ניווט נגישות
כתבות אחרונות מאתר 'PCWorld'
PCWorld

Best gaming laptops 2025: What to look for and highest-rated models‎

Before you pull the trigger on a new gaming laptop, pause for a moment to take these key factors into consideration: A high-end GPU is essential for running games optimally, but if you’re on a strict budget, you can still find a capable, reasonably priced mid-range laptop that’ll deliver 30 FPS at 1080p. Equally important is a high refresh-rate display that ensures smooth motion and a clear image, especially for faster paced games. Not sure where to start? We’ve got you covered. Every laptop below has been rigorously tested by the PCWorld team. We’ve evaluated everything from graphics performance and typing experience to connectivity options and display quality. Why you should trust us: It’s in our name! PCWorld prides itself on laptop experience and expertise. We’ve been covering PCs since 1983, and we now review more than 70 laptops every year. All of the picks below have been personally tested and vetted by our experts, who’ve applied not only performance benchmarks but rigorous usability standards. We’re also committed to reviewing gaming laptops at every price point to help you find a machine that matches your budget. Lenovo Legion 5i – Best overall gaming laptop Pros Great GeForce RTX 4060 performance High-end CPU Solid build quality Nice cooling and vent positioning Cons An RTX 4060 isn’t the fastest GPU Display is a little dim No fingerprint scanner or facial recognition hardware Battery life is on the low side Price When Reviewed: 1499 Euro Why we like the Lenovo Legion 5i The Lenovo Legion 5i really has it all, which is why it’s a great choice for most gamers. It has powerful hardware, a spacious display, and diverse array of connectivity options–all for a reasonable price ($1,399 as tested). The Intel Core i9-14900HX CPU is lightning fast and the cooling system is surprisingly efficient. According to our review, the “laptop stays surprisingly cool and quiet throughout CPU benchmarks.” This is excellent because most gaming laptops sound like a space rocket on the verge of blasting off. The RTX 4060 GPU offers solid performance in the graphics department well, running modern games with ease and hitting even higher speeds in games that support Nvidia’s DLSS technology. That said, laptops with RTX 4070 graphics perform better — but that’s a higher-tier graphics card. The Legion 5i is more much affordable than 4070 laptops, which is why it earns our recommendation. Who should buy the Lenovo Legion 5i The Lenovo Legion 5i is a great buy for just about anyone who doesn’t want to spend an insane amount for bleeding-edge gaming performance. It’s powerful enough to handle most games and you can expect a nice looking picture as well as smooth gameplay thanks to the 16-inch 2560×1600 165Hz IPS display. Other neat features include an 1080p webcam with an electronic shutter switch and a full-size keyboard with a number pad and four zones of LED lighting. Alternative option: Alternatively, if you’re looking for even more firepower, the ROG Zephyrus G16 is a killer OLED-equipped laptop with RTX 4070, 4080, and 4090 options available. Read our full Lenovo Legion 5i Gen 9 review Lenovo Legion 9i – Best high-end gaming laptop Pros Top-of-the-line CPU and GPU Bright and beautiful display with HDR Liquid cooling works well Lots of well-positioned ports Cons Expensive Low battery life No Wi-Fi 7 No facial recognition Why we like the Lenovo Legion 9i The Lenovo Legion 9i offers incredible performance as well as a high-quality display. If you’re after the ultimate gaming experience, you can’t really get much better than this machine — but it costs an arm and a leg. For roughly $4,059 (at the time of the review), you’re getting an Intel Core i9-14900HX CPU and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU, a powerful combination that’ll chew through anything you throw at it. The 16-inch, 3200×2000 Mini-LED display can also deliver up to 1,200 nits of brightness, resulting in an “excellent HDR experience in games like Cyberpunk 2077,” according to our review. Who should buy the Lenovo Legion 9i Serious gamers with flexible budgets, that’s who. In addition to the powerful performance and stunning display, it’s also lightweight and cool to the touch, even under heavier loads. The one downside is the high price, so budget-conscious gamers will need to look elsewhere. Alternative option: The Gigabyte Aorus 17X ($3,700) is another great gaming laptop to consider. Not only are you getting top-of-the-line hardware (an Intel Core i9-14900HX CPU and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU), you’re also getting a 17.3-inch, 2560×1440 IPS display with a ridiculously fast 240Hz refresh rate. Read our full Lenovo Legion 9i review Acer Nitro V 16 – Best gaming laptop under $1,000 Pros Solid performance Competitive price Dedicated button for quick performance mode switching Fast 165Hz display with good colors Cons Fully plastic build Mushy keyboard Weak battery life Price When Reviewed: 1199 Euro Best Prices Today: Retailer Price 1.221,90 € View Deal 1.299,00 € View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket 1.221,90 € at tease-Shop1.299,00 € at Acer Why we like the Acer Nitro V 16 The Acer Nitro V 16 offers good hardware for just under $1,000–full stop. Underneath the hood you’ll find an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS CPU and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU, which is a good combination for playing games on the Medium or High graphics preset. The 1920×1200 IPS display is also quite large at 16 inches and has a refresh rate of 165Hz, which ideal for seamless gameplay. The battery life leaves little to be desired, though. It lasted four hours on a single charge, an anemic result compared to the Alienware m16 R2’s 11 hours. That said, it’s not a surprising result as gaming laptops typically have poor battery life. Who should buy the Acer Nitro V 16 Anyone looking for an affordable gaming laptop! The Acer Nitro V 16 is powerful enough to run most games and the fast, large display is perfect for twitchy gamers. The thing about the Nitro V 16 is that it’s all plastic. I wouldn’t say it’s cheaply made, but you can really tell it’s made of plastic, especially around the touchpad and cooling vents. It feels sturdy enough, though perhaps not as sturdy as a laptop made of metal. The Acer Nitro V 16 is still a good laptop despite the slight dip in quality (regarding the outside shell). The performance is strong and reliable, which is what you want in any gaming laptop. Read our full Acer Nitro V 16 review HP Omen Transcend 14 – Most portable gaming laptop Pros Compact and lightweight Gorgeous OLED screen Good performance for the price Cons Keyboard is a bit mushy Annoying bloatware Why we like the HP Omen Transcend 14 The HP Omen Transcend 14 is a great machine because of its lightweight design (3.6 pounds!), stunning OLED display, and reliable performance for the price. Most gaming laptops tip the scales at around five pounds or more, so the fact that this machine is a little heavier than your standard ultraportable is downright impressive. In addition to its lightweight design, it also has an all-metal chassis, which means it’s rugged enough to handle the daily abuses of life. The hinge that connects the display to the keyboard deck also feels pretty solid. As for performance, it’s no slouch! Thanks to the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H CPU and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU, it achieved a respectable 93 frames-per-second during the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark. Who should buy the HP Omen Transcend 14 Anyone that likes to game on-the-go! It’s both lightweight and powerful, which is a rare combination when it comes to gaming laptops. Battery life is quite good, too. The HP Omen Transcend 14’s large 71 watt-hour battery lasted eight and a half hours on a single charge, which is impressive, as most gaming laptops tend to die at the four or five hour mark. The 14-inch 1800p OLED display is lovely as well. It has a maximum brightness level of 500 nits and a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. According to our reviewer, who normally uses IPS displays on a day-to-day basis, “OLED displays like this one look incredibly beautiful” to him. Alternative option: If you’re interested in an alternative option, check out the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. It weighs a scant 3.31 pounds, which is a little less than our current pick. Although it has a nice OLED screen, an exquisite and portable design, and packs a decent punch in the performance department, its ho-hum webcam lands it behind the HP Omen Transcend 14 here. Read our full HP Omen Transcend 14 review Acer Chromebook 516 GE – Best gaming Chromebook Pros Attractive design Excellent CPU performance Plenty of wired and wireless connectivity High resolution 1600p display Cons Mediocre keyboard and touchpad Disappointing speakers and microphone Display falls behind in contrast and color vibrancy Why we like the Acer Chromebook 516 GE The Acer Chromebook 516 GE offers reliable day-to-day performance as well as smooth cloud gaming gameplay, thanks in part to its fast, high-resolution display. Just so we’re clear–Chromebooks aren’t designed to run games locally, so you’ll need to be a member of a cloud gaming service like GeForce Now or Amazon Luna. Fortunately, this Chromebook has an Ethernet port, which scores major brownie ports as far as stable Internet connections go. Plus, compared to other budget Windows laptops, the $650 MSRP isn’t bad. Connectivity options are good, too. You’re getting two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2, one HDMI, one Ethernet, and one 3.5mm combo audio. Additional goodies include a 1080p webcam, a 65 watt-hour battery, and a high refresh rate display (120Hz to be exact). Who should buy the Acer Chromebook 516 GE Anyone that wants to give cloud gaming a whirl on a reasonably priced Chromebook. The Acer Chromebook 516 GE features strong day-to-day performance and, according to our review, “gameplay felt perfectly smooth” while playing on GeForce Now. That said, if you want to install and run games locally, or have a poor internet connection, one of the Windows-based budget gaming laptops above would be a better option. Read our full Acer Chromebook 516 GE review Recent laptop reviews Acer Swift Go 14 AI: The Acer Swift Go 14 AI is a competent Snapdragon-powered laptop with long battery life, but it doesn’t stand out from the crowd. Lenovo ThinkPad X9 14 Aura Edition: The Lenovo ThinkPad X9 14 is a sleeker, more luxurious ThinkPad. However, its performance and battery life are mid-pack. Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514: The Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 checks off a lot boxes, sure, but at full retail price it’s expensive. Personally, I’d wait for a sale. Asus ROG Flow Z13 (2025): The Asus ROG Flow Z13 may be the best gaming tablet ever made with the best integrated GPU in history. Still, neither quite measure up to the competition in form or function. Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14: The Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 is a sleek laptop with a unique aesthetic and an incredible display. But it makes some sacrifices to get there. HP Elitebook X G1a: The HP Elitebook X G1a makes up for mediocre battery life with solid all-around performance, an enjoyable keyboard, and future-proof connectivity. How we test gaming laptops The PCWorld team puts each and every Windows laptop through a series of benchmarks that test GPU and CPU performance, battery life, and so on. The idea is to push the laptop to its limits and then compare it against others we’ve tested. Below, you’ll find a breakdown of each test and the reasons why we run them. PCMark 10: PCMark 10 is how we determine how well the laptop handles lighter tasks like web browsing, word processing, spreadsheets, and so on. HandBrake: HandBrake is more intensive than PCMark 10. It basically measures how long a laptop’s CPU takes to encode a beefy 30GB file. Cinebench: Cinebench is a brief stress test of the CPU cores. It does this by rendering a 2D scene over a short period of time. 3DMark: 3DMark checks if 3D performance remains consistent over time by running graphic-intensive clips. Gaming tests: We benchmark each gaming laptop using several titles. Video rundown test: To gauge battery life, we loop a 4K video using Windows 10’s Movies & TV app until the laptop dies. For a much more detailed explanation, check out how PCWorld tests laptops. Buying Guide: How to pick the perfect gaming laptop While there’s no such thing as a perfect gaming laptop, you can always find one that fits your budget and lifestyle. Need an affordable, entry-level gaming laptop? First of all, the GPU is the most important aspect to consider. If you think of a game like a vehicle, then the GPU is its driver. You’ll also need a good amount of SSD storage for your games library as well as a high refresh rate display, which keeps visuals looking nice and smooth. For additional reading, be sure to check out this comprehensive guide on the gaming laptop features that matter most. If you’re on a strict budget, then you should dive into this piece about what a $1,000 gaming laptop really gets you. Otherwise, our FAQ below dives deep into several component considerations for gaming laptops FAQ 1. What’s the ‘best’ screen for a gaming laptop? When you buy a gaming laptop, one of the most important decisions you’ll need to make regards the screen. After all, what you get on day one is what you’re stuck with until you junk the device. You could run an external monitor but then, what’s the point of a laptop? Look for an IPS or OLED display, though gaming laptops under $1,000 sometimes include a TN panel. You can get buy with a 60Hz display if you mostly play single-player games, but thankfully, most gaming laptops these days opt for faster 120Hz+ panels instead. 2. What’s the ‘best’ screen size for a gaming laptop? The size of the screen dictates the size of the laptop itself, and thus weight. You can’t, for example, get a 17-inch gaming laptop that’s four pounds (although MSI’s excellent GS75 gets awfully damned close at five), so think long and hard about whether you’re willing to take the weight penalty in exchange for the screen real estate. If the laptop is going to be your only gaming machine, having a 17-inch screen might be ideal. We should also add that a 17.3-inch screen is easier on weaker eyes than a 15.5-inch screen. This is very much a matter of personal preference. 3. What’s the ‘best’ screen resolution for a gaming laptop? The buzzword today is “4K.” That high resolution delivers sharper photo viewing and more space for video editing, but that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone. Anything not using the panel’s native resolution of 3840×2180, such as games running at lower-than-4K resolution, won’t look quite as sharp unless you exponentially increase the graphics power of the laptop. If you’re running at 1920×1080 resolution because your GPU can’t hit 60 fps at 4K, that feature is moot. For many gamers, 1920×1080 (1080p) or 2560×1440 (1440p) is more optimal. 4. IPS vs. TN vs. OLED: What’s the difference? The panel technology is also a key feature. IPS (in-plane switching) generally produces much greater color accuracy and superior off-axis viewing, but tends to lag in response times, which can lead to blurring. TN (twisted nematic) panels can offer far higher refresh rates and usually better response times than IPS, but can look washed out or just blah. A middle-ground technology that’s appearing more often is VA (vertical alignment). VA is sometimes alternately referred to as “wide viewing angle” technology. (Many assume this to spec to be IPS, but it’s not). In our experience, we’ve found VA panels to run the gamut from being worthy competitors to IPS to being worse than the better TN panels. Generally, if color accuracy is important, go IPS (a trademark of Sharp), and if you want the fastest response times go for a gaming-oriented TN panel. With the variability of VA, we recommend you check feedback from reviewers and users of a particular model. The wildcard in all this is OLED. OLED-based panels have been used in phones for years but have recently migrated to larger screens in laptops. IPS, TN, and VA all use LEDs behind the screen or along the edges. “Black” is produced by a shutter-like mechanism that blocks light from coming through. As you can imagine, there’s usually some light leakage, which means the black tends to be gray. OLED panels don’t rely on edge- or backlighting. Instead, each pixel generates its own light. To produce black, it just switches off the light. This amounts to truly stunning contrast ratios and vibrant colors. OLEDs also boast fantastic response times. The negatives include smaller screen sizes (we haven’t seen anything larger than 15.6 inches yet), higher cost, and lack of support for variable refresh rate. OLED panels can also use more power than conventional methods if the image is on a white background. 5. Should a gaming laptop have G-Sync or FreeSync support? Okay, we called this section G-Sync and FreeSync, but the reality is, when it comes to beefy gaming laptops, it’s a GeForce GPU world. And that means it’s a G-Sync world. In a nutshell, Nvidia and AMD’s respective variable-refresh-rate technologies help synchronize the monitor and the GPU to greatly reduce screen tearing. Variable refresh rates can make gaming at 40 fps far smoother to your eyes than a screen without it. The first variable-refresh-rate panels for laptops maxed out at 75Hz, only marginally better than the standard 60Hz. More recently, we’ve begun to see laptop panels that can push 120Hz, 144Hz and even 240Hz. This generally means smoother and sharper gaming to your eyes. It even helps smooth out everyday tasks such as scrolling a browser page or Word document. The downside of high-refresh rate panels is the technology it’s available on: TN. As we said earlier, TN generally looks less vibrant and less accurate than IPS. The off-axis view is generally inferior, too. You’ll also need a far more powerful GPU to feed that high-refresh rate monitor at its native resolution. One last very important note: G-Sync screens have to be connected directly to the laptop’s discrete GPU, which means a large hit in battery life. In most laptops without G-Sync, the Intel integrated graphics is connected directly to the screen, so the GPU can be turned off when not being used. So while G-Sync is beautiful to behold, the cost in battery life is huge. Which is right for you? If it’s primarily a gaming laptop—go for a high refresh rate and G-Sync (or FreeSync, if you can find a laptop that supports it with a Radeon GPU). If you tend to also push pixels in Photoshop or do any color-critical work, skip variable refresh for an IPS panel. 6. What should you look for in a gaming laptop keyboard and trackpad? A new trend in gaming laptops is the offset trackpad, which is more conducive to gaming than a dead-center trackpad. The concept is sound, but anyone who actually cares about PC gaming will just plug in a mouse. The worst thing about that offset trackpad is when you try to use it for non-gaming purposes. As far as keyboards go, the most important gaming feature is n-key rollover. This means the keyboard physically scans each key separately. If you wanted to, you could press 20 keys simultaneously and they’d all register, as each is independently wired. That probably sounds excessive, but keyboards that lack this feature can suffer missed keystrokes, which both ruins gameplay and hurts in everyday tasks. Anyone who’s used an Adobe product that might require a left-Alt, left-Shift, left-Ctrl plus two more keys to do something may have run into the limitations of non-n-key keyboards. Other keyboard considerations include LED backlighting (which adds ambiance but does nothing for gameplay) and mechanical keys vs. membrane. Mechanical keys are excellent—but are available on only a handful of laptops that usually weigh a ton. We have seen a few designs with low-profile mechanical keyboards, but even we admit they can be an acquired taste. 7. What kind of storage is best for a gaming laptop? Having your games load from an SSD instead of a hard drive significantly cuts down on load times. But beyond that, we haven’t found it to matter that much whether it’s a super-fast NVMe PCIe drive or a slower SATA SSD. What does matter more today is the size of the SSD rather than the interface it uses. With games now topping 50GB and some touching 100GBs, a once-spacious 256GB SSD will feel too small with just four games installed. So when spec’ing out that gaming laptop, be mindful of just how much total storage you have. If you go for laptop with a small SSD and large hard drive combo, expect to install your games to the hard drive. If the laptop will have an SSD only, choose an absolute minimum of 512GB, with 1TB preferred. 8. How much RAM do you need in a gaming laptop? When laptop makers spec out gaming laptops, one of the levers they use to try to convince you to buy their product is upping the amount of RAM. It’s not hard to find gaming laptops with “upgraded” configurations that go from 16GB of RAM to 32GB. While having an adequate amount of RAM is important for gaming, today’s games typically top out at 16GB of RAM, and sometimes can run fine with just 8GB of RAM. Most people should invest in a gaming laptop with 16GB of memory if possible, and it makes sense to opt for 32GB if you plan on holding onto your gaming laptop for a long time. Modern games are only getting more memory-ungry. 9. Should a gaming laptop have dual-channel or single-channel RAM? Besides the amount of memory, a couple of other important, but not critical, questions to ask is what clock speed and what mode. Modern CPUs let you run RAM in sets to increase the memory bandwidth.  More memory bandwidth immediately helps laptops that are running integrated graphics, but the conventional wisdom has long been that discrete GPUs in laptops don’t benefit as much because they have their own dedicated, much faster GDDR5 RAM to use. That’s typically the case, but the performance of today’s GPUs and CPUs can make this conventional wisdom wrong.  Gaming performance is often about a balance between the CPU and the GPU, and how graphically intensive a game is. With games that are graphically intensive, the GPU is the primary bottleneck on performance. Play a game that isn’t graphically intense, though, and the CPU can rapidly become the bottleneck on performance. With the power of today’s GPUs, a lot of games, especially at a sedate resolution of 1920×1080, have shifted more performance to the CPU. The reason we’re talking about this now is if you rob the CPU of memory bandwidth, even a decently fast one, you can take a sizable hit in gaming performance. The basic lesson is you should opt for dual-channel memory bandwidth configurations when possible. On a laptop spec sheet, you typically would see this expressed as “dual-channel” or “2 x 8” to indicate that two 8GB memory modules were used in a laptop. Some laptop makers will express memory in clock speed, so you’ll see “DDR4/2,133 or DDR4/2,400.” While a higher memory clock does increase memory bandwidth, the impact isn’t quite as great as going from dual-channel to single-channel mode. 10. How many CPU cores do you really need in a gaming laptop? How many cores do you need in a gaming laptop? For most people on a budget, a 4-core CPU with Hyper-Threading will function just fine in most games, especially when combined with a lower-cost and lower performance GPU. Still, if you have the extra cash, a 6-core CPU with Hyper-Threading is likely the sweet spot for today and tomorrow. If you plan to stream your gaming live or edit it, investing in a 6-core is recommended. Intel and AMD’s top-end 8-plus-core CPUs will deliver the greatest benefit to those who might do other graphics-intensive tasks, such as 3D animation or video editing. If you also plan to record and stream video, the 8-core will offer a performance benefit there, too. If you’re thinking, great, let me buy a 4-core Core i5 or Ryzen 5 CPU with a luxury laptop to save money, you usually can’t, because PC makers typically only offer budget CPUs with other budget parts. Why? Well, most budget shoppers can’t afford any luxury items, and most PC makers like to add in the extras to increase the profit. 11. What GPU is best for a gaming laptop? The single most important piece of hardware in a gaming laptop is undoubtedly the GPU. For AMD fans, the situation is as sad as it is in CPUs: It’s an Nvidia GeForce world. As with CPUs though, the good news is that the dominating products are top-notch. The hardest part will be deciding just how much GPU you need. Our general guidance is to buy as fast a GPU as you can afford and are willing to heft. Generally, the faster the GPU (or GPUs), the larger and heavier the laptop. If you’re talking about playing on a higher-resolution panel of 2560×1440 at high-refresh rates, then keep increasing the amount of money spent on the GPU. 12. What kind of battery life should a gaming laptop have? The last topic we’ll cover is battery life. The best way to understand battery life on a gaming laptop is to accept that it’ll be horrible for all things gaming. The minute you crank up a GPU on a gaming laptop to play a game, you’re basically limiting yourself to an hour or an hour and a half of battery runtime. Period. And in some cases, far less than that. The only reason to consider battery life on a gaming laptop is if you want to use your laptop unplugged for non-gaming purposes. In that respect, you’ll find a lot of variance, with some offering decent battery life, albeit with a trade-off in gaming performance.

20:35
תפריט כתבה
PCWorld

Game developers are losing faith in VR as a gaming market‎

According to one late 2024 survey conducted by the Game Developer Collective, over half of the game developers surveyed consider the VR market to be stagnant or in decline. Worse still, barely a quarter still believe the market is growing. Among developers not currently working on VR projects, fewer than half see any possibility of their studio investing in VR in the future. Even Apple’s entry into the market doesn’t seem to have made much of an impression on those surveyed. Meanwhile, research firm Omdia reported that sales of VR headsets dropped by 10 percent in 2024, with further decline expected in 2025. The big studios don’t seem to have an appetite for VR. Despite the success of Half-Life: Alyx, Valve has yet to release anything else, instead focusing on multiplayer ventures like Counter-Strike 2 and Deadlock as well as hardware like the Steam Deck. Alyx was in 2020 and was only available on PC VR devices. Even Apple has failed to drive much developer interest with its Vision Pro headset. What’s the problem here? Well, while technological limitations tend to ease and shrink over time, that doesn’t seem to be the case with virtual reality. It’s hard enough to pack a ton of processing power into a portable device, but VR headsets need to be extra lightweight and comfortable. There’s also the optical technology, which still has a way to go before we reach ultra-realistic immersion. Battery life is a concern, as is the susceptibility of some to VR motion sickness. There’s also the need for ample physical space, with high-end PC-based setups requiring enough room to deploy external sensors. But even simpler options—like the Meta Quest 3 or PSVR2—can still be impractical in a smaller apartment or living room. There simply isn’t always space to wield a lightsaber or move around freely. Despite constant technological advances and the involvement of major players, virtual reality still seems to struggle with the same problems today as it did years ago. Developers are reluctant, sales are falling, and the lack of major game releases makes it difficult to attract a wider audience. Will VR ever be the revolution once promised? Or will it remain an expensive niche for enthusiasts only?

20:35
תפריט כתבה
PCWorld

Get Lexar’s speedy 4TB portable SSD for just $230 — today only!‎

Do you need a lot of external storage? Do you need lots of external storage that’s tough? Do you need lots of tough external storage for not a lot of money? Then head over to B&H because they’re selling a massive 4TB Lexar Armor external SSD for just $229.99. That’s $190 off the original retail price. That’s an absolutely huge drive for the price—you’d be hard-pressed to roll your own with a standalone drive and an enclosure, and it wouldn’t be anywhere near as small or tough as this one in its IP66-rated case. With USB 3.2 Gen 2 speeds that max out at 2,000 MB/s, it’s among the fastest drives out there (assuming you’ve got a USB-C port that can handle it). B&H is featuring this deal for the rest of today, with the countdown ending at midnight US Eastern time. But it’s entirely possible it could go out of stock before then, so if you want it, hop on it quickly! Save 45% on Lexar's high-performance 4TB portable SSDBuy now from B&H

20:35
תפריט כתבה
PCWorld

Do you want Microsoft Copilot sniffing your OneDrive files? Too late‎

Many Windows users look down on OneDrive and Copilot alike, so the combination of the two might seem like the worst of all worlds. Expect the new Copilot for OneDrive to be equally polarizing. Microsoft is launching Copilot for OneDrive for the Web, which has been exclusively a feature for business users until now. Today, Microsoft begins rolling it out to consumers — on the cloud, and not on your PC. Many PC users detest Windows’ OneDrive function, which launches, slurps up your data, and begins sending it to the cloud — taking up CPU cycles and broadband bandwidth. Copilot is really just a glorified app at this point, and not overwhelmingly useful even in the cloud. Anything that Microsoft deems a productivity boost for Copilot is often hidden behind a subscription. (In this case, it is as well: Copilot for OneDrive is only available with Microsoft 365 Personal or Family, and only by the person who pays that bill.) Microsoft said Thursday that if you meet those criteria, it’s going to be turning on Copilot for OneDrive automatically for users over the next several months, through June. A related FAQ doesn’t seem to indicate that you’ll have any choice in the matter, either, although Microsoft claims that it will only work on the files you specify: Microsoft’s Copilot for OneDrive for the Web.Microsoft “Copilot uses your files and files that you have permission for to provide you with insights on your content,” the FAQ says. “Copilot can only be activated on the files that you select in OneDrive.” Microsoft is pitching Copilot as a tool to enable certain features, some of which do appear to be useful. There’s the ubiquitous summarization, for one, which would allow you to upload a copy of a lease agreement and have Copilot summarize it. Copilot can also compare documents using AI — deduplication programs can also do the same to tell you which file is larger or more recent, but Copilot will do this analytically, examining the contents of a document. Naturally, you can also query a document, to “ask” some healthcare paperwork what would happen if you couldn’t pay your bill on time. There are some limitations: you can only compare five documents at a time, and they have to be documents (Office files like .DOC and .PPT file formats, Web pages, or M365 formats like .LOOP files) and not pictures or encrypted files. Beig able to intelligently compare documents via Copilot for OneDrive for the Web seems rather useful.Microsoft Microsoft will also charge you for using Copilot, via its “AI credits.” Each use of Copilot deducts one AI credit, and Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers receive 60 AI credits per month. It sounds like Microsoft intends for Copilot to not have access to specific files until you authorize it. But that probably won’t satisfy privacy-conscious users who are concerned about Microsoft going through their digital closet.

20:35
תפריט כתבה
PCWorld

Addlink G55H review: This PCIe 5.0 SSD belongs on your short list‎

At a glanceExpert's Rating Pros Fastest PCIe 5.0 HMB SSD to date Affordable for PCIe 5.0 Good warranty and TBW rating Cons Pricier than PCIe 4.0 HMB, but not a lot faster in real-world operations Our Verdict The Addlink G55H is the fastest DRAM-less PCIe 5.0 SSD we’ve tested to date, albeit by a very narrow margin. But first place is first place, and it’s an affordable entry point to the latest standard in storage bus technology. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today So, PCIe 5.0 DRAM-less, host memory buffer SSDs are now a thing — the Addlink G55H being the latest such beastie. It’s also the fastest I’ve tested, though you’d be hard pressed to spot the difference — even in our charts. But a win is a win, so put the G55H on your short list for PCIe 5.0 NVMe that doesn’t break the bank. Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best SSDs for comparison. What are the Addlink G55H’s features? The G55H is the latest DRAM-less PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD to pass through our portals. DRAM-less means the drive is a host buffer memory (HMB) implementation using system memory for primary caching duties. The G55H’s Phison E31T controller will use a portion of the 218-layer NAND for secondary caching by writing it at first as single-bit SLC (Single Level Cell), then later natively as three-bit TLC (Triple Level Cell). Addlink warranties the G55H for five years, and the drive is rated for 600TBW per 1TB of capacity. In other words, you can write up to 600TB to the 1TB drive without it turning read-only. Note that TBW is not always a real hard limit, with read-only kicking in only when there are no more over-provisioned (extra) NAND blocks to replace worn out ones. How much does the Addlink G55H cost? The 1TB G55H is $121.44 and the 2TB version $221.44 on Amazon at the time of this writing. Apparently, the price setters like straight percentages. I see this as a refreshing break from the tedious 99 cent psychological assault. More salient to the review, those prices are pretty darn decent for a PCIe 5.0 HMB SSD at the moment. Around $20 cheaper than the competing Corsair MP700 Elite when we checked for this article. Of course, SSD pricing is always in flux, so shop around. How fast is the Addlink G55H? The G55H is plenty fast, ranking sixth overall out of all the NVMe SSDs we’ve tested — including PCIe 5.0 SSDs with DRAM. The margin between the G55H and DRAM designs is actually rather large in synthetic benchmarks — however, in the real world so far… not so much. You may notice in the charts below that the numbers are extremely similar to those of the other two drives listed — the PNY CS2150 and the Corsair MP700 Elite. That’s because they’re basically the same drive. Same Phison controller, same type of NAND. The CrystalDiskMark 8 sequential numbers look almost as if we’d chopped off the bars with a knife they’re so close. The G55H barely squeaked by the competition to a victory. The story was a bit different in the CrystalDiskMark 4K tests with the Corsair MP700 Elite pulling slightly ahead of the PNY CS2150 and G55H. Rising back to the top, the G55H was several seconds faster than its rivals with our 48GB transfers — a tad more than the two seconds we consider the margin of error in this test. In the 450GB write, the G55H again lost out to the MP700 Elite, and by a noticeable, if not stunning margin. If two out of four victories went to the MP700 Elite by larger margins, you might wonder why it ranked lower overall than the G55H. That’s because our AS SSD results, though not generally published, are also part of the overall formula. The G55H scored higher in those than its rivals, but in total, the differences between these three drives are so narrow as to be well within our test’s margin of error. Note that while PCIe 5.0 shows much higher numbers on synthetic benchmarks than PCIe 4.0, that performance difference rarely manifests itself without software optimized for NMVe’s queues — which does not include Windows. Or a whole lot of anything else for that matter. Should you buy the Addlink G55H? I can’t think of a reason not to buy the G55H if you’re set on a PCIe 5.0 SSD — it’s every bit the drive its two current rivals are. But put in purely financial terms, you’re paying nearly twice as much for PCIe 5.0 as PCIe 4.0 with little current real-world benefit, though there may be in the future. My advice is that if you are set on PCIe 5.0, you let current price be the determining factor in which of these three HMB drives you choose.

19:10
תפריט כתבה
PCWorld

Watch us dig into MSI’s newest mini PCs‎

Mini PCs. They’re like regular PCs, only… smaller. Stop me if I’m losing you here. The segment has been exploding in popularity lately, I guess because people are looking for more affordable PCs that don’t sacrifice desktop-style upgrade options. MSI sent a couple of its new models to Adam and Will to check out in the PCWorld lab. MSI Cubi NUC mini PC First up is one of the smaller designs, the Cubi NUC. This is an evolution of the kind of mini PC that Intel pioneered, with a soldered laptop CPU but plenty of room to upgrade the RAM and storage. Like a lot of these designs, you get the option to mount it to the back of a monitor with a VESA adapter, and it includes a cool little extended power button so you can turn it on without a reach-around. But if you do want more regular access to the hardware, you get two USB-A ports, a microSD card slot, and a “courageous” headphone port on the front. Around back you get two of everything: USB-A, USB-C, HDMI, and Ethernet ports. Popping the hardware off the bottom reveals a secondary 2.5-inch SATA drive with an interesting adapter cable. That’s on top of two M.2 storage slots, one for a 2280 drive and one for the smaller 2242 format. Two SO-DIMM slots for RAM make it upgradeable, but only with laptop memory. You can also swap out the M.2 Wi-Fi card if you want. Because it’s based on a Raptor Lake laptop processor, the motherboard is double-sided, with the CPU and cooling hardware on top. (There’s really no reason to access that part of the machine.) But the compact nature of the interior is certainly interesting; the whole thing fits into a space a little bigger than your average fist. The Cubi is a little shy of $900 in this configuration with 16GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, and a Core 7 150U processor, but it’s available for about $500 with less premium guts. MSI Pro DP21 mini PC The bigger (but still very small) MSI Pro DP21 is a different beast. It’s more flexible on the front with three USB-A ports (two of which are ye olde 2.0), one USB-C, and split headphone and mic ports. Around back you get HDMI and DisplayPort, triple USB-C ports (all speedy), USB-C, mic and audio-out, and what looks like a truly ancient serial COM port. This gadget is more for the IT fleet kind of use case, hence the more robust locking and VESA mount options. It also comes with a little plastic vertical stand, which makes it look like a PlayStation 2 to my eyes. Prices for the DP21 vary greatly based on configuration, but it seems to start at around $500 for a Core i3 model. Inside it’s even more interesting. Everything is exposed to the user, including the CPU and cooler. Because unlike a lot of recent mini PCs, this one is using a full Daddy Bear-style desktop CPU: a screaming Core i7-14700. You can take the basic cooler off, access the socket, everything. It’s paired to laptop SO-DIMMs again for space, but you also get full-sized SATA ports for up to two 2.5-inch storage drives (the one in the box is a spinning hard drive!) plus an M.2 port for newer, faster storage. The older drives can be mounted in a removable tray, which is also near a physical switch that can alert IT if the box is opened. Stick around to the end of the video if you want to check out some quick benchmarks and Linux use cases, but I’m fascinated by the interior layout of these things. Hopefully we’ll get to explore more of them soon, so subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube to join us.

19:10
תפריט כתבה
PCWorld

How to get Disney+ for free (or almost free) in 2025‎

Even though Disney+ isn’t currently offering any free trials, there are still a few ways to get Disney+ for free—or essentially free, anyway.  Both Verizon and Spectrum have deals that include free Disney+, provided you’re subscribed to a supported service plan. Another option is to investigate Disney’s streaming bundles; pick the right one, and you’ll get Disney+ for next to nothing.  There’s also a bonus way to get Disney+ for practically free, but it’s set to expire in a matter of days; by the end of the March, it’ll be gone. Jump to the bottom of this story for the limited-time deal.  Get Disney+ for free from Spectrum  One way to get Disney+ without paying extra is through Spectrum, assuming that Spectrum is your cable carrier. If you’re subscribed to the right Spectrum plan, the cable operator will serve up the ad-supported Disney+ Basic–that’s the ad-supported tier–as a free perk.  To get Disney+ for free from Spectrum, you’ll need to be signed up for a supported Spectrum TV package. Among the supported plans are Spectrum TV Silver, TV Gold, TV Select, TV Select Signature, or TV Select Plus.  One thing to note about Spectrum’s Disney+ offer is that it won’t replace an existing account, so if you already get Disney+, the Spectrum offer will be for an additional Disney+ account. Also, it is possible to upgrade to no-ads Disney+ Premium via the Spectrum offer, but the carrier will charge you extra for that privilege.  Get Disney+ for free from Verizon  While it’s possible to get Disney+ completely free from Verizon, there’s a catch: You’ll need to be currently subscribed to a Verizon plan that’s no longer available for new users. Luckily, Verizon subscribers on a current plan can still get Disney+ for a substation discount.  First, let’s cover the Disney+ offer for legacy Verizon plans. Verizon will give you six months of Disney+ Premium (no ads) for free, provided you’re subscribed to one of the following plans:  5G Do More, 5G Start, Welcome Unlimited, One Unlimited for iPhone, Get More Unlimited, Do More Unlimited, or Play More Unlimited (if you signed up for the plan before August 20, 2020)  Verizon Plan Unlimited, Go Unlimited, Beyond Unlimited, Above Unlimited  If you are (still) enrolled in one of those plans, just head to the “Services and perks” screen on the Verizon website or app to claim your Disney+ offer (which expires May 31, 2025).  Are you in instead subscribed to one of Verizon’s newer “MyPlan” tiers? If so, there’s a Disney+ deal for you—not free, mind you, but still a pretty good deal.  If you’re signed up for Unlimited Ultimate, Unlimited Plus, or Unlimited Welcome, you can choose a Disney Bundle that includes Disney+ Premium, Hulu (With Ads), and ESPN+ (With Ads) as a perk for $10 per month.   That’s an $11.99/month savings compared to the regular price for the bundle, which means you’re getting Disney+ Premium (which normally costs $15.99 on its own) for just $6 extra a month included with your Hulu and ESPN+ with-ads subscriptions.  Get Disney+ for free (or practically free) in a Disney Bundle  Rather than going through Verizon, you can go directly to the source to pick a Disney Bundle, and some of the deals are pretty sweet.  For example, the Disney+, Hulu Bundle Basic (that’s the official name) costs just $10.99 a month for the ad-supported versions of Disney+ and Hulu. As Hulu with ads already costs $9.99 by itself, you’re getting Disney+ with ads for just $1 a month extra.  Bonus: Get Disney+ for free through this special offer  Finally, there’s a killer deal for Disney+ going on right now, but you don’t have long to grab it.  Until March 30, 2025, you can snag the Disney+, Hulu Bundle Basic for just $2.99 a month for the next four months, a whopping 72 percent discount compared to the regular $10.99/month price.  After the four months are up, your subscription will return to that standard $11.00-a-month price, so if you don’t want to pay extra, be sure to cancel before your four months run out. 

19:10
תפריט כתבה
PCWorld

PowerSchool hackers have your kids’ info. These 3 steps can protect you‎

You may have heard the news about the PowerSchool breach—hackers breaking into a software system that helps schools keep track of student data, then demanding a ransom in exchange for not leaking the information. Depending on the school and its data storage practices, the student data stolen can include social security numbers, in addition to names, addresses, and birth dates. Bad actors having your child’s name and social security number is a risk with potential far-reaching consequences. Scammers can trash their ability to open a credit card, get a bank account, land a job, or secure an apartment. And since most people don’t expect a child to be targeted this way, the damage often has long set in by the time it’s discovered. While PowerSchool announced it would provide credit monitoring and identity protection services to affected students and staff, the notification process has rolled out in waves. That’s left a lot of down time for malicious behavior to occur—especially if you still haven’t received an email about this mitigation offer. You don’t have to wait for PowerSchool’s aid, though. As your child’s guardian, you can take protective measures now. In addition to manually looking up the details of PowerSchool’s remediation services, three steps will help safeguard their financial reputation by halting unauthorized access to credit, banking, and tax information. Even if your children aren’t affected by this software breach, these are still smart moves to take asap. Given increasing frequency and scope of data breaches, it’s likely just a matter of time before your child is directly at risk. Updated March 20, 2025: The final details about the PowerSchool breach have been posted to the company’s dedicated information page about the leak. A third-party investigation into the incident uncovered an earlier intrusion in August and September 2024, but it appears that data was not stolen until December. This new discovery does not change the steps recommended below. Further reading: AI impersonators will wreck online security in 2025. Here’s what to watch out for 1. Freeze their credit reports Dylan Gillis You may think because kids can’t legally access credit in their names, they’re safe from fraud. The opposite is true: Scammers will open credit accounts (e.g., credit cards) using stolen social security numbers, run them up, then ditch them without repayment. But because most parents don’t monitor their children’s credit reports, the fraudulent activity goes unnoticed, tanking a minor’s credit score. That in turn can affect their future ability to secure credit, an apartment, or a job. Fortunately, locking down credit reports is free and straightforward. To freeze a credit report, you just need to submit a simple form to each of the three major credit bureaus, along with mailed proof of your identity, your relationship to the child, and your child’s identity. This usually equates to government-issued ID for yourself, and then a birth certificate and social security number card for your child. For children under 16, guardians must fill out and submit the paperwork. Guardians can also do so for children ages 16 or 17, though these older teens can also make the request themselves. Experian Equifax Transunion A fourth credit bureau exists—Innovis—though it’s not nearly as frequently used by financial institutions as the three listed above. You can freeze your child’s credit with this bureau as well for thoroughness. For child credit freezes, you can only lift a freeze by mail. (And a bureau may also request a copy of the proof of identity.) Children can lift freezes on their own when they reach 16 years old. 2. Request an IRS identity protection PIN PCWorld Tax returns can be another target for scammers. They’ll file for a refund or claim a dependent using your child’s social security number—then leave you to deal with the resulting mess. To thwart this scheme, apply for an identity protection PIN from the IRS. The program originally started as a way to protect victims of tax-related identity theft, but is now open to voluntary enrollment as well. Once in, your child will be sent a new six-digit PIN each year that must be used on any tax filing linked to them. Without it, the return will be rejected. Requests for identity protection PINs can be made through the IRS website, by mail, or via an in-person appointment. Anecdotally, parents report mixed experiences with the website—mailing in Form 15227 seems to be a surer path. If you apply by mail, you will receive the identity protection PIN(s) by mail as well, in about four to six weeks after the IRS performs an identity verification over the phone.  With tax season upon us, you should jump on this step soon. 3. Freeze their banking report Thomas Breher / Pixabay Banking reports allow banks to screen for issues with applicants—and like credit reports, you can freeze them. It prevents others from being able to open checking, savings, and other deposit accounts in your name. The primary source for banking reports in the U.S. is ChexSystems. To initiate a security freeze for a minor, you must write out the request, then send it via mail along with the following documentation: A copy of the minor’s birth certificate A copy of the minor’s social security card A copy of the guardian’s driver’s license or state identification card Proof of address for the guardian (pay stub, utility bill, or official document bearing the address to which ChexSystems’ correspondence will be sent) If the guardian’s name is not on the birth certificate, a copy of documentation confirming legal guardianship (official court or legally binding document) The written request must also include the consumer’s full name, current address, date of birth, and social security number. One extra consideration Pixabay You may want to reserve user IDs on major services (including Google and Apple) related to your child’s name—especially if they have a unique one. It can help blunt impersonation attempts. This move is defensive; it won’t matter if your kid never uses the account when they reach legal age. To minimize the energy you’ll need to devote to the accounts after creation, tweak their settings so you can set and forget: For email accounts, you can set them to forward all messages to your active accounts. For social media accounts, set them to private or deactivate them. Our favorite password manager Dashlane Read our review Best Prices Today: $4.99 at Dashlane But don’t actually forget the login info. The easiest way to keep track of multiple accounts is a password manager. Paid ones offer more features, but even a good free password manager will ensure you keep access to the accounts you create. Speaking of—you may need to login periodically to avoid running into deletion due to inactivity. Google now has a policy of two years, for example. Check each services for its policy, but logging in at least once per year often suffices for the biggest platforms.

19:10
תפריט כתבה
PCWorld

Best SSDs of 2025: Reviews and buying advice‎

SSDs, i.e. solid state drives, have completely changed the computing experience over the last decade. These wondrous storage devices have sped up previously ponderous boot times to a point bordering instantaneous, vastly improved the responsiveness of programs and games, and generally made the copious long wait times we all used to suffer a thing of a past. If you’re not using an SSD, you should be, and if you have an older model, consider upgrading to the faster speeds offered by newer models powered by cutting-edge PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 interfaces. That said, a premium drive may not deliver any more real world performance than a bargain drive. Mainstream software, including Windows has yet to implement the many performance tricks, such as multiple queues that NVMe SSDs offer. PROMOTIONClone & Migrate SSDs | EaseUS Disk Copy Ready to upgrade to SSDs? EaseUS Disk Copy helps you make it in one click. This straightforward disk cloning software clones HDD/SSD from most manufacturers, migrates data from HDDs to SSDs and clones an SSD to another under Windows. It aligns 4K sectors and autofits the SSD layout for best performance. Now 25% OFF Exclusive Code: PCWORLD25. FREE DOWNLOAD Learn More Our recommendations cover both internal SSDs (NVMe picks listed first, SATA picks second) and external SSDs (listed last), with the latter largely being NVMe types in an enclosure on the end of a USB or Thunderbolt cable. Some older models are SATA internally, but those are increasingly rare. See also PCWorld’s guide to the best external drives if you’re looking strictly for a portable storage solution. Why you should trust us: It’s in our name, PCWorld. Our reviewers have been testing PC hardware for decades. Our storage evaluations are thorough and rigorous, testing the limits of every product — from performance benchmarks to the practicalities of regular use. As PC users ourselves, we know what makes a product stand out. Only the best SSDs make this list. For more about our criteria and testing process, scroll to the bottom of this article. Crucial P3 – Best PCIe 3.0 SSD Pros Excellent everyday PCIe 3 performance Fantastically low price per GB Cons Very low TBW rating Non-cached QLC writes are extremely slow Price When Reviewed: 79,99 Best Prices Today: Retailer Price 56,85 € View Deal 57,99 € View Deal 59,21 € View Deal 87,39 € View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket 56,85 € at tease-Shop57,99 € at notebooksbilliger59,21 € at Proshop.de View more prices from Otto Close × Best Prices Today: Crucial P3 – Best PCIe 3.0 SSD Retailer Price 56,85 € View Deal 57,99 € View Deal 59,21 € View Deal 87,39 € View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Sure, PCIe 4.0 SSDs scream during big file transfers, but if you’re still using an older system with PCIe 3.0, upgrading to an NVMe SSD still provides substantial benefits to your PC’s speed and overall responsiveness. Better yet, you don’t need to break the bank to take advantage. The Crucial P3 is a very good daily performer, but it’s available for a bargain rate of just $45 for a 500GB model or $65 for a 1TB model. Though it doesn’t have top-tier PCIe 4 performance and the TBW rating is pretty low, the P3 does have excellent real-world write times and unless you really stress the drive you shouldn’t notice much of a difference anyhow. All told, this drive is an outstanding choice for anyone looking to snag a solid everyday SSD at a great price. Read our full Crucial P3 1TB review WD Black SN7100 SSD – Best PCIe 4.0 SSD Pros Top-notch HMB performance Affordable Sexy name Cons Slower random performance than DRAM designs Price When Reviewed: 58 Euro Best Prices Today: Retailer Price Sandisk 51,99 € View Deal 55,35 € View Deal 62,98 € View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket 51,99 € at Sandisk55,35 € at tease-Shop62,98 € at Proshop.de We were wowed by the SN7100’s performance. The 2TB version that we tested was the fastest host memory buffer (HMB) design SSD that we’ve run through our gauntlet of benchmarks. The fact that it’s an HMB design, meaning it uses your system’s memory for primary caching duties, as opposed to featuring DRAM onboard, means the SN7100 is very competitively priced. We’re talking close to $50 less than our previous pick, the Solidigm P44 Pro, for both the 1TB and 2TB capacities. Combine that with an industry standard five-year warranty / 600TBW rating (terabytes that can be written) per TB, and you’re looking at probably the best PCIe 4.0 SSD for average users as well as gamers. Read our full WD Black SN7100 NVMe SSD review WD Blue SN5000 – Best budget PCIe 4.0 SSD Pros Good everyday performance Very affordable Fastest NVMe SSD of any ilk we’ve tested writing 450GB Cons Top performance requires HMB support Best Prices Today: Retailer Price WD 351,99 € View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket 351,99 € at WD With PCIe 5.0 drives coming to market, we’re finally starting to see companies offering budget PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives at compelling prices. Our previous pick, the WD Blue SN580 NVMe SSD, has just been supplanted by WD’s Blue SN5000. At just $75 for a 1TB model at the time of writing, and with speedy transfers, you won’t likely find a better value PCIe 4.0 drive. In our testing, this drive proved to be among the fastest Host Memory Buffer (HMB) SSDs we’ve tested. And unlike the SN580 before it, the SN5000 didn’t falter at the 450GB transfer test, but instead tied the record among all SSDs. You can save a few more dollars by opting for the Kingston NV3. It’s competitive with the SN5000 Blue in many tests, and even faster at 450GB writes, but has a less generous warranty: three years as opposed to the SN5000’s five years. Read our full WD SN5000 NVMe SSD (4 TB) review Teamgroup Z540 – Best PCIe 5.0 SSD Pros PCIe 5.0 Up to 4TB in capacity (soon) Second-fastest SSD we’ve tested overall Cons Not particularly cheap As with any PCIe 5.0 SSD, there are important caveats to bear in mind. For starters, you’ll pay a premium over extremely fast, and in some cases even faster NVMe PCIe 4.0 drives that employ a host memory buffer (HMB) design, as you can see in our review of the Solidigm P44 Pro — our pick for best PCIe 4.0 SSD. But if you use multi-threaded software and your system sports a 13th/14th-gen Intel CPU (which the Phison PS5026-E26-52 controller inside this drive is optimized for), you can be assured of benchmarking-busting performance. Now, in all fairness the Z540 isn’t the fastest PCIe 5.0 drive we’ve tested. It traded benchmark wins with our previous top pick the Crucial T705. But the Teamgroup Z540 has that competitor beat, decisively, when it comes to price, making it the clear pick for this category. How can you argue with the Z540’s $143, $247, and $470 asking prices for 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB, respectively, compared with the T705’s $155, $280, and $515 prices, when performance is so close? That’s the kind of savings that pushes a close-second winner into the lead, in our book. That being said, keep an eye on those prices, because they are always changing, and today’s alternative pick could easily become tomorrow’s best buy. Similarly, Corsair’s MP700 Pro SE offers very competitive performance that could make it a tasty option if its prices are to come down. Bottom line: PCIe 5.0 shoppers have lots to choose from! Read our full Teamgroup Z540 PCIe 5 NVMe SSD review PNY CS2150 PCIe 5.0 SSD – Best budget PCIe 5.0 SSD Pros Fast PCIe 5.0 HMB performer Affordable for the speed Maintains a decent write rate after secondary cache is exhausted Cons Not as fast as PCIe 5.0 DRAM designs Best Prices Today: Retailer Price PNY $103.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket $103.99 at PNY You can save some serious coin on a PCIe 5.0 SSD by opting for a host memory buffer design, such as PNY’s CS2150. This is because by using the host system’s memory as the SSD’s primary cache, as opposed to having dedicated DRAM on the drive, an HMB design costs less to manufacture. That doesn’t stop the CS2150 from performing very well. Indeed, the 2TB version that we tested, placed 9th overall among all the other NVMe drives that have passed through our lab. It ran neck-in-neck with the Corsair MP700 — another HMB SSD that left us impressed. But PNY’s CS2150 trumps its Corsair peer by being lower priced — costing from $10 to $40 less than the latter for the 1TB and 2TB versions, respectively. You’ll get the standard five-year warranty and 600TBW (terabytes that can be written) guarantee. If you have the PCIe 5.0 slot to support it, this SSD is an affordable way to future-proof your storage. Read our full PNY CS2150 PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD review Crucial P310 (2230) – Best SSD for Steam Deck Pros Fastest 2230 SSD we’ve tested Available with up to 2TB of capacity Cons Low TBW endurance rating Price When Reviewed: 174,48 Euro Best Prices Today: Retailer Price Crucial 154,69 € View Deal 157,81 € View Deal 159,07 € View Deal 159,99 € View Deal 159,99 € View Deal 159,99 € View Deal 160,00 € View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide View more prices Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket 154,69 € at Crucial157,81 € at Proshop.de159,07 € at tease-Shop159,99 € at amazon.de View more prices from amazon.deMedia Markt Online ShopSaturn Online Shopnotebooksbilliger Close × Best Prices Today: Crucial P310 (2230) – Best SSD for Steam Deck Retailer Price Crucial 154,69 € View Deal 157,81 € View Deal 159,07 € View Deal 159,99 € View Deal 159,99 € View Deal 159,99 € View Deal 160,00 € View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide View more prices Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket If you’re looking to upgrade the storage in your Steam Deck, you can’t just go with any of the best SSDs available to PCs — you need a 2230 module, meaning one that measures 22mm wide, by 30mm long. Luckily there are at least a few nice options to choose from, such as the the WD Black SN770M and Corsair MP600 Core Mini, and our favorite, the Crucial P310. Why are we partial to the P310? Because it’s the fastest 2230 SSD we’ve tested, and by a rather large margin. It bested our previous pick — the aforementioned WD Black SN770M — in every benchmark save for the 450GB transfer, where it lost steam at the 85 percent mark after running out of secondary cache. But large transfers are rare for most users. The P310 is a little more pricey than the SN770M, too, but not by much more than $10 for both the 1TB and 2TB offerings. If optimum speed is what you’re after, and you don’t foresee regularly moving large amounts of data, the P310 is the ticket. Read our full Crucial P310 NVMe SSD (2230) review Seagate Game Drive SSD – Best SSD for PS5 Pros Very good overall performance Excellent 4K performance Low-profile heatsink Twice the TBW rating of the competition Cons A bit pricey No 4TB model Best Prices Today: Retailer Price $169.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket $169.99 at Best Buy The Seagate Game Drive PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD was made specifically for next-gen consoles—the PS5 in particular. And it doesn’t disappoint. Instead of HMB, it features DRAM for primary caching duties, which is practically essential for Sony’s console system. This is important because the PS5 doesn’t support HMB, so a drive such as this with DRAM cache is a must. The drive comes in 1TB and 2TB models, which means you’ll have plenty of space to store all of your games should you need it. While the Seagate Game Drive is optimized for a PS5, it’s no slouch as a regular SSD either. In our speed tests it did remarkably well, earning the spot as the second-fastest PCIe 4.0 SSD with random ops that we’ve ever tested. Seagate also provides a generous five-year warranty with the drive and it has an astounding 1,275TBW rating—more than double the industry norm. The drive is a bit pricey, but the special optimizations for PS5 means that console owners can rest easy knowing that their money is going to good use with the Seagate Game Drive. Read our full Seagate Game Drive PS5 NVMe SSD review Samsung 870 EVO – Best SATA SSD Pros Excellent performance, especially with small file operations Unlike the QVO, long writes don’t slow down Cons A little expensive Best Prices Today: Retailer Price $109.99 View Deal 154,90 € View Deal 157,29 € View Deal 157,49 € View Deal 172,00 € View Deal 174,81 € View Deal 174,81 € View Deal 179,99 € View Deal 179,99 € View Deal 189,98 € View Deal 189,98 € View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide View more prices Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket $109.99 at Samsung154,90 € at notebooksbilliger157,29 € at Proshop.de View more prices from tease-ShopCoolblueAmazon Marketplace CEAmazon Marketplace PC Notebook Close × Best Prices Today: Samsung 870 EVO – Best SATA SSD Retailer Price $109.99 View Deal 154,90 € View Deal 157,29 € View Deal 157,49 € View Deal 172,00 € View Deal 174,81 € View Deal 174,81 € View Deal 179,99 € View Deal 179,99 € View Deal 189,98 € View Deal 189,98 € View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide View more prices Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket If you’re looking to add some storage via a traditional 2.5-inch SATA drive rather than a tiny M.2 “gumstick,” Samsung’s spectacular 870 EVO is your best bet. It’s the fastest SATA SSD we’ve tested, it’s available in up to 4TB of capacity, and it’s exceedingly affordable given its speed. Enough said, really — though Samsung’s killer Magician SSD management software and long warranty period also deserve a shout-out. The EVO series is a legend among SSDs for a reason. Read our full Samsung 870 EVO 2 TB (MZ-77E2T0B/EU) review Crucial BX500 – Best budget SATA SSD Pros Good everyday performance Low price per gigabyte Cons Slows drastically when secondary cache runs out Best Prices Today: Retailer Price 118,83 € View Deal 119,99 € View Deal 122,66 € View Deal 124,99 € View Deal 124,99 € View Deal 125,31 € View Deal 133,00 € View Deal 138,10 € View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide View more prices Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket 118,83 € at tease-Shop119,99 € at notebooksbilliger122,66 € at Proshop.de View more prices from Media Markt Online ShopSaturn Online Shopbaur.deCoolblue Close × Best Prices Today: Crucial BX500 – Best budget SATA SSD Retailer Price 118,83 € View Deal 119,99 € View Deal 122,66 € View Deal 124,99 € View Deal 124,99 € View Deal 125,31 € View Deal 133,00 € View Deal 138,10 € View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide View more prices Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket The Samsung 870 EVO offers an intoxicating blend of performance and affordable pricing, but if you want as much capacity as possible for as cheaply as possible, consider the Crucial BX500. You can get its 1TB model for $70.50, almost $40 less than the equivalent EVO, while a 2TB version costs just $125. The drive also comes in exceedingly affordable 240GB and 480GB capacities, but as we said in our review: “We recommend this QLC drive in the larger capacities for those who want good everyday performance for a budget price,” adding that “the smaller capacities will likely run into more slowdowns during heavy writes.” Read our full Crucial BX500 SATA SSD (2TB) review Crucial X9 Pro – Best external SSD Pros Super small form factor Great 10Gbps performance Handsome design Cons Not the least expensive 10Gbps SSD available Price When Reviewed: 99,99 Euro Best Prices Today: Retailer Price 100,00 € View Deal 103,69 € View Deal 104,99 € View Deal 104,99 € View Deal 104,99 € View Deal 104,99 € View Deal 113,10 € View Deal 137,80 € View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide View more prices Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket 100,00 € at notebooksbilliger103,69 € at tease-Shop104,99 € at Amazon Marketplace CE View more prices from Amazon Marketplace PC NotebookMedia Markt Online ShopSaturn Online ShopProshop.de Close × Best Prices Today: Crucial X9 Pro – Best external SSD Retailer Price 100,00 € View Deal 103,69 € View Deal 104,99 € View Deal 104,99 € View Deal 104,99 € View Deal 104,99 € View Deal 113,10 € View Deal 137,80 € View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide View more prices Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket With great everyday performance and an affordable price, the Crucial X9 Pro is our favorite external SSD. This svelte beauty will give you transfer rates of 10Gbps and comes in 1TB, 2TB, or 4TB capacities with reasonable prices for each. In our testing we found that the X9 Pro performed admirably against the other 10Gbps competition. It especially excelled in the real-world 48GB transfer test and the 450GB write time test where it smoked other similar 10Gbps drives we’ve tested. Crucial also has an X10 Pro model on offer that gives you 20Gbps transfer speeds, but you’ll pay quite a bit more for that extra speed. Regardless, we think that the X9 Pro will serve the average user perfectly fine with excellent all-around performance and a cheaper price point. You can’t ask much more from a 10Gbps USD external SSD than what the Crucial X9 Pro gives you. For many more external SSD recommendations, see our roundup of the best external drives. Read our full Crucial X9 Pro review Other SSD reviews Samsung 9100 Pro: Samsung’s back with the fastest consumer NVMe SSD you can buy — but it ain’t cheap. Addlink A93/S93: This DRAM-less design comes with our without a heatsink — if you opt to go without, it’s a decent value buy. Lexar Go SSD with Hub: Though it’s not cheap, this rugged, external SSD is certainly an uber-convenient way to add a ton of 10Gbps storage and extra USB ports to your phone. Corsair EX400U: While Corsair’s EX400U is on the slow side for a USB4 external SSD, it’s also less expensive than the competition. Teamgroup GE Pro: The “Pro” in this PCIe 5.0 SSD’s moniker is interesting given that performance is a small step backward from our top pick, the Teamgroup Z540. WD SN850X 8TB SSD: This 8GB version of the SN850X is the fastest PCIe 4.0 HMB SSD we’ve tested, but the high price per gigabyte is hard to swallow. Teamgroup T-Force A440 Lite: This PCIe 4.0 drive is a decent performer but it was only 14th overall out of a cohort of 21, and at times slower than it’s less expensive sibling, the T-Force G50 below. T-Force G50: If you’re looking to stretch your SSD dollar, this drive should be on your short list. It’s an inexpensive, solid performing PCIe 4.0 drive for everyday tasks. Kingston NV3: This PCIe 4.0 SSD is proof that DRAM-less drives, meaning those that use a Host Memory Buffer (HMB) as cache, can offer competitive performance, while also saving the consumer some money. We just wish it had a more generous warranty. Adata 970 Pro: Gamers will love the heatsink and overall design of this PCIe 5.0 SSD. But it did turn in some middling single-queue performance benchmarks, making it a tough sell against the best of this ilk. Sabrent Rocket Nano 2242: Featuring a smaller form factor (22mm x 42mm), this good-performing drive was tailor-made for Lenovo’s Legion Go and Thinkpads — but it can also be used in a standard slot as well. What to look for in an internal SSD NVMe or SATA Only look for SATA if your computer or device doesn’t support the far, far faster NVMe. Note that an M.2 slot in an older computer might be mSATA rather than NVMe. Read your user guide or manual to see if it’s NVMe-capable/NVMe-bootable. It should be both to take full advantage of NVMe. DRAM or HMB Some SSDs use DRAM for primary caching and faster random ops, while others forego the cost of DRAM and use a technique called host memory buffer (HMB). HMB does just what it sounds like, employs your computer’s (the host) memory for primary caching. After a rough start, HMB has developed marvelous sequential transfer performance, though as hinted at — random ops still lag behind the DRAM designs. If you want the best overall, and especially random performance, then you want a DRAM design. You’ll pay for it though: HMB designs are often half the price, and the latest HMB models are every bit as fast with sequential transfers as their pricier brethren. Note that there are devices, such as the PS5 that don’t support HMB. TLC or QLC NAND is available in TLC (Triple Level Cell/3-bit) and QLC (Quad Level Cell/4-bit) flavors including a variety of sub-types. Thanks to a secondary caching technique of writing either of these types of NAND as older SLC (Single-Layer Cell/1-bit/far less error-checking required), there’s little difference in top speed — as long as there’s enough NAND allotted for the caching chore. There generally is unless you write a truly huge amount of data at once, such as in our 450GB write test. When writing natively (no secondary caching) speeds can drop to 200MBps for TLC and 100MBps for QLC. The other difference is promised longevity. Most TLC SSDs we test feature at least a 600TBW rating, while QLC SSDs hover down around 250TBW. See our section on “TBW rating” to learn more. PCIe generation An NVMe SSD won’t perform any faster than the PCIe generation of the CPU/motherboard it’s on. I.e., installing a PCIe 5.0 SSD on a PCIe 3.0/4.0 system is pointless. In truth, as Windows and most Windows software doesn’t support multiple queues — a major factor in NVMe performance — you can save a lot of money without sacrificing a lot of speed by sticking with PCIe 4.0, even in 5.0 motherboards. Keep in mind that NVMe performance even on PCIe 3.0 is insanely fast and nearly impossible to gauge subjectively. Basically, don’t overbuy. Capacity As much as you can afford. This ranges from 250GB to 8TB. Note that SSDs less than 1TB quite often write slower than more capacious ones due to fewer chips to shotgun data across. More capacity also means more NAND for secondary caching, and less chance you’ll see any slowdowns on long writes. Price As low as possible, though there are certain performance advantages to pricier DRAM models as mentioned above. We also recommend sticking with a decently well-known vendor. Warranty Most internal SSDs are warrantied for five years, while externals are more likely to be covered for only three years. These numbers don’t vary much, but make sure it’s not less than those we mentioned. The warranty can be overridden by the next point: TBW. TBW rating The TBW, or terabytes that may be written, is the manufacturer’s estimate/rating of how much data may be written to an SSD before it morphs into a read-only device. This is due to cells wearing out. The higher the TBW rating, the better, though most users won’t write nearly as much data as they think. TBW is like the miles in an auto warranty, abrogating the warranty if exceeded. BIOS support To get the most out of an NVMe drive, you want to run your operating system off of it, which requires a system that can boot from NVMe. This will be any new machine, and likely anything produced in the last 10 years, but check. In fact, most new PCs already feature NVMe SSDs, so you’re likely purchasing an upgrade or something to fill the additional M.2 slots. What to look for in an external SSD Beyond IP rating (ruggedness), style, and portability, all you need to consider for an external SSD is the bus it runs on. USB 5Gbps (3.x) SSDs are limited to 550MBps, 10Gbps USB SSDs (3.1) top out at 1GBps, 20GBps USB (USB 3.2×2 or USB4) at 2GBps, and 40Gbps USB (USB4) at somewhere over 3GBps. Thunderbolt 3/4 are 30Gbps and 3GBps as well. Note that 3.2×2 USB SSD requires a 3.2×2 port or USB 4 for the full 20Gbps. Attached to a Thunderbolt 3/4 port it will be limited to 10Gbps. Why the limitation, we’re not sure, but it crosses platforms — Windows PCs and Macs — so we’re assuming a chip or wiring limitation. SSD, yes. Hard drive, maybe? Life is simply better if you’re running your computer off an SSD. Chances are these days, you already are. If you aren’t — upgrade. Read that now and thank us later. That said…. SSDs still cost a lot more per gigabyte than mechanical hard drives, and currently top out at 8TB, while 3.5-inch HDDs top out at a whopping 30TB. We should mention that the latest hard drives can transfer data at nearly 300MBps, which is much faster than a decade ago and easily fast enough for most media streaming. On the other hand, HDDs, being less reliable and more delicate are best run in mirrored pairs unless used for backup. This negates much of their price advantage. If you want speed and huge amounts of affordable storage, buy an SSD for use as your boot/operating system/main drive, then set up a hard drive as secondary storage. How we test SSDs Drive tests currently utilize Windows 11 (22H2) 64-bit running on an X790 (PCIe 5.0) motherboard/i5-12400 CPU combo with two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 modules (64GB of memory total). Intel integrated graphics are used. The 48GB transfer tests utilize an ImDisk RAM disk taking up 58GB of the 64GB total memory. The 450GB file is transferred from a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB, which also contains the operating system. Each test is performed on a newly formatted and TRIM’d drive so the results are optimal. Note that as any drive fills up, performance will decrease due to less NAND for secondary caching, and other factors. The performance numbers shown apply only to the drive we were shipped as well as the capacity tested. SSD performance can vary by capacity due to more or fewer chips to read/write across and the amount of NAND available for secondary caching (writing TLC/QLC as SLC). Vendors also occasionally swap components. If you ever notice a large discrepancy between the performance you experience and that which we report (systems being roughly equal), by all means—let us know. You can learn more in our article “How we test internal SSDs at PCWorld.”

19:10
תפריט כתבה
PCWorld

Google is now integrating Gemini AI directly into Chrome‎

Like most other tech companies, Google is investing heavily in the development of AI models and trying to incorporate AI into anything and everything in their portfolio. The latest endeavor apparently involves Google integrating its Gemini AI assistant into its world-popular Chrome browser—at least, that’s the rumor going around. And that rumor is backed up by some newly discovered code in the latest version of Chrome Canary, reports Windows Latest. Canary is a special version of the browser for testing out experimental features, and it appears that Gemini is being integrated with it. However, it doesn’t seem to be fully operational yet. (Not a surprise with Canary.) The new feature is called GLIC, which stands for “Gemini Live in Chrome,” and it comes with a new “Glic” section in Chrome’s settings page. Toggling Glic causes a Gemini icon to appear next to the minimize-maximize-close window buttons, and clicking the icon launches Gemini in a floating modal. You’ll also be able to configure Gemini to appear in the system tray as a convenient way to launch the AI assistant. It seems the overall idea is to bring Gemini front and center while using Chrome, and that could be useful if you need answers to questions or want to run some AI prompts without leaving your browser. Further reading: Bye, Google Assistant. It’s Gemini’s world now

19:10
תפריט כתבה
דיווח על כתבה זו הסתרת כתבות מאתר זה המשך קריאה באתר המקור