Category: Laptop

Battle of the $350 laptops: Acer Swift 1 vs. Gateway Ryzen 3 3200U

We’ve been on the lookout for good but seriously cheap laptops for a while now. Acer’s $650 Swift 3 is an excellent choice for budget laptops in the under-$700 range, but we’ve been really itching to find one in the almost nonexistent sub-$400 category. To that end, today we’re looking at two of Walmart’s finest—a $378 Acer Swift 1 and a $350 Gateway GWTN141-2. Both of these are serviceable if cheap laptops, but the Gateway, despite being the less expensive model, will be the clear winner for most people. It’s more powerful, more repairable, more upgrade-able, and in our testing, a bit more reliable as well.

Acer Swift 1 SF114-32

Thankfully, the off-putting dingy yellow POST logo isn’t in your face for long—the Swift 1 cold boots to the desktop in about 11 seconds.

We found the keyboard pretty unremarkable. It makes maximal use of the Swift 1’s chassis, so it doesn’t feel too cramped—but we already know some of you will hate the compressed arrow key layout.

DC barrel jack, full-size HDMI out, USB-C, 2x USB 3.0 type-A.

SD card slot, 3.5mm audio combo jack, USB 2.0 type-A, power and HDD LEDs, Kensington lock slot.

If you want to get into the Swift 1, you’ll need a set of Torx bits. But there’s no reason to bother, unless you’re replacing the battery—or, we guess, the Wi-Fi—since everything else is soldered to the board.

Once you (very carefully, due to the thin aluminum side panels) lift off the back panel, there’s not much to look at—no active cooling, and no sockets either, except for the Wi-Fi and one unpopulated, SATA-only M.2.

We didn’t actually intend to test or review the Swift 1—we ordered a Walmart Motile 14, with a Ryzen 5 processor for only $350. But Walmart has an unfortunate tendency to just throw in any similar product when it runs low on stock, and the Swift 1 is what got sent in its place—with no notification, either by email or in our account at Walmart.com, and no paperwork in the box either.

There’s only a 30-day return/exchange window on laptops at Walmart, but Things Came Up, and we didn’t open the box until after that window had shut. Discovering that our Ryzen 5 laptop had magically turned into a Pentium Silver (roughly Celeron-class) laptop and there wasn’t anything we could do about, it did not spark joy… but it is still an under-$400 laptop, and we’re here to test and review cheap laptops, right?

Physically, the Swift 1 strongly resembles a lower-end Chromebook. It’s not particularly lightweight, but it’s quite slender, and its silver-skinned good looks are unassuming. On the plus side, it has a metallic chassis, not plastic; on the minus side, that chassis is extremely thin and very easily bent up. When we disassembled the Swift 1, despite being extremely careful and using a soft plastic spudger, we still bent the right side a little bit while getting the back panel off.

The best feature of the Swift 1 is its fast boot times—you can expect a cold boot to get to the Windows 10 desktop in around 11 seconds, including POST. Unfortunately, the high performance ends there—the Swift 1’s Pentium Silver CPU, 4GiB RAM, and 64GB eMMC storage combine for a pretty lackluster experience.

Everything on the Swift 1—with the exception of the battery, the Wi-Fi chipset, and one unpopulated, SATA-only M.2 slot—is soldered on, unrepairable, and un-upgradeable. What you buy is what you get, and it works until it breaks.

Gateway GWTN141-2

We’ve got to give EVOO credit for one thing—they nailed the Gateway branding with that wallpaper.

We have a feeling some of you will be excited about that uncompressed arrow key layout.

The fingerprint reader on the Gateway is built into the touchpad—this was a new one on us. Note the dark square in the upper left.

Kensington lock slot, DC barrel jack, USB 3.0 Type-A, full-size HDMI out, USB Type-C.

SD card slot, 3.5mm audio combo jack, USB 3.0 Type-A.

Behold, a mystery panel! It looks pointless at first glance, but there’s actually an M.2 slot under there at the top. I think I’d rather pull the whole back off than try to mess around in that tiny panel though.

The Gateway is very easy to disassemble; just Philips screws and pop things loose. The plastic chassis felt sturdy enough to survive quite a few disassemblings.

Looking a little closer, we see an active cooling system, an empty DDR4 DIMM slot, an occupied M.2 NVMe slot, an empty M.2 SATA slot, and an unfortunately soldered Realtek Wi-Fi chipset.

On the left, we see the currently empty M.2 slot, which is silkscreened as SATA only. By contrast, the occupied M.2 (with the C: drive in it) is silkscreened PCIE/SATA.

We went into testing the GWTN141-2 with a mixture of excitement and trepidation—on paper, a Ryzen 3200U system for $350 is a great deal. But in practice, we’d discovered that the new Gateway line is—like the horrid $140 EVOO EV-C-116-5—manufactured by Shenzhen Bmorn Technology and imported by EVOO. We’re happy to say that the GWTN141-2 is not a repeat of the EV-C-116-5’s story. The Gateway’s Ryzen 3 3200U CPU was not limited by substandard thermals or factory underclocking, and it performs as you’d expect from looking at public leaderboards. The Gateway offers an even faster cold boot than the Swift—we timed it at eight seconds from power button to Windows desktop.

Continuing the Gateway’s tale of “Hey! Not bad,” the 128GB SSD might be an odd Chinese brand you’ve never heard of, but it’s a real M.2 NVMe SSD which can be replaced or upgraded. Although the 4GiB RAM the system comes with is soldered to the board, there’s an empty DIMM slot available. There’s even an empty M.2 SATA-only slot, with an easy-access panel for that slot on the back.

The only real flies in the GWTN141-2’s ointment are its cheap plastic chassis and its equally cheap Realtek 8821CE Wi-Fi.

The plastic used for the chassis is noticeably softer than you might expect for a laptop; it feels more like a kid’s toy than a real computer, and it even felt slightly tacky to the touch on first unboxing. (Your mileage may vary, here—it bothered me, but the Spousal Opinion was “Whatever, it’s fine.”) On the plus side, the plastic chassis felt sturdy enough to survive plenty of disassembly and reassembly, unlike the Swift 1’s razor-thin aluminum side panels.

The Realtek Wi-Fi is serviceable if slow under Windows, but it will cause severe headaches for anyone wanting to install Linux—and unlike most of the GWTN141-2’s gear, it’s soldered to the board and not replaceable.

Performance

Passmark CPU testing demonstrates just how much air there is between these four laptop models—the $650 Swift 3, the $350 Gateway and Swift 1, and the $140 EVOO.

We’re not really used to seeing big differences between single-threaded Passmark scores. The near-doubling of Swift 1’s score by the Gateway is worth sitting up and noticing.

Cinebench R20 tells roughly the same story Passmark did—namely, the Gateway’s Ryzen 3 3200U is far more CPU than the Swift 1’s Pentium Silver N5000.

Once again, we see big air between these laptop models, even on single-threaded tests. Notice the EVOO has dropped out of the race entirely at this point.

Geekbench 5, as usual, flattens the differences between CPUs noticeably more than either Passmark or Cinebench. We believe Passmark and Cinebench serve as far references for the difference between Gateway’s Ryzen 3200U and Swift 1’s Pentium Silver.

Geekbench 5 continues the trend of showing big air on single-threaded benchmarks between these laptops.

Gateway’s “Netac” 128GB SSD isn’t very impressive by NVMe standards, but it crushes Acer’s soldered-on 64GB eMMC without breaking a sweat.

The stars of our show today are, of course, Acer’s $378 Swift 1 SF114-32 and Gateway’s $350 GWTN141-2. But for reference, we’re throwing in a couple of spoilers—Acer’s $650 Swift 3 SF314-42, and EVOO’s unspeakable $140 EV-C-116-5 doorstop.

We think it’s important to relate the Swift 1 and the Gateway not only to one another, but also to a “real laptop.” We also think it’s instructive to compare the Swift 1, in particular, to the EVOO—because the gap between the two underscores the fact that the Swift 1, though no match in performance for the Gateway, is—for the most part—a usable laptop.

With that said, we find it difficult to recommend the Swift 1 over the Gateway. Although the Gateway’s older Ryzen 3 CPU is no match for this year’s Renoirs, it’s still no slouch—and it absolutely dominates the Swift 1’s Pentium Silver N5000. Gaming workloads will bring the 3200U to its knees, but there was never a time we felt like rolling our eyes and saying “ugh” at the Gateway during normal desktop or Web-based use.

The Swift 1’s Pentium Silver N5000 is an entirely different beast, designed for maximum electrical and thermal efficiency with everything else left to go hang. It’s roughly half the speed of the 3200U in most tests—but it gets by with entirely passive cooling, and the battery life is frankly pretty crazy. In most use, the Swift 1 struck us as reasonably responsive—but unfortunately, it’s not hard to find Web-based workloads in which it struggles.

Specifically, the Swift 1 choked badly on Facebook’s new layout. Attempting to type a short paragraph about electrical connections resulted in text buffering—leaving us to watch as it “typed” itself out, character by laborious character, for another couple of minutes. To be fair, this is more about Facebook sucking than about the Swift 1—but also to be fair, a lot of people will expect to use Facebook on their new laptop.

We have to stress that the Gateway is absolutely no gaming laptop—it turns in a Time Spy score only a third of the Swift 3’s, and the Swift 3 itself is only a budget laptop. But the Swift 1 can’t even run the test.

The less-demanding Night Raid tells roughly the same story—the Gateway gets a third the Swift 3’s score, while the Swift 1 fails to complete the test.

The differences between the Swift 1 and the Gateway are even more apparent in gaming tests, where the Gateway’s scores aren’t great, but the Swift 1’s score is “I can’t do this.”

3DMark warned us “this system does not have enough VRAM and may not complete the test” on both systems, but the Gateway completed the tests fine (2 fps on Time Spy is “fine,” right?), while the Swift 1 crashed out entirely within seconds of beginning either test.

If you want to run a game from 2010, you might do OK on the Gateway. On the Swift 1, we sincerely hope the only kind of gaming you want to do is interactive fiction.

Battery Life

Both laptops have good battery life, not-so-good stability. Using Event Viewer to find crash times got to be a regular thing.

Neither laptop successfully completed the PCMark 10 Modern Applications battery life test. What you’re seeing from them isn’t “time before shutdown” it’s “time before crash.”

Since both laptops crashed under PCMark 10’s Modern Apps testing, we tried our go-to YouTube clip at 1080p in fullscreen. The Gateway delivered ten hours of playback—longer than the actual video clip!—but the Acer still crashed.

Trying to test our two ultrabudget laptops for battery life was a frustrating exercise, to say the least. The short version is they both offer excellent battery life—which you may not get all the way through before needing to reboot due to a crash.

Neither laptop lasted all the way through PCMark 10’s Modern Office battery-life test. Both crashed well before the battery itself was exhausted. The Swift 1 did at least survive for slightly longer than the Swift 3’s (successful) test run; but the Gateway couldn’t make it much past four hours before suffering an application crash.

With no good data from the Modern Applications battery test, we tried falling back on something simpler—loading up the BBC’s 10 Hours of Relaxing Oceanscapes on YouTube and playing it in full-screen at 1080p until the battery died.

The Acer Swift 1 failed this test as well. After crashing at 4 hours 20 minutes, it tumbled into a strange, half-brightness version of its POST screen. The Gateway, on the other hand, managed to play the clip for a solid six hours and forty-one minutes before shutting down at 5 percent battery.

Scoring this one decisively is a challenge. A sticker next to the touchpad on the Swift 1 boldly claims “up to 17 hours battery life”—we certainly weren’t able to verify that figure, but to be fair, we can’t really falsify it either. We found the Gateway’s more-than-6.5-hour YouTube playtime stellar—but given that it, too, failed to complete PCMark 10 Modern Apps testing, we can’t get too excited about it.

Neither laptop is likely to disappoint on the very specific grounds of battery life—but you should definitely save your work before going to bed.

Can it Linux?

The Swift 1 “just works” on Ubuntu 20.04—the only unclaimed device is the fingerprint reader.

The Gateway’s Realtek Wi-Fi is a no-go on Ubuntu 20.04. It’s possible to download and locally compile a driver from various sources on Github—but it’ll break and need fiddling after kernel upgrades.

The Acer Swift 1 worked fine out of the box with Ubuntu 20.04. It lacked for nothing but a driver for the fingerprint reader, which most Linux users don’t expect anyway.

The Gateway, unfortunately, should be considered a no-go for most Linux users—its Realtek 8821CE Wi-Fi does not have in-kernel support, and getting it working is a painful slog of finding a driver on someone’s Github, downloading and building it locally, and waiting for it to break on the next kernel upgrade.

Extremely ambitious Linux users might be able to turn the Gateway into a good Linux system by putting a $20 Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 card—connected with an M key-to-A+E key converter—in the Gateway’s empty M.2 slot. We can’t guarantee that’ll work, but if you try it, let us know how that goes!

Due to limited time, we did not battery test either system under Ubuntu.

Refurbished, or new?

Enlarge / The Ryzen 3 3200U in the Gateway is a better all-around CPU than anything we could find used for a similar price.

One of the more common refrains in the Ars comments when we test inexpensive laptops is “I can do better buying used!” In this under-$400 class, we don’t believe that’s actually the case. We went looking on Amazon and eBay for refurbished laptops under $400 and found five of the most common CPU models for those laptops. Then we used public Passmark leaderboards to compare those CPUs to what’s in the Gateway and the Acer we reviewed today.

The first thing we’d like to point out is that, unless you’ve got a cousin looking to unload something fast, you aren’t going to get a great refurbished laptop for $400 or less. We didn’t find anything newer than Intel fifth-generation Core CPUs in this price bracket. That means a 6-year-old system. Worse, quite a lot of the systems in this bracket had second-generation i5 CPUs, marking them as a whopping 9 years old.

The best-performing CPU in our scavenged finds is an Intel Core i5-4300M. This 7-year-old M-series manages to outperform our sole fifth-generation part due to its whopping 37W TDP—it’s configured for power, not efficiency, which in turn means poor battery life, especially if your refurb is still limping along on the OEM battery.

The Core i5-4300M handily outperforms the Swift 1’s Pentium Silver N5000, but the Gateway’s Ryzen 3 3200U beats it by 25 percent on multithreaded tests and about 15 percent on the single-threaded tests. Add in a new NVMe SSD versus whatever SATA garbage the refurbisher threw in for cheap, DDR4 RAM instead of DDR3, Vega 3 graphics versus HD Graphics 4600, and a one-year warranty versus typically 30 days, and the Gateway is obviously a far better deal.

Do you think we got this wrong? Hit us up in the comments—but please, keep it realistic. A single oddball sale you found in your local Facebook marketplace doesn’t count; we’re looking for readily available, refurbished laptops from dealers who can be found on Amazon, Newegg, or eBay.

Conclusions

We can’t recommend Acer’s Swift 1 SF114-32 for most users. Although it’s handsome on the outside and boots quickly, it just doesn’t offer enough muscle for some common workloads—such as Facebook’s new and rather blecherous Web interface, which drowns the N5000 in more Javascript than it’s ready to handle.

The Gateway GWTN141-2, on the other hand, is absolutely a credible laptop. It’s certainly not a great laptop—we don’t love the fact that it, like the Acer Swift, crashed out of the PCMark 10 battery test—but it’s got enough muscle to make it through light workloads without complaint. It’s even willing to take a stab at some older games if you want it to.

We tested the webcam on both laptops in three conditions: dim office lighting, harsh forelight with a studio flood, and harsh backlight with a studio flood. It would be difficult to tell one laptop from the other on the basis of webcam images; in both cases, all three (difficult) lighting conditions produced grainy, but acceptable images with clear facial features. You wouldn’t mistake these for a mid-grade or better Logitech standalone, but you also wouldn’t mistake them for the no-name garbage we had to settle for earlier this year to get kids online for school.

The speakers were similarly “it works, meh” on both systems—usable, but tinny. We definitely would not advise anyone to set any store in “tuned for THX” (as the Gateway proudly declares itself) anymore.

You should know what you’re giving up by dropping down to this under-$400, ultrabudget laptop class—if you’ve got the extra $300 to spend, you get an enormous amount of additional performance, stability, and general quality out of an upgrade to Acer’s Ryzen 7 4700U-powered Swift 3. But if you just don’t have the extra money—or just don’t want to spend it—the Gateway GWTN141-2 gets most jobs done just fine.

HP Envy x360 15 (2020) Review: Ryzen 5 with bad performance utilization

The Envy x360 15 represents a Windows convertible in the 15.6-inch format. While it has a very close resemblance to its predecessor, the build is not identical. The current model turns out slightly more compact, the connections are positioned in other places, and it has a different keyboard. The competitors include devices such as the Lenovo Yoga C740-15IML and the Asus ZenBook Flip 15 UX563FD.

Case and Equipment – The Envy has a metal case

The gap clearances in the elegant, matte-black metal case are right, and there are no noticeable material protrusions. The base unit could have turned out a little stiffer. The battery is built in. You can access the insides after removing the bottom of the case, which is not a process that HP made particularly user friendly. 

The x360 brings two USB Type-A connections (USB 3.2 Gen 1), and in addition there is one USB Type-C connection (USB 3.2 Gen 2) that supports power delivery and DisplayPort via USB-C. So together with the HDMI connection, the convertible offers two video output ports.

With maximum transfer rates of 78.6 MB/s (transferring 250 jpg files at about 5 MB each) and 86 MB/s (copying large data blocks), the SD storage card reader belongs to the faster representatives of its kind (using the Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II reference card). SD cards can be inserted completely.

The WLAN chip (Realtek RTL8822CE) supports the 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac standards. The data rates measured under optimal conditions (no additional WLAN devices close by, close distance between notebook and Server PC; Netgear Nighthawk AX12 router) turn out good.

Input Devices – Optional pen input

The flat and smooth keys of the illuminated chiclet keyboard (two brightness levels) offer a short stroke and a clear pressure point. The keyboard does get pressed down while typing. Overall, HP delivers a keyboard suitable for everyday operation that is also suited for regular typing tasks. 

In contrast to the predecessor, the power button and fingerprint reader are now integrated into the keyboard. In addition, there is a key to turn the camera on or off (the camera app is not opened) and another key to open the Command Center.

The multi-touch capable ClickPad (approx. 11.5 x 7.3 cm; ~4.5 x 2.9 in) offers sufficient space for using gesture control and also responds to inputs in the corners. The smooth surface facilitates the sliding of fingers. The pad offers a short stroke and clear pressure point.

The touchscreen (10 touch points) creates no problems and responds to input promptly. The screen can be operated with the fingers as well as the HP Pen (1MR94AA; approx. 30 to 40 Euros; ~$36-47) which needs to be purchased separately.

Display – IPS onboard

The 15.6-inch touchscreen display (1920 x 1080 pixels) offers a good contrast (1142:1), but the maximum brightness is too low (279.6 cd/m²). We consider values beyond 300 cd/m² as good. The brightness distribution of the panel turns out fairly uneven.

In the state of delivery, the display produces an acceptable color reproduction but misses the target (Delta-E < 3) with a Delta-E 2000 deviation of about 6.1. The display does not suffer from a blue tint. A calibration only offers marginal improvements. The AdobeRGB (38.1%) and sRGB (59.1%) color spaces are not covered completely.

HP has equipped the convertible with an IPS panel with stable viewing angles, allowing the display to be read from any position. Outdoors, the display is hardly readable, since the reflective display surface prevents this. 

Performance – Ryzen 5 with mediocre performance

With the Envy x360 15, HP delivers a 15.6-inch convertible that offers sufficient computing performance for office and Internet applications. The test unit that was made available to us can be purchased for between 950 and 1000 Euros (~$1126-1185), with other configurations also being available.

Test Conditions

The preinstalled HP Command Center allows selection of a thermal profile. We ran our tests with the “HP recommended” profile activated. 

Processor

The CPU portion of the Ryzen 5-4500U APU (Renoir) consists of a hexa-core processor that operates with speeds between 2.3 GHz (basic clock speed) and 4 GHz (Turbo). Simultaneous multi-threading (two threads per core) is not supported.

It briefly starts running through the multi-thread tests of the Cinebench benchmark at 4 GHz, before the clock speed drops down in steps to between 3.1 and 3.2 GHz. The single-thread tests are completed at clock speeds between 1.4 and 4 GHz. In battery operation, the CPU starts at 1.4 to 2.4 GHz (single and multi-thread), before it goes to similar clock speeds as in mains operation.

We evaluate whether the CPU Turbo is maintained constantly in mains operation by running the multi-thread test of the Cinebench R15 benchmark for at least 30 minutes in a constant loop. After an initially high Turbo speed, it drops significantly from the first to the fifth run.

The laptop responds to brief peak loads with high clock speeds. The highest speeds are reached with the “Performance” profile activated. Under longer load, the CPU speed drops, which is a surprising behavior that happens in all the temperature profiles. All the other Ryzen 5-4500U devices we tested until now reach significantly higher constant clock speeds while running though our loop. 

System Performance

HP has delivered a quick and smoothly running system here. The APU delivers sufficient computing performance for office and Internet applications. However, it is only able to run at its highest performance level for a short time. These results are accompanied by good PC-Mark results. 

Storage Solution

The system drive is a 512-GB NVMe SSD (M.2-2280) from Intel that delivers good transfer speeds, but it does not belong to the fastest models among SSDs.

Graphics Card

AMD’s integrated Vega 6 graphics core supports DirectX 12 and reaches speeds of up to 1500 MHz. The results in the 3D Mark benchmarks represent the best results that we were able to achieve with this GPU until now. The “Performance” profile does not lead to an increase in the graphics performance.

Gaming Performance

In theory, the APU used would be able to bring many games to the screen smoothly. This should not only include older games or games with moderate demands on the hardware but also various current games.

However, our The Witcher 3 test (the game runs for about 1 h at FHD resolution and max. quality settings; the gaming character is not moved) shows that after a few minutes at its top speed (1500 MHz), the GPU speed is decreased to about 800 to 950 MHz. Until the end of the test, the speeds and frame rates continue to show some brief drops. This will not warrant undiluted gaming pleasure.

To double check, we also ran the test at minimum settings, but the result remained identical.

Emissions and Power Management – The HP Convertible offers a good battery life

Noise Emissions

During idle operation, the two fans usually remain turned off and there is complete silence. Under load, they rev up and we measure a maximum noise level of 43.2 dB(A) during the stress test.

Temperature

During our stress test (Prime95 and Furmark running for at least 1 hour), the CPU and GPU run at high speeds for the first few minutes. After that, they are throttled to values below 1 GHz (CPU) and 700 to 800 MHz (GPU) respectively. The behavior is the same in mains and battery operation. The stress test represents an extreme scenario that does not occur in everyday operation. We are using this test to evaluate whether the system remains stable under full load.

The HP convertible does not get particularly hot. During the stress test, we measure temperatures just above 40 °C (104 ° F) in two measurement spots. In everyday operation, the values remain within the green range.

Speakers

The audio system of the Envy x360 is made up of two stereo speakers and a subwoofer. Together, they produce a decent sound spectrum that strangely lacks some bass. The maximum volume turns out relatively low.

Power Consumption

Overall, the power consumption ranges at a normal level for the hardware used here. The power supply is rated at 65 watts.

Battery Life

In our realistic WLAN test, the HP convertible achieves a battery life of 9:24 h. This test simulates the load when opening websites via a script.

Verdict

With the Envy x360 15, HP delivers an elegant 15.6-inch convertible whose matte-black metal case should be stiffer. Across the whole load range, the laptop only warms up moderately and does not produce too much noise.

The HP Envy x360 15 (2020) is made for usage scenarios where demanding loads are only put on the system for short periods of time.

Thanks to the very good battery life (WLAN runtime of almost 9.5 h), most users should get through the day without a charger. The laptop can be recharged using the included proprietary power supply or a universal USB charger (via the USB Type-C port).

The IPS touchscreen scores with a good contrast, stable viewing angles, and decent color reproduction. However, the maximum brightness and color space coverage turn out too low. The touchscreen can be operated with the fingers as well as the HP Pen, which can optionally be purchased separately (1MR94AA; approx 30 to 40 Euros; ~$36-47).

The main weakness is the poor performance utilization of the Ryzen 5 4500U APU. While it is able to handle brief load bursts (single and multi-thread) with a lot of computing performance, it responds to constant multi-thread CPU load with reduced clock speeds. The same goes for the GPU. In addition, the frame rates drop repeatedly while gaming.

Other compact Ryzen 5-4500U devices such as the Lenovo Ideapad 5 14ARE05 have shown that it is possible to maintain the performance constantly at a high level. We can only hope that HP will be able to offer some improvements via a BIOS or software update.

Adata’s first desktop PC is a 5-liter NUC with integrated graphics

We were fairly impressed with Adata’s first foray into gaming PCs, which began a few months ago with the XPG Xenia 15, a genuinely impressive laptop with better-than-expected battery life. For its followup act, Adata is trying its hand at a mini PC with its new XPG Gaia.

The Gaia is based on Intel’s NUC 9 Extreme Kit, or otherwise known as Ghost Canyon. That is not necessarily a bad thing, just perhaps a bit uninspired for Adata’s introductory desktop.

Built for “gamers, esports pros, and tech enthusiasts,” Adata appears to have simply taken the Ghost Canyon NUC and stuffed its own brand memory and storage inside, then slapped an XPG logo on the front. The result is a compact 5-liter PC that should be relatively fast out of the box, though gamers, esports pros, and tech enthusiasts will undoubtedly want to add a discrete GPU.

The system is built around an Core i9 9980HK processor, a relatively meaty 8-core/16-thread chip with a 2.4GHz base clock, 5GHz boost clock, and 16MB of L3 cache. This also provides the graphics, by way of Intel’s UHD 630 GPU (24 execution units, 350MHz to 1,25GHz clockspeed). That’s fine for playing less demanding games like League of Legends, but is not going to cut it for more graphically intensive titles (Notebookcheck has a nice rundown of benchmarks).

One of the neat things about the Ghost Canyon NUC is that it can fit a discrete graphics card up to 202mm (7.95 inches) in length. There are even graphics cards designed specifically with the Ghost Canyon NUC in mind, like the Asus Dual GeForce RTX 2070 Mini OC Edition.

As far as what comes with the Gaia, in addition to the 9980HK CPU, Adata ships it with 32GB (2x16GB) of DDR4-3200 “sorted” RAM (undoubtedly from its own stock) and an XPG SX8200 Pro SSD, a fast storage drive rated to deliver read and write speeds of up to 3,500MB/s and 3,000MB/s, respectively. Adata does not mention the capacity, so it’s likely there will be multiple SKUs with different storage allotments.

The system also boasts Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) and Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, and is powered by a 500W PSU that is 80 Plus Platinum certified.

ViewSonic Elite XG270Q 165Hz QHD gaming monitor launched

ViewSonic has announced a new gaming monitor based upon its highly rated Elite XG270QG design which arrived at the start of 2020. The new model, the ViewSonic Elite XG270Q, has had its specs scaled back somewhat in order to rein in the pricing, though many specs remain the same.

Key specifications of the ViewSonic Elite XG270Q gaming monitor are as follows:

Display Size: 27-inch with 3 side borderless bezel

Panel Type: IPS Technology

Resolution: 2560 x 1440

Resolution Type: QHD

Static Contrast Ratio: 1,000:1 (typ)

Dynamic Contrast Ratio: 120M:1

Light Source: LED

Brightness: 400cd/m2 (typ)

Colours: 16.7M

Response Time (Typical GTG): 1ms

Viewing Angles: 178º horizontal, 178º vertical

Stand: height (115mm), Swivel (60º), Pivot, Tilt (-5º / 20º) – VESA 100x100mm compatible

Backlight Life (Hours): 30000 Hrs (Min)

Refresh Rate (Hz): HDMI (v2.0): 48 ~ 144Hz, DisplayPort (v1.4): 48 ~ 165Hz

Adaptive Sync: Yes

Connectors: DSMI 2.0 x2, DP x1, 3.5mm audio out, USB B in/USB 3.0 A out x3

Lighting: accent and ambient desktop lighting

Flicker-Free: Yes

Blue Light Filter: Yes

The headlining difference between this new model and the Elite XG270QG is that the new Elite XG270Q lacks the Nvidia G-Sync hardware module. This move scales back its G-Sync tier to being simply a G-Sync compatible monitor.

Picking through the specs this new cheaper model will also feature a slightly lower spec panel in some respects. It is still a 27-inch IPS panel with max 165Hz refresh and 1ms response time but the Elite XG270QG boasts use of an ‘IPS Nano Colour panel, which has better colour accuracy and wider gamut. The new model is a 95 per cent DCI-P3 panel, rather than 98 per cent, and it offers 16.7M colours rather than the 1.07B of the Elite XG270QG. However, the Elite XG270Q has a slightly better max brightness at 400 rather than 350cd/m2.

The ViewSonic Elite XG270QG currently retails on Amazon UK for £657. ViewSonic hasn’t revealed pricing and availability for the scaled back Elite XG270Q but a curved FreeSync model, dubbed the Elite XG270QC (also QHD res), costs £489 and this new model should be priced similarly to that.

Dell Quietly Slashes Price of the 4K 120Hz OLED Alienware 55 Monitor by $1000

Dell was the first company to unveil a large-format gaming display — the Alienware 55 — based on an OLED panel back at CES 2019. It just so happens that Dell appears to be the first maker to slash pricing of such a product, too. 

The Alienware 55 uses a 55-inch OLED panel featuring a 4K resolution, 400 nits peak brightness, a 130,000:1 contrast ratio, a 0.5 ms gray-to-gray response time, as well as a 120 Hz maximum refresh rate. This high refresh rate along with support for VESA’s Adaptive-Sync technology in its AMD FreeSync Premium as well as Nvidia G-Sync-compatible implementation makes the monitor a particularly good fit for dynamic PC gaming. 

After we did our Alienware AW5520QF OLED review, we just had to put it on our Best 4K Gaming Monitors list.

Originally, the monitor’s MSRP was $3,999 when it was launched last year. But since then Dell has quietly slashed pricing of the device to $3,039.

The Alienware 55 monitor can display 98.5% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is nearly as accurate as performance of professional IPS LCD displays. For gamers, it means more vivid colors, which, when combined with OLED’s deep blacks, gives more realism, and therefore immersion. Meanwhile, the display also features an anti-reflective coating with 2H hardness for extra clarity when used in bright environments. 

While the OLED technology promises a lot, the Alienware 55 monitor is not without caveats. The display does not support HDR transport, a technology that is used by a number of games today. Furthermore, both HDR10 and Dolby Vision are used by countless 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray as well as Netflix movies. 

The Microsoft Surface Duo is Really Bad

The Microsoft Surface Duo has been in my hands for 72 hours and I can’t bring myself to use it much longer. After just three days, this will join the Motorola Razr on the list of the most deeply unpleasant devices I’ve ever touched, though there is a touch of hope here that the Razr didn’t have.

The hardware, while pretty and premium-feeling, is so weirdly presented from a modern mobile device perspective, but the software might be the biggest problem area of all. There is a lot of bad going on here, some of which could be addressed (software), while a big portion (hardware) is stuck with questionable decisions made by its creators.

This isn’t a review, because this device needs a lot of work, so instead here’s what Microsoft should address before anyone considers buying a Surface Duo 2. That’s right, I’m already looking to the next generation device because this version should be skipped unless Microsoft turns into a magician with Android software.

Hardware trying to hide its many flaws

Since the software is the critical piece here because it can be fixed, let me first run through my thoughts on the hardware.

I think Microsoft will get a bunch of credit for building a premium device, but let’s be honest – this thing is by no means close to being perfect. Building a fancy hinge and surrounding it with thin glass and metal should not distract you from a handful of obvious flaws. The missing pieces should not be played down and Microsoft doesn’t deserve a pass for leaving out NFC or a real camera or stereo speakers or some form of a display on the front.

Designed like a laptop, which aren’t meant for hands

Holding the Surface Duo can be an elegant experience, when it’s unfolded and both hands bend its beautiful hinge system to the perfect angle, letting you dive into content on each screen as you settle into the couch. But when you need to get something done, which often means folding the phone back to get on a single screen, the design immediately lets you know that it wasn’t made for this.

Pick up your current phone and feel where the glass meets the metal side panels. It’s smooth, right? You can’t actually feel sharpness or the edge of the glass in most cases. On the Surface Duo, it’s all sharp glass edges no matter where you grip from the side. It looks like Microsoft glued each panel onto a metal frame in a way that I could probably slip a fingernail behind it and peel it off (I’m not going to try).

Outside of the glass, the hinge, when folded, is sharp as well. So again, if you are in one-handed mode, depending on the hand you have the device in could mean a squared-off point stabbing you in the palm. It’s pretty unpleasant. Now, you may think, “Kellen, you are supposed to use it open with both screens,” but you aren’t really. The idea here is a device that meets your needs and can convert into a shape or style at any moment depending on the task. Typing is easier when the device is folded back, and that’s something you do on phones a lot.

What Microsoft designed with Surface Duo is a mini laptop. Like, if you took a picture of this with nothing to reference the size, you’d think it was a Surface laptop of some kind. The problem with that is laptops aren’t meant to be held. They are meant for laps or desks or tabletops, so you get this odd shape that isn’t hand-friendly for use cases where you might need a phone or a device more manageable with a single hand. And good luck ever opening it with one hand.

By designing a laptop, they also left out an external display, yet with an operating system like Android, you can’t really live without one. Notifications and always-on information are critical to staying productive with modern smartphones, but with Surface Duo, you almost have to buy a smartwatch to help keep you informed of your phone’s status since it can’t do it. I don’t know how Microsoft could have implemented a display that wouldn’t destroy their ultra-minimal aesthetic, but they certainly should have tried to figure out a way. I don’t get paid enough to do it for them.

Microsoft clearly worked so hard to make this device perfectly uniform, with matching interior and exterior glass placements, identical pieces on each side of the hinge, and no camera humps or exterior features, but that might have been a poor decision. This device is supposed to be functional in multiple ways, yet it struggles to do that because of its forced limitations.

It’s the worst camera I’ve ever used

As far as the camera goes, I never expected the Surface Duo camera to be any good, but I’m a bit shocked at how bad it actually is. This is low-level, 2012-esque bad. It actually reminds me a lot of the Essential Phone when it first launched, where you had this camera that could barely load, certainly couldn’t snap many pictures in a row, and processed like the summer intern was put in charge of imaging.

I took the Surface Duo with me for a short drive this weekend through smoke-filled Portland and attempted to take pictures from the car. I think I got two, both of which were so blurry I can barely make them out, while the rest were pictures of my lap, thanks to camera lag. The app is slow, the shutter button is never ready when you need it, and the image quality is unbelievably bad, as is the camera app.

The thing is, with the Essential Phone, we watched as they did their best to improve the camera in a hurry and someone ported the Google Camera app over for help. I’m not sure a Google Camera port would even help here.

I hate to hammer on the $1,400 price point over and over again, but Microsoft clearly sacrificed in one of the most important hardware areas of this phone so they can have a clean exterior with no humps and an interior that shuts completely flat. Sure, it looks minimal and pretty, but owning this phone means never being able to take a picture you are proud of in any lighting condition.

NFC…

The NFC thing I just don’t get. It’s a simple, tiny chip that makes paying for items hands-free. It has been a staple spec in almost all smartphones for a number of years now at all price points. Now, I know that Microsoft was developing Surface Duo before COVID destroyed the world and scared us out of touching anything with our hands, but leaving out NFC is something we all hammered OnePlus for back in 2015. It’s 2020, and while I get that not everyone has fully adopted mobile payments, they more than likely will over the next couple of years. If you buy this $1,400 device (!), you’ll never be able to make them.

Anything good about the hardware?

Of course! The AMOLED displays both look great, battery life is way better than I expected (easily full day), the fingerprint reader is quick and handy, and that hinge really is spectacular. I love the weight of Surface Duo and being able to adjust the setup to various angles to let me consume content or stay more productive. Microsoft has certainly done some praise-worthy things here, they just seem to have gotten caught up their own quest for extreme minimalism.

Software they should be embarrassed by

Oh boy, this isn’t going to be fun.

Before we dive in, know that my unlocked Surface Duo is on software version 2020.812.86. This is the update that I picked up straight out of the box and is currently showing from Microsoft as being the newest and most stable. While I haven’t looked at many reviews of this device, it sounds like this update was pushed to reviewers at the last minute and turned the device from unusable to the state I’m in now, which is still bad. I can’t imagine it being worse than this. Good lord.

Jank, lag, jank, lag, jank

When you first fire up Surface Duo, you want to dance between screens, run two apps at once, drop some in the middle to see what happens as they expand across both, and throw as many tasks at it as possible because no other device is setup the way this one is. Unfortunately, in this current early software, nothing works smoothly or enjoyably.

The animations are rough, jittery, and inconsistent in how they take you in and out of apps. I’d blame the 6GB RAM or the Snapdragon 855, but it seems more like Microsoft hasn’t tuned or optimized the OS properly or paid attention to little details.

I can’t tell you how often I wake the phone and it forces me to wait several seconds for it to be ready for use. Or when I swipe between home screens and I see this noticeably slow jitter as it makes that move. Or when only one screen wakes initially after opening and the second screen leaves me wondering if it’s dead or I’m going to need to reboot. This stuff happens all of the time.

There are other little issues too, like in how poorly the home gesture is implemented. For example, Google does this cool thing with the Pixel Launcher on its own phones where you exit an app, and if that app has a home screen shortcut, the animation zooms out back into that app’s spot. I bring that up because Microsoft sort of emulated that with folders that do open in and out from the same spot, yet the apps as you head back home have this weird mind of their own that is only enhanced by poorly done animations.

If that sounds like nitpicking, it is a bit, until you realize how deliberate Microsoft was with a bunch of other animations. They clearly spent a lot of time making the bottom navigation tray app shortcuts slide from right to left as you move between screens or open apps or the app drawer. The full home view preview animation that pops-in as you long-press on a home screen is also quite nice. It’s obvious that Microsoft wants everything to be pretty and precise, it’s just that in some of the most important areas they have fallen so short.

Gestures trying to do too much

One of the key features for Surface Duo is its gesture navigation because this is the way you move apps from screen to screen, expand an app to two screens, and navigate Android. For the most part, Microsoft has a good plan for how this should work, they just need to fine-tune it in several ways.

For one, the swipe up gesture to go home is wildly unpredictable. Sometimes it swipes an app to the next screen when you meant to go home, sometimes it (obviously) wanted you to swipe up further and leaves the app open, or it might not even register what you tried to do.

The navigation area also creeps up too high and often impacts app experiences. Instagram is the best example I have, where a good portion of the bottom navigation bar within the app is unusable at times because the system navigation area overlaps it. Often times tapping on home or the search button won’t do anything because the system thinks you are initiating a swipe gesture.

Because Microsoft turned the side-to-side swipe into a gesture that moves apps from one screen to the next, they killed off the quick app switch gesture from Google. In other words, there’s no easy way to get back to your most recent app except for swiping up and holding to go into the app switcher. That’s not the worst idea, but it’s one of the slowest and most stuttery parts of the OS.

Like the animation situation, Microsoft can fix this (I think), it’s just going to take time.

Notification area needs work

For a device with two screens, it shouldn’t be hard to nail the notification experience, but this has been one of the most frustrating areas. Microsoft will hopefully learn very quickly how important notifications are to Android.

For one, the notification swipe down requires that you reach the top of the status bar and swipe down. You can’t do the middle of the screen swipe down like almost every other phone maker has implemented at this point. Instead, a middle screen swipe brings you into a universal search. That’s fine I guess.

Once in notifications, though, it’s a baffling setup. Microsoft gives you these two huge screens to view everything on, except they made the notification pulldown tiny and skinny so that your notifications don’t show enough info. Look at this image and tell me why they wouldn’t expand this pulldown by a half inch or more on each side.

Microsoft also changed a core interaction with notifications, where tapping on them doesn’t directly open the associated app at first. Instead, if the notification can expand, a first tap does just that – expands it. For Gmail, if you have multiple email notifications stacked, each tap first expands each notification rather than opening that email. Google put a dropdown arrow in notifications to do that for you, so I’m not sure why Microsoft went around this. As someone who is used to the way Android notifications work, the extra taps aren’t welcomed.

I’ve even had issues where no notifications show until I swipe down the area and realize there are several up there waiting for me. Of course, not having any sort of outer display has meant not getting notifications or realizing I had any until I grabbed the phone and opened it.

This is Android and so you have got to nail the notification system. It’s the lifeblood of the OS.

I hope they can fix the touch responsiveness

This could be a hardware issue, but not since the Essential Phone (2nd reference!) have I used a device that felt this behind each swipe or that failed to register this many touches.

Dragging apps across the screen (which is a key feature!) always feels like it’s not properly tracking with your finger. Tapping on apps and waiting for them to open only to realize the device didn’t recognize your touch is a frequent thing. The device missing your gesture swipe up, back gesture in, or notification swipe down happen more times than I can keep track of.

The device also does this move where you fold one half back and flip it over, so that you can switch displays. It’s cool and I’m assuming it uses the gyroscope/accelerometer in the device, but the problem is that it then asks you to double tap on the screen to make that switch. It works the first try like 1 out of 3 times.

It’s just weird to see such a flaw. It’s too bad too, because the displays look great.

So many bugs

A few of the other issues I’ve regularly stumbled upon are slow typing experiences in both Swiftkey and Gboard, OS lock-ups where the gesture navigation breaks, apps often weirdly appear on top of each from one screen to the next, the wallpaper has disappeared and turned to black, the auto-rotate has a mind of its own, and I have had to reboot several times because the system fails to respond to much.

Features I need today or yesterday

Stepping away from those issues, there’s a couple of features I think Microsoft needs to work on immediately to improve this experience.

For one, this device needs an always-on display or double-tap to wake right now. Because they didn’t put a display on the outside, I’ve found myself wanting to unfold and set it on a desk or in a stand to give me easier access to notifications, the time, act as a bedside clock, etc. But Microsoft didn’t do either of those things, so as notifications roll in, the entire screen fully lights up briefly and then it goes back to being dark and locked.

Microsoft also really needs to work with developers to get more apps into the dual-screen mode. None of Google’s apps that I tested work in split screen or across both displays. As someone who doesn’t really use a single Microsoft service, this basically eliminates one of their biggest demo features. I couldn’t even test it. I’m guessing I won’t ever, unfortunately.

It feels bad, man

I hate doing write-ups like these because I see the potential with Surface Duo. In fact, when I’m chillin’ on the couch at night and need only to watch Twitch or YouTube TV or browse Twitter or look at Instagram or catch-up on news, it’s pretty great. Having two screens this close to one another that move around with a really cool hinge system is an experience I could totally get used to. Using it to cook this weekend was fun, letting my kid play games and watch shows on it in play forts he had built all weekend was cool, and whipping it out just to fold and unfold is satisfying in ways a pen click will never top.

The problem here is that Microsoft shipped a device that isn’t close to being ready for prime time. They made far too many sacrifices with the hardware, the software probably needs a half dozen updates of straight bug fixes to be decent, and we need more features in there too. If this was a developer-only device that few had access to, all of that might be somewhat acceptable. Well, that might only be acceptable if it wasn’t Microsoft who built it. I’m quite shocked that they even let this device out the door, but appalled that they did and also want $1,400 for it.

The Armari Magnetar X64T Workstation OC Review: 128 Threads at 4.0 GHz

Blitzing around a race track in a fast car only ever convinces you of one thing: I need to go around the track even faster. I need a better car, I need a better engine, better brakes, or better tires. I need that special go faster juice, and I need to nail the perfect run. The world of professional computing works the same, whether it comes down to rendering, rapid prototyping, scientific compute, medical imaging, weather modelling, or something like oil and gas simulation, the more raw horsepower there is, the more can be done. So enter the new Armari Magnetar X64T – an overclocked 64-core Threadripper 3990X that holds the new SPECworkstation3 world record. We got hold of one. It’s really fast.

Playing with Performance

AMD’s Threadripper 3990X is one of those crazy processors. It comes at you with some of the best of any processor statistics: it has 64 cores and 128 threads, it has 256 MB of L3 cache, it has a TDP of 280 W, which allows for a 2.9 GHz base frequency up to a 4.3 GHz turbo. It is overclockable, and so with the right system those frequencies can go even higher. With the best binned 7nm chiplets, paired with quad-channel DDR4-3200 memory, for multithreaded workloads it is one of the ultimate powerhouses anyone can build in a single socket with a socketable processor.

In our initial review of the Threadripper 3990X, it blitzed any software that could take advantage of all those threads – the nearest competitors were the 32-core Threadrippers, or Intel’s 28-core Xeon-W processors. We even put it up against two of Intel’s $10000 28-core Xeons, and it won pretty much everything by a large margin.

So what happens when we overclock it? There are those that want more, and not just those overclocking for fun – workstation customers, like animation studios, are always looking for ways in which they can rapidly render frames for upcoming projects. If a cooling system can be built to withstand it, and the power is available, then there’s always scope to get more out of the hardware that comes from the big players. This is what the Armari Magnetar X64T Workstation is designed to do – get more.

To that end, today AMD and SPEC is announcing that the Magnetar X64T workstation, a system that you can buy, will off-the-shelf give the best performance in SPECworkstation3 ever seen.

The Magnetar X64T: Performance Reimagined

The key highlight from this review, should you not read any further, is that this system is built to blitz workloads. The Threadripper 3990X is usually fast enough in its own right, but Armari have gone above and beyond. The goal of this system is to be an off-the-shelf powerhouse that requires very little setup from its customers.

Armari, perhaps a lesser well known system integrator, is a company that has in recent years focused on building systems for 3D animation, video editing, and scientific research. With over 20 years of experience, Armari’s hardware has gone into high performance computing solutions and clusters that have featured in the TOP500 lists, as well as rendering server farms for the top animation, VFX, and CGI studios in Soho, London.

These are clients who want the best performance, and Armari positions itself not so much as a boutique system builder, but something between the big OEMs (like Dell/HP) and the main retailers to offer custom solutions by leveraging its network of cooling and hardware contacts around the world. This enables the company to build custom chassis, obtain optimized memory, order power supplies with custom connector configurations, and ensure consistency from batch-to-batch when ordering from its partners. In speaking to Armari’s Technical Director Dan Goldsmith, he mentioned that working with partner companies for so long has enabled them to get access to rapid prototyping and component consistency with continual feedback with partners such as EKWB, ASRock, Tyan, and many other ODM companies that Armari leverages on a regular basis. 

The Magnetar X64T, I was told, leverages the strong relationship Armari has with AMD. The Opteron was a popular range a decade ago, and that partnership has been maintained through today. The goal of the Magnetar project was to create a system that offers the best that Threadripper has to offer while still enabling the under-the-desk workstation platform. This project has been slightly delayed due to COVID, and AMD now has Threadripper Pro, but those processors are not overclockable – for those that want raw performance, AMD and Armari believe they are on a winner.

The key to the system is in how Armari is cooling the processor, and the choice of components. The Magnetar X64T features a custom water cooling loop, which is perhaps not anything new in its own right, however the company has created a component chain to ensure consistency in its design, as well as using some of the most powerful options available.

The water block is probably the best place to start, because this is a completely custom-for-Armari design built in partnership with EK Water Blocks. This block is specifically built for this one motherboard, the ASRock TRX40 Taichi, and applies cooling to both the processor and the power delivery. The block works in conjunction with the highest-quality thermal paste pads on the market, to ensure a flat connection with the water block. As it also covers the power delivery, Armari worked with ASRock to enable a consistent z-height of all the power delivery components, something that can vary during manufacturing, and maintain that consistency on a batch-by-batch basis. Pair this up with Armari’s custom FWL liquid cooling pump, reservoir, tubing, 3x140mm radiator, and fan combinations (many of which are custom from their respective ODMs), and we have a cooling capacity in excess of 700 W. The coolant is a special long-life coolant designed for 24/7 over three years, and the standard warranty comes with service during those three years, including collection and return, at no extra cost.

Now, the ASRock TRX40 Taichi isn’t the top Threadripper motherboard on the market, and Armari fully admits that, however it points out that the best motherboard available costs twice as much. In working with ASRock, they were able to co-ordinate what was needed within the discrete motherboard component lists as well as enable a custom BIOS implementation for additional control. One of the tradeoffs I was told about is that a cheaper motherboard might mean slightly cheaper components, however Armari says that their cooling system and setup were co-operatively tuned to meet its customers’ demands.

With this cooling arrangement, Armari have fired up the overclock. In our initial review of the Threadripper 3990X, we were observing ~3450 MHz during our sustained running with the CPU reaching its full 280 W. For the Armari Magnetar X64T, we have an all-core frequency from 3950-4100 MHz, depending on the workload. Users might scoff at the +400-550 MHz lift, but bearing in mind this is across all of the 64 cores simultaneously, and the cooling is built such that this frequency is sustained for renders or simulations that might take days. Further details of frequency and power later in the review.

While having the overclocked CPU is great, the Magnetar X64T system we were delivered also had memory, graphics, and storage.

Armari Magnetar X64T as shipped
(X64T-RD1600G3-FWL)
ProcessorAMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X
Overclocked to ~4.0 GHz All-Core Turbo
CoolingCustom Armari FWLv2 Liquid Cooling Loop
Custom CPU+VRM Monoblock
420x45mm EK Coolsense Radiator
3 x EK-Vardar 140ER EVO 140mm fans
High Performance Pump
Clear Coolant, Designed for 3yr operation
GraphicsPNY NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 24 GB
MotherboardASRock TRX40 Taichi
Memory256 GB of DDR4-3200
Power Supply1600W 80PLUS Gold 93%, rated to 50ºC
0% fan under 40% load
9x PCIe connections
StorageASRock Hyper Quad M.2 PCIe 4.0 x16 add-in card
1 x Corsair MP600 PCIe 4.0 x4 1 TB Boot Drive
2 x Corsair MP600 PCIe 4.0 x4 1TB Striped Array
NetworkingRealtek RTL8125 2.5 GbE (motherboard)
Intel I211-AT 1 GbE (motherboard)
Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6 module (motherboard)
AudioOnboard Realtek ALC1220 + ALC4050H
Fans3 x EK 140mm for radiator
2 x Noctua 140mm for internal airflow
1 x SanAce 80mm low noise for DRAM
Price as Built£10790 + tax
(~$14200 + tax)

Special launch price for September
UK Warranty1 Year RTB
3 Year Parts+Labor
One service/coolant replacement, inc collection/pickup
Loaner systems available if bigger issues occur

The system as shipped came with an PNY NVIDIA RTX6000 graphics card, which is essentially an RTX 2080 Ti on steroids with 24 GiB of GDDR6, and the system can be configured with two of them. As Threadripper is not an ECC-qualified platform, the X64T comes with the peak configuration supported, 256 GB, but with custom SPD profiles to run up to DDR4-3600. Unfortunately due to how quickly this system was rebuilt for this review, the system I was sent was using DDR4-3200 at CL20, as some of the original memory was accidentally splashed with coolant, and Armari wanted to ensure I wouldn’t have any issues with the system.

Storage comes in two forms, both of which are PCIe 4.0. As shipped, we were specified with a boot drive to the tune of a Corsair MP600 1 TB PCIe 4.0 x4 drive. Another two of these drives were provided inside an ASRock Hyper M.2 PCIe 4.0 card, plugged into one of the PCIe 4.0 slots. Armari says that as newer and bigger PCIe 4.0 drives come to market beyond the Phison E16 solutions, this should expand to higher capacity drives or faster drives as required.

The power supply is a fully custom 1600W 80PLUS Gold unit, rated to run at 50 ºC with 93% efficiency. It has a custom fan profile directly from the OEM, and is set to only stir up the fans if the power required goes above 40% (640 W). The fully modular PSU has nine 8-pin connections and five 6-pin connections, providing 14 total, should any customer want to go above and beyond. The PSU on its own has a 10-year warranty.

The motherboard has a 2.5 GbE wired network port and a 1 GbE wired network port, and Armari does offer a 10G upgrade (space permitting based on the PCIe slots). Wi-Fi 6 support comes as standard, as does the ALC1220 audio configuration.

The chassis is the last custom part to discuss, with the system featuring the Magnetar naming on the front with the Armari logo. The chassis is big, but quite standard for a high-end workstation platform: 53cm x 22cm x 57cm (20.9-in x 8.7-in x 22.4-in), with a typical single GPU weight of 18 kg (39.7 lbs).

The chassis comes with handles on top that fold away, making the system easy to move around as required. I love these.

Inside there is lots of ‘space’ for directed airflow. The pump and reservoir is found in the bottom of the case, underneath the standard drive-bays, while the 3x140mm double thick radiator is at the top built into the side of the chassis. This is a special hinged mount, which makes the side panel easy to remove and the cooling apparatus easy to inspect.

There is a PCIe retention bracket for any add-in card installed, and in the base of the chassis is the power supply, hidden away. The insides weren’t necessarily built to look aesthetically pleasing, however the system as provided by Armari has a nice clean look.

Due to a couple of issues with arranging this system for review, I was told that normally Armari adds in some custom sealant to help with the liquid cooling loop, however as it requires 24 hours to set, they weren’t able to in this instance. The liquid cooling loop is pre-tested for every system they build at over 1 bar of pressure, along with full stability testing and thermal testing before shipping. For any reason if a system needs to be returned for warranty, Armari can supply a loaner system if required. As mentioned above, the standard warranty includes one full service and inspection, and the coolant can be replaced in order to give the customer another 3 years of ‘hassle free’ operation.

The News Today: World Records

Today AMD and Armari are announcing that the new Magnetar X64T has set a new world record in the SPECworkstation 3 benchmark. The system that achieved this test is, by and large, the system I am testing today (it was stripped down and rebuilt with an updated water block). For the customers that Armari typically services this one of the primary benchmarks they care about, and so getting a new world record for a commercially available system should put Armari’s offerings high on their list.

Our testing, as shown over the next few pages, is similarly impressive. We already saw that the Threadripper 3990X with no overclock was a formidable beast in almost every one of our rendering and compute workloads. The only real comparison point we have to compare against is our W-3175X workstation that was provided when we reviewed that system.

The Magnetar X64T-RD1600G3 FWL (the full name) system in our testing is ~£10790 ($14200) excluding tax . This includes a Windows 10 Professional 64-bit license, and Armari’s 3 year premium workstation warranty, with 1-year on site and 2/3rd year parts and labor, along with a loaner system for the duration of any repairs.

Read over the next few pages for our testing on Performance and Power.

ASRock Launches Ryzen 4000 Mini PC With 2.5G Networking

ASRock Industrial Computer’s latest 4X4 BOX-4000 series of Mini PCs is here to disrupt the small form factor (SFF) market. Available with three different processor options, the 4×4 BOX-4000 series targets both home and business users.

The 4X4 BOX-4000’s plastic enclosure has a 4.3 x 4.6 x 1.9-inch (110.0 x 117.5 x 47.9mm) footprint and weighs just 2.2 pounds (1kg). The mini PC can sit comfortably on your desk or you can mount it behind your screen, thanks to the included VESA mounting bracket. 

The 4X4 BOX-4000 employs AMD’s latest Ryzen 4000-series (codename Renoir) APUs that bring all the advantages of the Zen 2 microarchitecture into a confined space.

Casual users will probably suffice with the Ryzen 3 4300U, which is a quad-core chip without simultaneous multithreading (SMT). The Ryzen 5 4600U sports a six-core, six-thread setup for users that desire more firepower. 

However, demanding users and businesses will probably opt for the Ryzen 7 4800U that comes equipped with eight CPU cores and 16 threads of Zen 2 power.

ASRock sells its 4X4 BOX-4000 series as barebones systems, meaning other than the included processor, you’ll have to outfit the device with your own hardware. 

The 4X4 BOX-4000 has two SO-DIMM DDR4 RAM slots and accepts up to 64GB of memory. DDR4-3200 memory modules are natively supported on the Ryzen 4000-series processors. For storage, the mini PC provides a M.2 2280 slot that adheres to the PCIe 3.0 x4 interface and accommodates both PCIe-and SATA-based drives. It also has the necessary spacing for as single 2.5-inch hard drive or SSD.

The 4X4 BOX-4000 might be small, but it has all the features you would expect in a normal desktop PC. Starting with connectivity, the device provides one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports and a combo headphone and microphone jack on the front panel. The rear panel houses one HDMI 2.0a port, one DisplayPort 1.2a output, one Gigabit Ethernet port, one 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port and two USB 2.0 ports.

The 4X4 BOX-4000 supports up to four displays with 4K resolution simultaneously, thanks to the HDMI 2.0a port, DisplayPort 1.2a output and two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports. The Ryzen 4000-series’ renovated 7nm Vega graphics engine does all the heavy lifting graphical-wise.

The Realtek R8111FPV powers the conventional Gigabit Ethernet port with DASH support, while the Realtek RTL8125BG is responable for the 2.5G Gigabit Ethernet port. 

If you hate cables, you’ll be glad to know that the 4X4 BOX-4000 features Intel’s Wi-Fi 6 AX200 wireless module, meaning you get to enjoy Wi-Fi 6 speeds and Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity.

ASRock didn’t publicly share the pricing or availability of the 4X4 BOX-4000 series. However, interested parties can request a direct quote from the brand through the online form.

CHUWI HIPAD X LAUNCHING SOON WITH MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS

There is a new tablet 2-in-1 convertible model coming soon, because CHUWI just announced the HiPad X. This tablet piece should offer fully laminated IPS screen, full metal body and quite powerful hardware specs with an octa-core processor. It will be carrying on board dual SIM LTE slots, integrated GPS chip, Android 10 system and much more. With the projected price around $200 it’s looking like a pretty interesting 2-in-1 tablet model for both entertainment and office purposes.

10.1-INCH SCREEN AND FULL METAL BODY

10.1-inch IPS screen | 1920*1200 resolution | 1024 pressure sensitivity

Let’s start with the build and display of the new tablet. HiPad X will weigh only 550g and with thickness of just 9.5mm and chamfered round edges you can hold it easily with just one hand. The 10.1-inch IPS touchscreen is fully laminated and offers FHD 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution. Add to the mix 1024-level pressure sensitive style support too.

POWERFUL PERFORMANCE 

Helio 8-core CPU | 6GB RAM | 128GB UFS 2.1

The tablet will be featuring Mediatek Helio P60 octa-core processor with Mali-G72 GPU. Supported by 6 GB LPDDR4 RAM and fast 128 GB UFS2.1 internal storage it will bring smooth performance across the board. Say goodbye to the slow eMMC, UFS is roughly 3x faster.

MORE STANDOUT FEATURES

4G LTE & GPS | 2 in 1 | 7000 mAh Battery

But the CHUWI HiPad X can contribute much more for the pleasant experience. Like the 4G LTE support in both SIM slots, or the integrated precise GPS chip. With the docking interface you can also easily turn the tablet into a full fledged laptop in matter of second for better productivity. Built-in 7000 mAh battery promises solid endurance and the modern Android 10 system will help surely too.

CHUWI HiPad X is shaping up to be a very interesting 2-in-1 convertible tablet and the pricing will play a major role. With the price around $200 and such set of specs for sure. You can already find it soon in the CHUWI Brand Fest sales on Aliexpress for just $199.99 and 1000 units available.

CTL DEBUTS COMPANY-FIRST 14-INCH FHD PENTIUM CHROMEBOOK

Chromebooks are scarce. If you’ve looked around the web in an attempt to find a decent device at a price that doesn’t induce a stroke, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about. As of this morning, Best Buy had less than six Chromebook models in stock and three of those were variants of the Pixelbook Go. While most manufacturers are working diligently to get new models into the market, it looks like late fall is going to be the earliest we see most devices back in stock on a regular basis. CTL has been at the mercy of high demand and short supply like everyone else but that hasn’t stopped the Oregon-base Chromebook maker from getting some new products in the pipeline.

In a company first, CTL has debuted two 14″ Chromebooks and these devices are looking to shake up the mid-range Chrome OS market thanks to some impressive specs with a very palatable price tag. For starters, CTL’s base model 14″ Chromebook comes out of the gate with a FullHD display which is not the norm when we’re talking EDU devices. Both devices feature Intel Gemini Lake-R CPUs that boast processing power that’s more than ample for the majority of users. I’m not just talking your middle school student, either. We’ll talk a little more about that in a second. For now, let’s take a look at the new Chromebooks from CTL.

CTL Chromebook NL81

The entry-level 14″ Chromebook NL81 features a FullHD anti-glare panel which should make for a great workspace. It is powered by the dual-core Intel Gemini Lake-R N4020 which we have seen in handful of devices as of late. As you can see in our review of the Lenovo Chromebook 3, this small core CPU is a workhorse and will chew threw anything the average user can throw at it. This model is paired with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. It’s a bit scant on that end but remember, this is and EDU device. 4GB is still enough when used in conjunction with a decent processor. For the storage, you do get a MicroSD card slot and of course, you have Google Drive right there in your files app. Moving on.

As with all CTL Chromebooks, this model features its own share of rugged specifications. The keyboard is spill-resistant and the keys are anti-peel. We’ll have to get our hands on the NL81 to see just how tough it is but CTL does state that it is drop-tested with an IP rating and a non-slip design. Oh yeah, it also has Bluetooth 5 and Gigabit Wi-Fi. It’s not quite a zippy as Wi-Fi 6 but I doubt you’ll notice. Here’s a closer look at the CTL Chromebook NL81:

Chrome OS

Processor: Intel Gemini Lake R N4020

RAM: 4GB LPDDR4

Storage: 32GB eMMC

Camera: HD 720P with LED indicator

GPU: Intel® UMA GLK-R Integrated Graphics

Display: 16:9 14″ 1920 X 1080p FHD LED Anti-Glare

Ports: 2x USB 3.0, 2x USB-C with PD function, 2-in-1 SD/MMC Card Reader, Audio Combo Jack

Audio: Single Digital Microphone

WLAN: WL/BT 802.11ABGN/AC 9560.NGWG.NV, Intel® 9560 Wireless, MU-MIMO support

AUE June 2026

Here’s the best part about this device. It is available for pre-order for the discounted price of $279. The MSRP will eventually be $349 but I’d argue that you’d be hard-pressed to find another device, available or not, that carries this kind of price tag and offers this much in the way of specs. For reference, Acer’s Chromebook 314 has a 1366×768 panel, the older N4000 CPU and retails for $249. You may not think it would make a big difference but believe me, your eyes will appreciate having a FullHD panel and the performance boost of the N4020 is worth the extra few bucks, in my opinion. The Chromebook NL81 won’t ship until Nov/Dec but pre-orders are up and you will snag that discount if you reserve now. I know that doesn’t help if you need a Chromebook right now but this will be a great option for schools looking to boost their laptop fleets as we round out 2020.

CTL Chromebook NL81T

CTL’s second model builds on the NL81 with the addition of a FullHD touch display and the Pentium N5030 CPU. This processor puts up Octane scores over 21,000 in devices that we have tested and this Chromebook gets the added boost of 8GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. It features the same rugged specs and generous port selection. Acer’s comparable model will retail for $429 but CTL is listing the NL81T for only $379 and you’re getting the exact same performance on top of the durability that CTL is know for in its Chromebooks. Pre-orders are open and the Chromebook NL81T will ship in late November or early December. We’ll get these in the office ASAP and let you know if the CTL NL81 will be the Chromebook to beat in this segment.

Chrome OS

Processor: Intel® Pentium N5030 Processor (4M Cache, up to 2.80 GHz)

RAM: 8GB LPDDR4

Storage: 64GB eMMC

Camera: HD 720P with LED indicator

GPU: Intel® UMA GLK-R Integrated Graphics

Display: 16:9 14″ 1920 X 1080p 10-point capacitive touch

Ports: 2x USB 3.0, 2x USB-C with PD function, 2-in-1 SD/MMC Card Reader

Audio: Dual microphone, 1x Audio Combo Jack

WLAN: WL/BT 802.11ABGN/AC 9560.NGWG.NV, Intel® 9560 Wireless, MU-MIMO support

AUE June 2026