the higher cost. Another first for the new RMx is the number of EPS connectors. Who will ever need three of these connectors? This is too much power for nothing but the CPU socket area. Corsair must know something we aren’t privy to. Utilizing three EPS connectors fully would need the CPU to draw 1 kW!
The Corsair RM850x is the second-strongest member of the line, suitable for strong gaming systems since it can support all high-end AMD and Intel CPUs along with such power-hungry cards as the RTX 3080, RTX 3090, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT. If you plan to overclock a system with similar specifications considerably, you are better off with the RM1000x.
Specifications
Corsair RM850x
Features & Specifications
Max. DC Output
850 W
PFC
Active PFC
Efficiency (230V)
80 PLUS Gold, Cybenetics Gold (89%–91%)
Noise (230V)
Cybenetics Standard++ (30–35 dBA)
Modular
Yes (fully)
Intel C6/C7 Power State Support
Yes
Operating Temperature
0–50 °C
Protections
Over Voltage Protection Under Voltage Protection Over Power Protection Over Temperature Protection Over Current Protection Short Circuit Protection
Cooling
140 mm magnetic levitation fan (NR140ML)
Semi-passive Operation
Yes
Dimensions (W x H x D)
150 x 85 x 160 mm
Weight
1.71 kg (3.77 lb)
Compliance
ATX12V v2.53, EPS 2.92
Warranty
10 years
Price at Time of Review (excl. VAT)
$149.99
Corsair RM850x
Power Specifications
Rail
3.3 V
5 V
12 V
5 VSB
-12 V
Max. Power
20 A
20 A
70.8 A
3 A
0.3 A
150 W
849.6 W
15 W
3.6 W
Total Max. Power
850 W
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