With the ongoing memory shortage, smaller smartphone and laptop manufacturers are reportedly looking at new ways to tackle the problem. While some are changing how they design their products, others are placing orders months in advance and are even forced to test incoming memory chips to make sure they are not fake. A Reuters report suggests that more than the price, availability has become a bigger problem, with manufacturers struggling to secure enough chips in the first place. Still, device makers like Fairphone say that memory now makes up nearly 60% of a device's bill of materials.

Back in July, memory maker SK Hynix’s CEO Kwak Noh-jung said that 2027 will be the "worst year" for the ongoing memory shortage and expects the memory crunch to last until 2030. For smaller manufacturers, however, simply paying more for memory isn't always enough. The situation is particularly difficult for budget-oriented phones and laptops, where memory makes up a much larger portion of the overall product cost.

According to Raymond van Eck, CEO of repairable-phone maker Fairphone, memory can account for almost 60% of the bill of materials in phones costing around $400. That itself is worrying, as a recent Counterpoint Research report expects global smartphone shipments to fall 13.9% this year to 1.08 billion units, marking the largest annual decline on record.

Finnish phone maker Jolla has designed two motherboard versions, allowing it to switch between combined packages for discrete chips depending on availability. The company is also testing samples from every batch it receives to ensure new memory isn't being sold as refurbished hardware.

Similarly, laptop manufacturer Framework has been able to rely on its highly modular approach where customers can install memory salvaged from older laptops or opt for second-hand units, giving the company and its users another way to deal with limited supply. The company is also placing non-cancellable orders well in advance, even when it doesn't know the final price or exact delivery volume.

Back in July, it nearly doubled memory pricing for 32GB and 64GB variants of the Framework Laptop 13 Pro after receiving a cost update from its LPCAMM2 supplier. However, after sourcing new inventory at a reduced cost, the company recently announced a price drop for the same, including retroactive orders that have already shipped.

The GeForce RTX 5090 is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the best graphics cards. However, you'd better pray the serial number on the inside of the metal bracket does not fade over time, since that could be a reason for Nvidia to reject warranty claims. At least one Redditor has shared a case of Nvidia reportedly denying a warranty claim because the bracket's serial number was unreadable.

The Redditor Willing-Avocado-4830, based in the UK, began experiencing black-screen crashes with a GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card under heavy load. The user sent the card to Nvidia for a warranty claim. After 30 days of radio silence, the owner finally received an email stating that their RMA request was rejected with no apparent explanation for the denial.

Seeking clarification, the user reached out to Nvidia for further information. According to the Redditor's recount, Nvidia support purportedly rejected the RMA because the serial number on the graphics card's metal bracket had faded. Like many gamers, Willing-Avocado-4830 claims never to have modified or tampered with the graphics card after installation. The fading serial number does not appear to be an isolated incident. Several other owners have reported similar issues in the Reddit discussion.

The metal bracket on graphics cards is susceptible to dust buildup, oxidation, and corrosion over time. This can cause it to look dirty, stained, or sometimes slightly discolored compared to when it was brand new. These same phenomena could have affected the serial number's legibility, especially since it is printed with ink onto the bracket's surface rather than etched for better durability. For comparison, the last-generation GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition had its serial number laser-etched onto the metal bracket.

One Redditor said that someone in the Nvidia Discord channel recommended cleaning the area with isopropyl alcohol to restore the serial number's visibility. However, that may not work if the ink is no longer present, as previous reports suggest the hot air expelled by the Founders Edition cooler could be erasing the serial number.

Surprisingly, Nvidia rejected a warranty claim solely because of a faded serial number on the graphics card’s bracket. The same serial number is clearly printed on a sticker on Nvidia's modular PCIe connector, which the chipmaker's technicians can verify when disassembling the GeForce RTX 5090. Moreover, you can pull the serial number from the graphics card through the command prompt with Nvidia SMI (System Management Interface), assuming the card is still working, which, in this case, it is. Willing-Avocado-4830 still had the original packaging and the original invoice from Nvidia U.K., so it would be easy to cross-reference the serial numbers.

Redditor hawok reportedly sent their GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition for RMA two months ago and encountered a similar situation. The serial number on the metal bracket was only partially visible. However, customer support seemingly accepted the RMA after the user sent photographs of the packaging that corroborated the serial number. It is unclear what Nvidia's policy is, or whether the chipmaker handles each case differently. We have reached out to Nvidia for clarification.

Some Redditors have suggested taking a photograph that shows the graphics card's serial number next to the packaging's serial number. Others jokingly recommend putting a piece of tape over the serial number. It might not be a bad idea, but you would need heat-resistant tape, something like Kapton tape.

GeForce RTX 5090 stock has practically disappeared from the U.S. market, with very few units starting at $6,500, 3.25X over the Blackwell flagship's MSRP. You cannot blame GeForce RTX 5090 owners for worrying. They already have a lot on their plates, dealing with the 16-pin power connector melting woes, and now also have to worry about fading serial numbers.

Intel won't launch a Nova Lake-S SKU with 12 Xe3P graphics cores, according to tipster Jaykihn, who originally flagged a beefed-up APU design with the Nova Lake architecture. The original SKU was said to come with 4 P-cores, 8 E-cores, and 4 LPE-cores, along with the 12 Xe3P cores, presumably offering an inexpensive onramp to a gaming desktop without a discrete GPU. Now, the leaker says that design is cancelled, and Intel intends to pick it back up with Razor Lake, the generation that will follow Nova Lake.

Originally, Intel's 12 Xe3P Nova Lake SKU was said to require 65W of dedicated power to drive the iGPU, necessitating the use of two VCCGT phases on the motherboard for integrated graphics. Intel's Arc B390 GPU, which is the 12 Xe3-core model available in Panther Lake and Arc G-series processors, has a thermal design that can sustain up to 80W. However, it's currently being used in Panther Lake machines and handhelds like MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ that have lower power targets.

The Xe3P architecture is slotted for use in Intel's Crescent Island AI accelerator, but it hasn't been announced for any other products yet. Xe3P supports a wide deployment of Xe cores (up to 32), a deeper XMX engine with support for low-precision data types like FP8 and FP4, an increased 512KB L1 cache per Xe core, and a new unified L2 cache (32MB on Crescent Island).

Even by desktop APU standards, an 80W iGPU is a beefy accelerator to have on the same package. In addition, Intel's Nova Lake stack is said to extend up to a 175W TDP with the rumored top-end 52-core SKU, meaning the full 12 Xe3P iGPU would likely only be possible lower down the stack (and maybe only in the 4 + 8 + 4 + 12 Xe design originally suggested).

Earlier in the year, rumors suggested Intel was working on a mobile APU to counter AMD's Strix/Gorgon Halo products, featuring a large pool of unified memory and a large iGPU, dubbed Nova Lake AX. Now, the rumor mill suggests Intel will recycle the Nova Lake CPU cores for Razor Lake AX on mobile while pushing a larger iGPU.

*Specs rumored, unconfirmed by Intel

Intel has told us that Nova Lake is one of the most important desktop CPU launches for the company ever, following on the heels of the mediocre Arrow Lake rollout. Perhaps the biggest addition to the lineup is rumored to be bLLC, or big last-level cache, which is said to show up on select SKUs to counter AMD's X3D assault among the best CPUs for gaming. The company has yet to confirm that bLLC is even possible with its current packaging capabilities, though enthusiast channel VP Robert Hallock hinted to Tom's Hardware that Intel has plans to address X3D in the next generation.

The main stack is rumored to climb up to 28 cores, with two additional dual-tile SKUs that can go as high as 52 cores. The dual-tile models look like a bid for HEDT, perhaps competing with AMD's Threadripper CPUs, though it's not clear how Intel will position its dual-tile models yet.

Earlier this month, a leaked slide gave us a glimpse into Intel's launch plans for Nova Lake. The slide suggested Intel will announce the main stack (up to 28 cores) in Q4 of this year, with the chips arriving in Q1 2027. Intel will apparently follow up later in the year with the 52-core model. This aligns with what we've heard from our sources about Intel's Nova Lake rollout.

Alongside Nova Lake, Intel will introduce the new LGA1954 socket, along with the flagship Z990 chipset. We've already seen multiple Z990 motherboards in the flesh, suggesting Intel is preparing for a Nova Lake release in short order.

It's back: one of the best deals on a brand-new, current-generation, mid-range graphics card that packs 12GB of VRAM. There is a little hoop to jump through via Newegg to receive the discount, but it's more than worth it to slash $70 off the card and bring the price back down to its all-time low. AMD's Gigabyte Gaming Radeon RX 9070 GRE GPU is available at Newegg for $499. All you need to do is click on the "Extra Discount Available" link and enter your email address to receive the promotional code. Once you do that, you bring the price of this graphics card all the way down from its $569.99 list price. It's a very grim time for shopping for PC component upgrades, so to see an actual deal on a GPU that takes it below its MSRP in today's inflated market is a rare sight indeed.

● Check out this deal at Newegg

The RX 9070 GRE was initially made available to the Chinese GPU market and received a few changes from the original RX 9070 XT. The available VRAM was cut from 16GB to just 12GB of GDDR6, but it still sports bandwidth speeds of 18 Gbps on a 192-bit bus, producing 432 GB/s of memory bandwidth in gaming and applications. The Radeon RX 9070 GRE is still built on AMD’s RDNA 4 graphics architecture and uses the same Navi 48 GPU as the Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT. The RX 9070 GRE features a cut-down version of the Navi 48 chip with 48 compute units compared to the RX 9070's 56. Using just 220W total power draw, the RX 9070 GRE has an Identical power footprint to the standard Radeon RX 9070 GPU, making it quite power efficient and not needing a huge power supply to run.

We benchmarked the Radeon RX 9070 GRE in our extensive review, putting it through its paces in our suite of games. We found the card averages a cool 120 FPS at 1080p settings and 86.6 FPS at 1440p across our 11-game raster-only test suite. This is a good GPU choice for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with the RX 9070 GRE packing ample VRAM for high settings at 1080p, but pushing ultra settings at 1440p may use up the 12GB of VRAM. AMD's Radeon RX 9070 GRE sits just behind Nvidia's RTX 5070 in our results chart that you can view below.

If you're actively looking for a new GPU in the current PC component market, you're more than aware of the considerable price hikes across the GPU lineups from both AMD and Nvidia. To see a graphics card on sale for under its launch MSRP is a very rare sight, and I personally did not expect to see this kind of deal again outside of a large sale event like Prime Day or Black Friday. So if you're looking for a competent card for 1080p and 1440p gaming, then jump on the Gigabyte Gaming RX 9070 GRE for just $499.99.

Nvidia's fastest gaming graphics card, the RTX 5090, has been on a tear of price increases over the past several weeks. However, over the past week, the available inventory has dwindled. Now, you can only find the RTX 5090 from third-party sellers at online retailers like Newegg and Amazon, commanding anywhere from $6,500 to $9,500 (or even higher) for Team Green's best GPU.

At Newegg, the cheapest RTX 5090 is the MSI Ventus 3X that's available from Slava Computers (a relatively new seller with 239 ratings and a 2.8 out of 5 rating at the time of writing) for $6,449. On Amazon, you can get the Asus TUF Gaming OC for $6,395 from Joes Tech Shop, a seller with an 81% positive rating. However, among the most recent reviews are a string of one-star reviews about orders never being fulfilled. The cost goes much higher, as well. The first result for "RTX 5090" on Newegg, for example, surfaces the MSI Ventus 3X OC for $8,699.

In June, the median price for an RTX 5090 was $4,299. At the beginning of September, we logged the lowest online price at $5,199 in our GPU price tracker. Now, in less than two weeks, the available stock has completely disappeared online, and the options available from third-party sellers have ballooned in price once again.

Naturally, we don't recommend buying from one of these third-party sellers. The RTX 5090 is selling at a vastly inflated price, but more importantly, we've seen no shortage of scams around high-ticket items like the RTX 5090. In January, 42 Amazon customers were duped into a scam involving a $999 RTX 5090, instead receiving a fanny pack in place of the GPU. Earlier this month, an online seller scammed two buyers with the RTX 5090, selling phantom graphics cards with the core and memory removed on the secondhand market for prices near MSRP.

The one exception to RTX 5090 inventory is Micro Center, which still has cards available around the average selling price. At a local Micro Center we checked, the cheapest in-stock option was $4,299. Micro Center has exclusively sold graphics cards in-person for several years, insulating it from online buyouts like what appears to be going on right now.

As usual, the reason why there's so much demand for the RTX 5090 is fairly obvious: AI. The RTX 5090 holds the GB202 GPU and 32GB of GDDR7 memory. For context, Nvidia's RTX Pro 5000 48GB comes with the same GPU with a third fewer shader units enabled, and lower memory bandwidth compared to the RTX 5090, and sells for between $7,000 and $9,000. In that context, the RTX 5090 starts to look attractive for building an AI server, even at $5,000 (or more) apiece.

At the same time, the RTX 5090 remains the fastest gaming graphics card on the market according to the testing in our GPU benchmark hierarchy. That's even more true now with Nvidia's launch of DLSS 5 Neural Rendering, which the RTX 5090 can fully capitalize on (though, thankfully, we've found playable performance on lower-end cards in our extensive DLSS 5 testing).

We've reached out to Nvidia for comment on whether it has any plans to stabilize inventory. We'll update this story when we hear back.

The GeForce RTX 5090 is undeniably one of the best graphics cards money can buy. Banking on the fact that many already use it for AI, Nvidia has bolstered it with even more memory and launched it as the new RTX 5500 Pro Blackwell Workstation Edition. It offers comparable specifications to the GeForce RTX 5090 but distinguishes itself with 84GB of GDDR7 memory, 2.6X more than the Blackwell gaming flagship.

The RTX Pro 5500 features the GB202 silicon, the powerhouse die that powers other high-end mainstream and professional Blackwell graphics cards, including the GeForce RTX 5090, RTX Pro 6000, and RTX Pro 5000. In fact, the RTX Pro 5500 uses the same die as the GeForce RTX 5090, which means 170 Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs) are enabled out of a possible 192. As a result, the RTX Pro 5500 has 21,760 CUDA cores and offers performance comparable to the GeForce RTX 5090. The differentiator is the memory subsystem, where the RTX Pro 5500 excels.

Nvidia equipped the RTX Pro 5500 with 84GB of GDDR7 memory. This is the second time Nvidia has launched a graphics card with 84GB of memory, with the first being the China-exclusive RTX Pro 6000D. The RTX Pro 5500's memory capacity lets the Blackwell graphics card sit comfortably between the RTX Pro 5000 and the upgraded RTX Pro 6000, with 72GB and 96GB of GDDR7 memory, respectively.

Nvidia RTX Pro 5500 Workstation Edition Specifications

Nvidia achieved the 84GB memory capacity by outfitting the RTX Pro 5500 with 28 GDDR7 memory chips in a clamshell configuration. Each side of the PCB houses 14 24Gb (3GB) GDDR7 memory modules. They run at 25 Gb/s across a 448-bit memory interface, delivering up to 1,400 GB/s of bandwidth, which aligns with Nvidia’s official specification of 1,398 GB/s. In other words, the RTX Pro 5500 shares the same memory subsystem as the RTX Pro 6000D.

Samsung, Micron, and SK hynix only produce standard 28 Gb/s memory packages. Therefore, Nvidia downclocks the RTX Pro 5500's GDDR7 chips for its own reasons, whether to meet thermal and power targets or avoid cannibalizing higher-tier SKUs. From a memory-bandwidth perspective, the RTX Pro 5500 is not particularly impressive. Its bandwidth is only 4% ahead of the RTX Pro 5000, and it lags 22% behind both the flagship RTX Pro 6000 and the GeForce RTX 5090, which fully leverage 28 Gb/s GDDR7 memory chips.

To sum it all up, if RTX Pro 6000D and GeForce RTX 5090 had a child, it would be the RTX Pro 5500. Nvidia's main motivation was to launch the RTX Pro 5500 to fill the large performance and pricing gap between the RTX Pro 6000 and RTX Pro 5000. Also, the chipmaker makes substantially more profit by putting recycled GB202 into an RTX Pro 5500 than into a GeForce RTX 5090. By giving the former more memory with similar core specifications as the latter, Nvidia seemingly hopes to win more customers over to the RTX Pro 5500.

We reached out to both Nvidia and PNY for official pricing on the RTX Pro 5500, but neither company has responded. For reference, the flagship RTX Pro 6000 retails for $15,599, while an RTX Pro 5000 72GB starts at $9,209. Given the RTX Pro 5500's role as a bridge between the two models, it is reasonable to expect its launch price to fall somewhere within this range.

With the latest ROCm updates, AMD finally brought robust, official PyTorch and HIP SDK support to Windows for consumer GPUs, fully supporting the Radeon RX 7000 and the RX 9000 series. For native, supported frameworks, AMD on Windows is finally a viable reality, but what happens when you want to run a proprietary application, an older repository, or a specialized AI tool that absolutely refuses to support anything but NVIDIA's CUDA? That's where a new project, Speedstu's "CUDA-for-AMD-Windows," could save the day. It proves that running rigidly CUDA-exclusive workloads on AMD hardware in Windows is possible without virtualization or dual-booting.

To be clear, this project is not a brand-new runtime. Instead, it is a highly automated and reproducible PowerShell setup that bridges the gap between ZLUDA, the well-known, formerly AMD-funded translation layer, and AMD's native HIP/ROCm SDK for Windows. Through a series of clever scripts, the toolkit automatically detects the user's GPU architecture, grabs a specifically pinned version of ZLUDA (v6-preview.69), and, at least in theory, seamlessly maps it to the ROCm math libraries already present in Windows.

The result is that the developer successfully intercepted and mapped the CUDA driver API as well as the cuBLAS, cuSPARSE, and cuFFT libraries directly over to their AMD equivalents. As a proof-of-concept, the author even trained a 2.2-million-parameter PPO reinforcement-learning network end-to-end using unmodified CUDA libraries on an AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT, which happens to be the only officially supported GPU at this time.

Even with AMD's official ROCm support on Windows, the local developer community frequently runs into dependency hell when trying out experimental GitHub repos or specialized AI tools that hardcode CUDA as a requirement. For developers who want to experiment with these CUDA-only tools natively on their Windows daily driver machines without dealing with WSL2 passthrough issues or waiting for the original author to write a HIP port, this project offers a highly desirable translation pipeline. It acts as a sort of hacky adapter for software that stubbornly demands an NVIDIA card.

Benchmark testing included in the project's documentation offers some interesting findings. In a controlled A/B test running a 2.2M-parameter reinforcement learning workload on a Radeon RX 9060 XT, the "public upstream path," which relies purely on official ZLUDA releases and AMD's stock HIP SDK 6.4, achieved a median throughput of 13,278 steps per second (SPS). By contrast, an optional "recovered custom overlay" apparently built from salvaged legacy ZLUDA binaries ran slightly worse at 12,876 SPS, making it roughly 3% slower. While the clean official setup is faster, the author notes that "a later rewrite removed LibTorch/ZLUDA from PPO and achieved substantially higher throughput," indicating that there is still a performance hit for this stack of translators.

Now, before anyone declares the CUDA moat officially drained, it is crucial to set realistic expectations. First, this is a solo open-source project, not an enterprise-grade solution. The author is extremely transparent about its narrow scope, as crucial machine learning libraries like cuDNN, TensorRT, and NCCL do not resolve yet. This means compatibility is strictly workload-dependent; if your specific AI tool relies heavily on cuDNN, this setup will fail. Furthermore, it's worth pointing out that ZLUDA itself is currently being maintained as a "weekend hobby project" after losing its commercial backing a second time. Relying on this pipeline for production-level work remains a massive risk. This repository is a tinkerer's tool, not a corporate IT deployment strategy.

Despite these limitations, "CUDA-for-AMD-Windows" is pretty exciting, as it proves that the barrier to entry for running CUDA-exclusive software on AMD GPUs isn't an insurmountable hardware flaw, but a relatively tractable translation tooling problem. Because the project is entirely open-source, its potential extends far beyond this initial proof-of-concept. With community contributions, we could see expanded hardware detection and clever patches to get more stubborn CUDA libraries resolving properly.

If you believe that the 8-pin PCIe power connector is entirely immune to the problems that have plagued the newer 16-pin connector, think again. A recent incident suggests that even the humble 8-pin is not entirely immune to failure. According to a Radeon RX 7900 XTX owner on Reddit, the 8-pin connectors on a Thermal Grizzly WireView monitoring device suffered overheating damage while connected to the graphics card.

The user said that they experienced frequent freezes and black screens before discovering the damage. The affected connectors were the 8-pin connectors on the GPU side of the monitoring device, with visible signs of burning and melted plastic. The user also confirmed that the connectors were fully inserted, although the exact cause of the failure is still unknown.

WireView is essentially an adapter that sits between a graphics card and the power cables, allowing users to monitor various values like power consumption, voltages, current in amperes, minimum and maximum power consumption, and more. Rather than connecting the PSU cables directly to the GPU, the power passes through the monitoring device, thus adding another set of connectors and electrical contacts to the power delivery path. A poor electrical connection, increased contact resistance, a damaged connector, or an issue with the adapter itself could have caused the overheating damage.

Thermal Grizzly previously pointed to improper seating, backplate interference, or incorrectly aligned or soldered contacts as possible causes of connector damage, although the company is yet to identify the cause of this particular incident. The company has reportedly contacted the affected user and asked them to get in touch with its support team so the company can investigate the damaged WireView adapter. The investigation could potentially help determine whether the failure originated from the adapter, the connectors, the GPU, or a combination of factors.

While we are on the subject of 8-pin power connectors, just days ago we saw a heavily modified RTX 5090 successfully running on traditional 8-pin connectors. The modders replaced the card's original 16-pin connectors with three 8-pin connectors soldered directly to the PCB, using heavy-gauge cables and modified sense pins. The card reportedly pulled as much as 900W and reached 3,400 MHz, demonstrating how capable 8-pin connectors can be when properly implemented. However, this was an extreme hardware modification, not a stock configuration.

When money is no object, but you still want to be slightly frugal, combo bundles like today's Newegg offering might pique your interest. Featuring some of the most powerful and extreme consumer PC components on the market, this selection of parts will make for a very powerful gaming machine and an even more powerful productivity workhorse. Right now, you can save $1,289 when you spend $2,999 on an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 processor along with an 8TB Samsung 9100 Pro SSD, MSI X870E Gaming Plus WiFi motherboard, and 32GB of V-Color Manta XSkyDDR5-6000 memory at Newegg. The normal price for all of these components reaches $4,288, plus Newegg also throws in a free Cooler Master Elite Liquid 240mm AIO CPU cooler, and you get a copy of Capcom's latest Onimusha hit game with the purchase of select AMD products (Ryzen 9 9950X3D2).

● Check out this deal at Newegg

This bundle includes most of the components you'll need to build a mightily impressive gaming and productivity PC. You'll still need to source a PC case, power supply, and graphics card to complete the build, though. This Newegg bundle includes AMD's halo processor - the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 - stacking 3D V-cache on both the CCDs of the processor for some extreme cache memory performance.

In our testing of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 processor, we found the 16-core and 32-thread monster to match the 9800X3D in gaming performance, but excel in multi-threaded application performance. You can see below from our multi-threaded performance chart that the 9950X3D2 tops the table, but at a price. The 9950X3D2 is also very power-hungry and costs more than the other CPUs on the list.

The component bundle also features a massive 8TB Samsung 9100 Pro PCIe Gen 5.0 SSD. This is the most extreme size for a superfast SSD in both capacity and price. In our testing, the 8TB 9100 Pro beats the other 8TB competition in our PC Mark 10 storage tests, but isn't as fast as smaller 2TB capacity drives, as its controller is designed to operate optimally with up to thirty-two dies at 4TB. See our review for more details.

On its own, the 8TB 9100 Pro retails for a jaw-dropping $2,719.99, almost the cost of this entire bundle. So if you want superfast transfer speeds with 8TB of space, then this is the best way of getting one at a reduced price, especially in the current climate of storage pricing.

Modders have slashed the cost of running FSR 4 on AMD’s RDNA 2-powered BC-250 by nearly half, with a new implementation cutting the upscaler’s processing time from 11.51 ms to 5.92 ms at 1440p. Detailed in a VideoCardz post, the latest work builds on the community’s ongoing effort to turn AMD’s unusual PlayStation 5-derived crypto-mining board into a capable Linux gaming machine, while moving the FSR 4 optimizations from a custom Mesa modification into a portable FidelityFX DLL.

According to testing shared by the developer, FSR 4.1.1 running at 2560 x 1440 with a 1706 x 960 Quality input required 11.51 ms using the original shaders, compared with 5.92 ms using the latest v4.0.0-rc9 release. At 4K, processing time reportedly dropped from 25.72 ms to 12.08 ms, while 1080p fell from 7.13 ms to 3.93 ms. The developer also reports that the optimized implementation produced byte-identical images to the original shaders in controlled testing, suggesting that the performance improvement comes from executing the same workload more efficiently, and not reducing image quality.

The BC-250 is particularly interesting in this context because it is based on much older RDNA 2 graphics hardware. FSR 4 relies heavily on machine-learning workloads and accelerated low-precision integer operations that are far better suited to newer AMD architectures. On the BC-250, those operations have to be handled through alternative instruction paths.

Earlier community work tackled the problem in Mesa, optimizing the INT8 dot-product operations used by FSR 4. Instead of relying on a much more expensive fallback sequence, the modified implementation used a more efficient mathematical path based around signed 24-bit integer operations. One representative shader reportedly fell from 64,269 instructions to 37,613.

The latest fork takes that work a step further by shifting the optimizations into a FidelityFX DLL. This removes the requirement to run a specially modified Mesa build, potentially making the optimized path easier to use with an existing OptiScaler installation or games with compatible native FidelityFX implementations.

Native Windows support, other GPUs, and frame generation have not yet been qualified, as the developer tested the BC-250 on Linux using standard Mesa and GE-Proton. The practical upper target for the board is roughly 1440p, as FSR 4 still consumes 12.08 ms at 4K even after the optimization.

The achievement is the latest chapter in the BC-250's unusual story. ASRock built the board for cryptocurrency mining systems around PlayStation 5-class AMD silicon, with six Zen 2 CPU cores and 24 RDNA 2 compute units enabled by default. With the mining market's collapse, individual boards began filtering onto the second-hand market for well under $150, and enthusiasts have since assembled a mature Linux gaming ecosystem around them, complete with custom firmware, GPU governors, CU unlock tools, cases, cooling solutions, and distro-specific fixes.

We recently put the BC-250 through its paces and found that community-developed tools can unlock all 40 physical RDNA 2 compute units on compatible boards, up from 24 enabled by default, while separate firmware work can restore the two disabled Zen 2 CPU cores and take the chip from six cores to eight.

The ecosystem still comes with limitations. In our testing, the BC-250’s aging Zen 2 CPU became a substantial bottleneck at 1080p and 1440p in some games, even with the GPU fully unlocked. The board also has only 16GB of shared GDDR6 memory, which caused some titles to crash due to memory issues at 4K and made frame generation harder at higher resolutions. While FSR 4 will not erase those limitations, halving the upscaler's per-frame cost gives a once-discarded mining board significantly more headroom to spend elsewhere.

For those seeking the highest performance for gaming, AMD’s Ryzen 7 9850X3D is currently the best CPU money can buy. If you’re planning to upgrade or build a new PC, now might be a good time to pick one up, as Newegg is selling the 9850X3D for $484, around $15 less than its launch price. The deal also includes a 240mm Cooler Master AIO liquid cooler, valued at $79.99, along with a copy of Onimusha: Way of the Sword worth $69.99, both included as free gifts.

• Check out the deal on Newegg

Announced at CES 2026, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is essentially a higher-binned version of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. It retains the same 8-core, 16-thread configuration and 4.2 GHz base clock as its predecessor, but gets a higher 5.6 GHz boost clock. The chip comes with the same 104MB of total cache, including 96MB of 3D V-Cache, which is the key ingredient behind its strong gaming performance. It also shares the same 120W default TDP and uses the AM5 platform with DDR5 memory support, making it compatible with a wide range of existing 800- and 600-series AMD motherboards.

In our in-depth testing of the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, we found that it was only 3.3% faster than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. But a win is a win, and that performance edge puts the CPU at the top of our 16-game 1080p FPS performance geomean, beating the more expensive Ryzen 9 9900X3D and 9950X3D. Although it loses out to Intel in some productivity workloads, the less complex 8-core configuration packed into a single CCD results in lower power draw. As you can see from our results, the peak power consumption is around 170W, making it much easier to cool.

With the included 240mm AIO liquid cooler, you should be able to keep the Ryzen 7 9850X3D well under control during gaming and moderate workloads, although it may run warmer under heavy multi-core workloads. At its sale price of $484, you’re paying less than its actual launch price while getting two useful extras at no additional cost. That makes this a worthwhile deal for anyone looking to build a high-end gaming PC around AMD’s gaming-focused platform.

AZZA is one of those brands that has been around far longer than its shelf presence suggests. The company is the PC-components arm of Linkworld Electronic, and it has spent the better part of two decades selling cases, coolers, chassis fans and power supplies into the value end of the market, mostly through regional distribution rather than the big review-sample circuit. That low profile cuts both ways. AZZA has never had the marketing budget to overpromise the way larger brands do, but it also has never had to answer for its power supplies in public the way brands like Corsair or Cooler Master routinely do. Like almost every brand in this segment, AZZA designs none of their units themselves but buys platforms from (usually Chinese) OEMs and puts its own sticker on the side.

The PSAZ series is AZZA's mainstream ATX line, and the PSAZ-750G is the 750W Gold-badged member of it. The unit we have is marked ATX 3.1 and PCIe 5.1 Ready on the box, carries a native 12V-2x6 connector, and is rated for its full 750W at 40°C ambient. It ships with a 2-year warranty, which is a statement all by itself. The platform comes from Helly, a manufacturer that supplies a number of platforms and we meet their products frequently in mainstream units. What makes the PSAZ-750G interesting is not the specification sheet but the badge on it: the box, the label and the retail listings all carry the 80 PLUS Gold logo, and AZZA has not put a PSAZ unit through 80 PLUS certification since 2015. That claim, more than anything else, is what this review has to settle and determine whether it deserves a spot in our list of best power supplies.

Specifications and Design

In the Box

Packaging is plain and inexpensive, and honest about it. The sleeve is a flat slate-blue with the AZZA wordmark rendered as three large outlined chevrons on the left, a line drawing of the unit on the right, and the model and wattage stacked underneath. The badges run along the lower half - PCI-e 5.1 Ready, ATX 3.1, and the 80 PLUS Gold logo in its usual gold square. The unit sits inside between two moulded protective inserts, with the cables bundled beside it.

The bundle is as thin as it gets. There is the AC power cord, four mounting screws and four black zip ties. No Velcro straps, no cable combs, no pouch, no tester, and nothing in the way of printed documentation beyond what is on the box itself. At $78 for a 750W unit, none of that is unreasonable, but it is worth noting that the four zip ties are doing real work here. With a hardwired cable set there is no way to leave unused cables out of the case, so whatever routing tidiness you get, you will be building yourself.

The cables themselves are better than the accessory list implies. All of them are black nylon-sleeved rather than the flat ribbon type common at this price, sleeved right up to the connector housings, and the wire gauges look appropriate throughout. The 12V-2x6 cable is a native run from the PCB rather than an adapter, and it is printed with a 450W rating along its length, which is the single most important thing to know about this power supply before you buy it. That is enough for a mid-range card, and not enough for a 500W+ flagship, regardless of what the 750W on the box suggests. There is no dual-color keying on the connector, so seating it correctly is on you.

External Appearance

At 150 x 86 x 140 mm the PSAZ-750G is a standard-depth ATX unit, and 140 mm means it drops into essentially any case that takes an ATX supply, with enough clearance left over to deal with the fixed cable loom. The chassis is finished in a dark grey-brown matte paint and it is a better finish than the price would predict. The top face carries a slotted grille with wide diagonal bars over the fan, cut off at one corner by a plain triangular panel bearing the AZZA logo and a few thin pinstripes. It is a restrained, slightly industrial look, and the diagonal grille bars do restrict airflow area more than a wire or honeycomb grille would, which increases noise.

The side panel carries the only color on the unit: a grey hatched rectangle with the AZZA wordmark in outline and 750W set in a bright cyan that matches the box. The top side holds the specifications label, and it is worth reading. It lists the ATX 3.1 and PCIe 5.1 Ready marks and, again, the 80 PLUS Gold logo.

The rear face is a hexagonal honeycomb exhaust panel with the AC receptacle, the main I/O rocker, and a second, smaller square button beside it. That button is the hybrid fan mode switch: press it and the semi-passive behavior is disabled, so the fan runs continuously from idle rather than waiting for load. It is a feature several units at three times this price still omit, and it is faintly odd to find it here. The front face is solid, with the fixed cable loom leaving through a single rubber-grommeted opening. There is no modular bay, no LED, and no other features.

Internal Design

Cooling comes from a 120 mm Yate Loon D12BH-12, a ball-bearing fan rated at 12V and 0.60A. Yate Loon publishes this model at 2300 RPM, 89 CFM and 41 dB(A) at full speed, which puts it firmly in the high-airflow, high-noise half of the catalogue. Ball bearings are a durability advantage over the sleeve-bearing fans that usually appear at this price, and given the 2-year warranty that matters - a fan that outlasts the coverage period is the minimum bar. What it is not is a quiet fan, and the platform leans on it hard, as the hot-box results below make clear.

The platform is a Helly design and is similar to the platform Phanteks AMP GH series is using - but that is where the similarities end. The layout is clean and reasonably modern, with the main PCB carrying the primary and secondary stages and a pair of small vertical daughterboards near the front handling the minor rails. Heatsinks are generously sized for the class, dark-anodised finned extrusions rather than the bent aluminium strips that budget platforms often make do with, and the board is well populated with silicone glue on the taller components. The main transformer is marked ATX3.0 on the bobbin, which is a small reminder of how recent the 3.1 revision on the box actually is.

Transient filtering runs to four Y capacitors, three X capacitors and two common-mode chokes, which is a complete filter by any reasonable standard and better provisioned than several units we have looked at this year. Inrush is handled by an NTC thermistor with a relay for bypass. Two bridge rectifiers sit on their own dedicated heatsink, feeding an APFC stage built around two Oriental Semiconductor OSG55R190F MOSFETs. The bulk capacitor is a 560 µF, 420V Ltec from its HP series, rated at 105°C. That is a low-cost Taiwanese part rather than a premium one, and it is the first place the budget shows. Capacity is adequate for 750W, the temperature rating is right, but the pedigree is not. The APFC coil beside is unshielded, which is a cost decision rather than a functional problem, though it does nothing for radiated noise.

The primary inversion stage uses two PIP PTA25N50 MOSFETs in a half-bridge LLC resonant arrangement, the standard modern topology at this power level. On the secondary side, the 12V rail is rectified by four Fuxin FXN0204C MOSFETs in synchronous rectification, with the 3.3V and 5V rails generated by DC-to-DC converters on the two vertical daughterboards.

Secondary filtering is a mix of Ltec electrolytics and a smaller number of APAQ polymer capacitors, both Taiwanese. This is the part of the component list that will decide how the unit ages: Ltec electrolytics are not terrible parts, but they are at best ordinary ones, and they will spend their life sitting next to secondary heatsinks that may hit well over 70 °C in a normal system. A 2-year warranty against that combination is not a comfortable pairing.

Cold Test Results (25°C Ambient)

Cold Test Results (25°C Ambient)

For the testing of PSUs, we are using high-precision electronic loads with a maximum power draw of 2700 Watts, a Rigol DS5042M 40 MHz oscilloscope, an Extech 380803 power analyzer, two high-precision UNI-T UT-325 digital thermometers, an Extech HD600 SPL meter, a self-designed hotbox, and various other bits and parts.

At 25°C ambient the PSAZ-750G averaged 90.6% at 230 VAC and 88.6% at 115 VAC across the nominal load range. The curve peaks at about 92% at 230 VAC around 300W and holds 90.2% at a sustained 750W, with the 115 VAC line topping out at 90.3% and finishing at 87.3%. Those are respectable numbers and the shape of the curve is healthy, with no full-load collapse. They are also, and this is the point, not Gold. 80 PLUS Gold requires 90/92/89% at 20/50/100% load on 230 VAC and 87/90/87% on 115 VAC. We measured 90.1/91.8/90.2% and 88.7/89.9/87.1% respectively. The unit clears the 20% and 100% checkpoints on both inputs and misses the 50% checkpoint on both, by 0.2 and 0.1 points. It is a near miss rather than a fraud and CLEAResult tests at 23 °C so it could possibly pass, but there is no 80 PLUS entry for the PSAZ series after 2015 to argue otherwise. There is no Cybenetics listing either.

Acoustically the cold run is the best part of this review. The fan stays completely stopped up to roughly 40% load, giving a genuine 300W fanless window that covers desktop work and a good deal of gaming outright. It starts at 31.6 dB(A) and ramps gently to about 33 dB(A) at half load, at which point it becomes the quietest thing in most builds. Past 450W the curve steepens noticeably, reaching 38 dB(A) at 600W and 42 dB(A) at a sustained 750W. That is audible but not intrusive, and it is a reasonable trade for a good thermal result. The heatsinks reached 66-68°C at full load. Nothing here is under severe stress.

Hot Test Results (~45°C Ambient)

Hot Test Results (~45°C Ambient)

Inside the hotbox at roughly 45°C ambient, five degrees above the unit's own 40°C rating, efficiency falls by roughly a point and a half. It was not an unexpected result but it is severe for a 750W unit. The averages come to 89.4% at 230 VAC and 87.5% at 115 VAC, with the curve peaking near 90.8% and finishing at 88.5% and 85.6% respectively at full load. Nothing in the electrical behavior suggests the platform is in deep trouble but we can see the signs of thermal degradation at full load.

The thermal and acoustic picture is where the platform shows its limits. The fan leaves its passive mode in the hot box very quickly, starting at about 33.6 dB(A) from 200W, then climbing steeply and continuously: 43 dB(A) at 500W, 48.6 dB(A) at 600W, and 52.2 dB(A) at a sustained 750W. That last figure is loud in the plain sense of the word, well past the point where the PSU is the loudest component in a mid-tower and into the range where it likely is the loudest thing in the room. It is also the fan doing exactly what it should, because the internal temperatures need it. The heatsinks reached 94°C at full load, which is on the high side for a 750W unit. Those are not typically failure temperatures, but they are high enough to matter for the Ltec secondary electrolytics sitting beside them over a several-year ownership period.

PSU Quality and Bottom Line

Power Supply Quality

Voltage regulation is the strongest result on the sheet. Across the 20% to 100% load span the 12V rail moved by just 0.9%, with the 3.3V and 5V rails both at 1.4%. Sub-1% on 12V is genuinely good, better than several other Gold units, and it is the credit side of the DC-to-DC secondary arrangement. The minor rails are looser, but both stay comfortably inside the ±5% ATX window and neither matters much to a modern system.

Ripple suppression is adequate rather than good. The 12V rail peaked at 52 mV at full load and 50 mV in the 12V-weighted cross-load test, against a 120 mV ATX limit. The 3.3V and 5V rails topped out at 26 and 28 mV against their 50 mV limits. Those are passes with about 57% headroom on 12V and roughly 45% on the minor rails, so nothing is close to the edge. They are also roughly double what a well-filtered enthusiast platform delivers, and the 12V figure more than doubles between 50% and 100% load, which points at secondary filtering that is sized to the requirement rather than beyond it. For the hardware a 750W unit at this price will actually feed, it is sufficient.

During our thorough assessment, we evaluate the essential protection features of every power supply unit we review, including Over Current Protection (OCP), Over Voltage Protection (OVP), Over Power Protection (OPP), and Short Circuit Protection (SCP).

All protection mechanisms were present and triggered correctly. With the unit hot, OCP tripped at 146% on the 3.3V rail (29.2A), 140% on the 5V rail (28A), and 128% on the 12V rail (79.4A), with OPP shutting the unit down at about 130% of rated output, or roughly 975W. The 12V threshold is the sensible one of the three. The minor-rail thresholds are loose enough that the 100W combined budget is the real constraint there, not the protection.

Bottom Line

The PSAZ-750G is a competent budget power supply carrying a claim it cannot support. The Helly platform underneath is more modern than the price suggests and used by several manufacturers at this price point. Inside, we have a half-bridge LLC primary, DC-to-DC minor rails, a complete transient filter, generously sized heatsinks, a ball-bearing fan and a native 12V-2x6 connector. Regulation on the 12V rail is genuinely good at 0.9%, ripple is comfortably inside specification everywhere, protections all work and trip at sane thresholds, and the 300W fanless window at room temperature is real. There is nothing broken here.

The efficiency claim, however, is one that does not survive contact with the bench. Our numbers put the unit 0.2 points under the Gold requirement at 50% load on 230 VAC and 0.1 under it on 115 VAC, clearing every other checkpoint. CLEAResult tests at 23°C, so a good sample could plausibly clear the bar on the official bench. On the other hand, other units using the same platform passed our testing, even if they were fully modular (typically hardwired cables increase efficiency slightly). AZZA has not certified a PSAZ unit since 2015, there is no official 80 PLUS entry for this particular model, no Cybenetics listing and no PLPP listing, yet the Gold logo is printed on the box, on the label and in the retail listings. The unit performs like a borderline Gold supply. It is being sold as a certified one. Those are not the same thing, and the second is the vendor's choice, not a measurement artifact.

Most of the remaining compromises are ordinary for the money. Hardwired cabling at 750W in 2026 is behind the market but forgivable at $78, but the Ltec capacitors is what a $78 budget buys. One thing is harder to wave through. That is the 2-year warranty, which is half or less of what every serious competitor offers; set against heatsinks that reached 94°C at full load in the hot box, with ordinary electrolytics sitting beside them, it reads as the manufacturer telling you how long it expects the unit to be its problem.

Against named rivals, the placement is straightforward. The Phanteks AMP GH series runs a related Helly platform, which is worth keeping in mind - the design itself is not the problem here; the specification is. The MSI MAG A750GL PCIE5 is fully modular, genuinely 80 PLUS Gold certified, and backed by a 10-year warranty, and it is better than the AZZA on every axis except price. The Cooler Master MWE Gold 750 V4 at $119 MSRP is quieter under sustained load, carries verified Gold efficiency and a 10-year warranty, and gives up only a little on 12V regulation, where the AZZA's 0.9% is the better figure.

The PSAZ-750G beats them on nothing but cost, but it beats them there by a wide margin. So the recommendation is narrow but real. If you are building a mid-range machine on a tight budget, the card you are pairing it with draws under 450W, and you can live with 2 years of coverage and a fixed cable loom, the PSAZ-750G will do the job, and it will do it quietly at the loads you will actually run. If any of those three conditions do not hold, the extra money for a certified, longer-warrantied, fully modular unit is the better spend, and it is not a close call. Buy it for what it measures, not for the badge on the box.

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