AMD acknowledged these concerns in a blog post, saying it's internal testing was "run in admin mode, which produced results that reflect branch prediction code optimizations not present in the version of Windows reviewers used to test Ryzen 9000 Series". The blog goes on to say the Windows 11 24H2 update will improve Zen 5 gaming performance when it's released later this year.

According to testing by Hardware Unboxed, Windows 11 24H2 update can deliver double digit performance improvements across many titles.

Branch prediction is one of the significantly improved areas of the Zen 5 architecture. Better branch prediction leads to fewer wasted clock cycles, which in turn means better performance and power efficiency. But improved branch prediction means little without the appropriate software awareness, and the OS plays a key role. It begs the question, why didn't these optimizations come sooner?

Hardware Unboxed noted that Zen 4 chips also achieved gains under 24H2, which makes us wonder why AMD and Microsoft weren't able to deliver these optimizations months—if not years in advance. With these optimizations, Zen 5's percentage gains over Zen 4 might not have changed all that much, but they would have looked better versus the Intel competition.

Even without the 24H2 optimizations, it's not like Zen 5 is a slouch. Our reviews of the Ryzen 5 9600X, Ryzen 7 9700X, Ryzen 9 9900X and Ryzen 9 9950X highlight their power efficiency, cooler running and solid all-round performance. It just seems as though they could have been that bit better.

It goes without saying that when Windows 11 24H2 is released to the public later this year, you should install it in order to get the best out of your chip. I guess that means our man Nick is going to have to cut back on sleep—again—to see just how this update affects the PC Gamer benchmark results.

The Windows 24H2 update is available for Windows Insiders, and it will be out in the wild before X3D chips arrive, which bodes well for gamers. They'll go head-to-head with Intel's upcoming Arrow Lake family. We don't know just how each family will perform in games, but it'll be an exciting battle.

It's not like Assassin's Creed Valhalla, though, as the open and habited regions are more restricted in scope and scale, and more akin to Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. That's perhaps not a surprise when one realises Massive Entertainment also made that game, and both it and Star Wars Outlaws use the same Snowdrop engine.

When it comes to GPU tech, you get the full gamut of upscalers and frame generation systems (DLSS, FSR, and XeSS), along with ray tracing being permanently in use for lighting, shadows, and reflections. There are also more graphics options than I've seen in a game for a very long time—the settings you can configure outside of the standard presets—and that's both a good thing and a bad thing, as I'll explain later.

It's important to note that all of the following is based on running a preview version of Star Wars Outlaws and the performance figures that you'll see below might not be 100% indicative of the final release, when it's launched August 30.

For example, enabling FSR 3 frame generation induces all kinds of rendering issues and there's a fairly substantial memory leak that kicks in after a long play time, resulting in the game sucking up all your VRAM, dropping the frame rate, and forcing textures to lower in resolution. Such things are normal in preview samples of games and the review notes clearly show that Ubisoft is aware of the issues so hopefully they will all be resolved in time for the launch.

Star Wars Outlaws performance: Urban

To examine the overall performance, I used a range of gaming PC hardware, though time constraints limited the scope. Star Wars Outlaws looks like the kind of game that could really suit a handheld gaming PC, so I tested it on an Asus ROG Ally X, along with an Acer Nitro V 15 RTX 4050 gaming laptop, plus some desktop configurations that are reasonable matches to Ubisoft's system requirements (for the graphics cards, at least).

Performance figures were taken in two locations, as there's quite a difference in how well the game runs, depending on where you are and what you're doing. The first set of results are from walking around on foot in Mirogana city and the second results are from zooming across the land on a speeder in the Mirogana valley, both on the Toshara planet.

The overall frame rates in Mirogana city aren't super high but generally, they're quite consistent. Using the ultra graphics setting hits most systems pretty hard so unless you've got a really high-end gaming PC, you're better off just sticking to the high preset, if you don't want to use upscaling.

It's a shame the ROG Ally X is unable to run the game at 1080p with the low quality preset and hit 30 fps, as Star Wars Outlaws feels like the ideal game for such a platform. The RTX 4050 laptop and RX 5700 XT also struggle, although it is playable enough up to the high preset. All the desktop PCs deliver acceptable performance as per their target resolutions, though even the RTX 4080 Super is pushed hard with 4K and the Ultra preset.

Traversal stutter (where you cross a boundary in the world that forces the engine to load in some new assets) is present and sometimes particularly bad when entering a new area for the first time, though it pretty much disappears with repeated entries. Shader compilation stutter only rears its head now and then, though, as the majority of that seems to take place when you load a save (or during some in-game or pre-rendered cutscenes) as indicated by heavy spikes in CPU activity. 

If you're looking at the screenshots above and wondering what's with the black bars, the game defaults to a 'cinematic 21:9' look, which perhaps makes Star Wars Outlaws the first game to really give ultrawide monitor owners the best experience. Disabling this fills out the screen but squashes in the field of view. It's worth leaving it on as you stop noticing the bars pretty quickly.

Star Wars Outlaws performance: Open-world

While the results below don't look all that different to the city runs, the open-world performance is certainly more varied. Star Wars Outlaws on the ROG Ally X is just as bad as it is in the city and it's a similar story for the RTX 4050 laptop. In the case of the latter, it's possibly due to the 6 GB of VRAM forcing more asset streaming to take place. 

Star Wars Outlaws will use as much VRAM as it can, although never more than the amount the graphics card has, even at higher quality settings. That said, more is certainly better, but at least the engine won't jam it full and then crash into a 'lack of memory' issue—it makes for a pleasant change to play a modern game that seems to manage its assets well. Mind you, all of the test PCs sport a fast PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD and I should imagine one could experience some stutters with slower drives.

And on the subject of stutters, the open-world area does produce more pronounced traversal stutters than the city location but only when travelling across a large portion of the map. Sometimes it's quite pronounced but the longer you spend whizzing about the world on your speeder, the smaller the impact becomes.

I'm not including any upscaling results for the open-world test, simply because you get the same kind of performance increases as seen in the city location. For mid-range and lower-end GPUs, upscaling doesn't help out as much as you'd like and frame generation is the saving grace for such chips. The more powerful your GPU, the bigger the improvement you'll see when using DLSS, FSR, or XeSS.

With regards to the CPU, the game engine for Star Wars Outlaws generates one primary thread and lots of ancillary ones, though not in a particularly heavy way, and if you have a CPU that supports 12 or more threads, then you'll be fine. For example, the Core i7 14700KF runs the game with one P-core averaging 50% utilisation and the others around 37% in the city location. It was a similar situation with the Ryzen 5 5600X, but slightly higher per-core utilisations.

In short, Star Wars Outlaws is primarily a GPU-limited game.

Star Wars Outlaws upscaling performance

Since all of the above results are without any upscaling or frame generation applied, things will naturally improve with those enabled, so if you're planning on using ultra graphics settings at 1440p or 4K, then DLSS, FSR, or XeSS are an absolute must. 

The first thing to note is that upscaling doesn't help the ROG Ally X one bit and unfortunately, Star Wars Outlaws is unplayable on the handheld device, in this preview version at least. Using FSR 3 Performance and the buggy frame generation, it barely averages 27 fps in the city area and apart from the fact that it looks horrendous in this mode, the input lag is so bad it's like booking a simple move two weeks in advance.

For the other systems, upscaling is worth using to raise the 1% lows to an acceptable level and even if the baseline performance is fine, it's worth applying them anyway, as you can use a 100% render scale to get much nicer anti-aliasing than the default TAA (temporal anti-aliasing) method.

In the review copy notes, Ubisoft recommended that DLSS and FSR frame generation shouldn't be used in the review build as neither implementation was working as intended but in the spirit of the game, I fired them up anyway. In terms of performance, they both work really well and add very little input latency, for most platforms, but AMD's system induced awful rendering artefacts. Hopefully, both systems will work perfectly when the game publicly launches. Hopefully…

So that's how the game runs in a busy city location but what about the wider world, where you can use your speeder to whizz about and explore other locations?

Graphics settings

As mentioned earlier, Star Wars Outlaws sports a comprehensive array of graphics options to tweak and mess about with. That means you should be able to find a configuration that ensures the game will work as best as possible on your gaming PC. However, the sheer number of options means you could spend longer messing about with these than actually playing the game. 

One thing that's not very clear is how ray tracing is managed on GPUs that only just meet the minimum system requirements. The GeForce GTX 1660 and Radeon RX 5600 XT aren't capable of hardware ray tracing acceleration so the game must be using some kind of software/hybrid fallback in such cases.

In fact, it's pretty unclear as to what ray tracing algorithms are being employed with each setting but generally speaking, when one looks at the visual differences between the four quality presets, the use of ray tracing seems to be quite subtle at low and medium, and really only kicks in at high and ultra.

Shadows look superb on ultra but the performance hit is quite large. In contrast, raising the visual fidelity of the lighting, geometry, and particle effects scales quite nicely. I'd recommend sticking to the high preset for the most part and lowering the shadows if you're struggling to reach a target frame rate.

I'd suggest using the medium preset with low shadow settings for PCs sporting GPUs without hardware ray tracing, even at 1080p, as the RX 5700 XT struggled to get anywhere near 60 fps in Stars Wars Outlaws.

There's one setting that I haven't mentioned so far and it's the option to enable RTX Direct Illumination. This is an additional ray tracing API developed by Nvidia, though, despite its name, AMD and Intel GPUs can use it too. Where the standard ray tracing algorithm generates a little bit too much noise, especially on surfaces that have lots of straight lines, RTXDI on its ultra settings creates a near-perfect ray-traced image.

However, like frame generation, the implementation of it in the review version of Star Wars Outlaws wasn't recommended to be used and given that it more than halves the frame rate (even on an RTX 4080 Super) and induces horrendous stuttering, it's not hard to see why Ubisoft said this. If all of this is solved in time for the game's release, it could be an option worth enabling if you want the best possible graphics, but I suspect that performance impact will leave it as a setting for RTX 4090 owners only.

Overall, Star Wars Outlaws is a lovely-looking game, though not Cyberpunk 2077 or Black Myth: Wukong level, but like so many of today's big releases, upscaling and frame generation are mandatory for high frame rates. If you're happy with 60 fps, then depending on the hardware in your gaming PC, you might not require either but DLSS, FSR, and XeSS are still worth using just to lift the 1% lows and improve the anti-aliasing.

X870 and X870E options set to reach the market in the coming weeks, though given their features and specs, they are certainly not going to be cheap.

AMD always indicated it would stagger the release of the new chipsets. Still, it's a bit disappointing to have such a long delay, as B850 boards in particular would no doubt add some additional incentive for mainstream users to upgrade.

Of course, you can use any currently available B650 or B650E motherboard (or A620 board for that matter) with a CPU like the Ryzen 5 9600X or Ryzen 7 9700X, but there's always the potential stumbling block of it not having an updated BIOS with support for the new chips. Not every board features a CPU-less BIOS flashback option.

At a recent media event attended by PC Gamer, AMD revealed the base specifications of B850 motherboards. They don't appear to be a drastic improvement over B650E motherboards, but the inclusion of Gen 5 NVMe SSD support and 20Gbps USB will elevate them over cheaper B650 options. These boards are also likely to feature WiFi 7 and more powerful VRM and cooling solutions—at least on the more premium models.

B840 motherboards look to be less exciting, and may even be a downgrade compared to A620 motherboards. Such boards are unlikely to be released until well into 2025, but AMD's preliminary PCIe Gen 3 spec is not going to appeal to anyone except for those on a very tight budget. That could limit them when used with graphics cards using an x8 or x4 PCIe link, which are just the kinds of cards gamers on a budget are likely to use.

We saw X870 boards shown off at Computex nearly three months ago, so we can expect to see B850 boards teased towards the end of the year, with a full showcase at CES 2025 looking very likely.

Cowcotland reports these connectors are included to handle the demands of next generation Nvidia and AMD graphics cards. That indicates some of these cards are likely to consume serious amounts of power. Assuming such cards are a matter of months away from seeing the light of day, MSI is likely already aware of at least the basic requirements of such cards.

Secondary power connectors are not a new feature. They tend to be found on high-end or overclocking-focused motherboards. Their purpose is to provide extra juice to high-power graphics cards, but seeing them included on more mainstream options is interesting indeed. 

A standard PCIe x16 slot can provide up to 75W of power. If you add another 150W from an 8-pin connector, you're looking at 225W from the motherboard alone. Now if you add up to 600W from a 12V-2x6 or 12VHPWR connector, the math suggests 800W or more is possible.

Of course, that would only apply to flagship tier cards like an RTX 5090, but then its also possible to install a pair of less demanding cards for things like productivity or AI workloads, and that's a scenario where the 8-pin connector is also beneficial. Having a pair of cards pulling 150W from two PCIe slots alone would put a lot of strain on the motherboard, so a bit of backup power makes sense.

Still, it seems like the power consumption and TDPs of flagship graphics card are still rising. A card like the RTX 4090 pulls up to 450W, or higher for overclocked models. I'd put a bet on the fact that Nvidia's next gen monster will not come in lower than that. A 500W+ TDP for a standard RTX 5090 is a definite possibility if history is any indicator.

Other manufacturers are not including 8-pin connectors across their ranges, though enthusiast boards like the Asus Crosshair X870E Hero does include one. Is MSI just being cautious, or will next gen GPUs really need such headroom? It'll be interesting to see if more boards will include the additional connector, particularly when Intel's Z890 boards officially break cover in the weeks ahead.

First of all, let me address the wood on the sides of the K2 HE. This is part of the special edition package which I have here, and by jove is it lovely. It’s a natural rosewood that feels excellent if you’re weird and stroke the sides of your keyboard, and adds an aesthetic that I didn’t know I needed. Far too often, mechanical boards offer a very similar design with a mean black metal or plastic case, so to see something different with this K2 HE is especially welcome. 

It’s got an almost Scandinavian quality to it, and come to think of it, would pair beautifully with a Fractal Design North, the makers of whom are, of course, Swedish—hej to you, too.

Besides the gorgeous rosewood edges, the K2 HE’s build quality is sublime. It is otherwise plastic, but offers some of the sturdiest I’ve tested on a keyboard at its price point. It’s solid and rigid, while also coming with no deck flex even if you tried to tear it to pieces. A 966g weight also keeps it especially hefty for a board with this small of a form factor, and it dwarfs the older K2’s sub 700g mass.

The keycaps here are also lovely, with their taller OSA profile leaning into a more retro aesthetic that matches the rosewood finishing nicely. They’re comfortable to type on, being slightly rounded, and are comprised of doubleshot-moulded PBT plastic for an extra dose of quality finishing. I should also shout out the beige accent keycaps for the Esc and Return keys, which are a lovely touch, and the convenient I/O on the left side with selector switches for Windows or Mac operation and for connectivity method between Bluetooth, 2.4 GHz wireless, or wired.

And now to deal in the second part of that odd combo: the magnetic switches. These are right on trend with what we’re seeing with other keyboards from an array of manufacturers, with Keychron opting to go for Gateron Hall effect switches in the name of providing as snappy inputs as possible. These are Gateron’s new double rail Hall effect switches, which offer no real key wobble and benefit from being increasingly stable under finger.

For those unaware, Hall effect magnetic switches are slightly different to your standard mechanical options. In essence, it means they work via a magnet as opposed to more standard means. A magnet is sent down the switch’s stem to a sensor, where an input is then registered—there isn’t a defined actuation point with them, as such. This means that you can change the actuation point for each switch, so you can have snappy inputs for games, for instance, to provide you with a bit of a competitive edge.

Customisation of said actuation points is handled with Keychron’s Launcher software which is actually a web-based configurator that runs in a browser window. This keeps life especially easy, and means the K2 HE can be customised on both Windows and macOS without a hitch. Here you can not only fiddle with actuation points on a scale from 0.5 mm to 3.8 mm of the switch’s total travel in super-precise 0.1 mm increments on a per-key basis, but you can also adjust RGB lighting to single colour and choose from a range of other presets. You can also remap keys and record macros, too. It’s especially easy to use, and wonderfully refreshing to see in a world where peripherals software in some cases might as well equate to bloatware at times.

Back to the switches themselves, though. The switches felt responsive for both day-to-day productivity workloads and for messing around with bots in Counter Strike 2, where you certainly feel the speed of adjustable actuation points. For the WASD keys and weapon select keys, I set the actuation point as high as possible (0.5 mm), and it’s almost as if you barely need to breathe to register the input.That’s especially useful in quick draw scenarios where you need to bring a weapon out or throw a grenade as quickly as possible. 

They are also pre-lubricated, so benefit from being as smooth as you like. It also has the knock-on effect of meaning that the K2 HE, much like the dearer Keychron Q3 Max, sounds gorgeous. It’s probably one of the best-sounding keyboards I’ve used with a creamy sound profile (God, I hate saying that) accompanied by no case rattle or ping.

Technically, the K2 HE is also hot-swappable, although much like the Endgame Gear KB65HE and Wooting 60HE+, the choice of switches you can swap in is minuscule. Not even all of Gateron’s other Hall effect switch models are compatible.

Elsewhere, the K2 HE also benefits from excellent wireless connectivity across both Bluetooth and its bundled 2.4 GHz wireless receiver. It worked on either method without an issue on both Windows and macOS, while pairing with the Fn key and 1, 2, 3 or 4 on the number row is convenient. The 4000 mAh battery inside is also rather large for a keyboard of this size, and powers the K2 HE for up to 72 hours with the vivid backlighting on. Turn it off, and that rises to 240 hours, which is excellent endurance.

So, the Keychron K2 HE then. This is an excellent keyboard that brings a lot of style to proceedings while also feeling responsive with its Hall effect switches. It brings a lot of noteworthy improvements against the standard K2 that has lived on our list of the best gaming keyboards for several years. At $140 for this special edition, it’s a compelling choice for those who want a blend of style and substance, as opposed to the traditional dilemma of picking one over the other. Against other HE boards too, you’re getting the benefit of more interesting looks, convenient wireless connectivity and simple software. That seems like more than a fair deal. 

Dough Spectrum One Matte | 27 inch | 4K | 144Hz | IPS | FreeSync Premium Pro | G-Sync compatible | $599.99 $369.99 at NewEgg (save $230)
Note that you don't get a stand as standard with the Dough Spectrum. You have to spend another $100 if you don't already have a monitor arm. It's also worth stating there have been issues with Dough (previously known as Eve) fulfilling orders itself. But this deal is from NewEgg, so that's reassuring in terms of being confident you're getting what you paid for. That aside, this is quite the price for a premium 4K panel, albeit this is the cheaper matte rather than glossy version.View Deal

It's been a long time coming. But 4K gaming panels are edging inexorably towards genuine affordability. And that includes premium models, like the Dough Spectrum One.

At launch a few years ago, this was an $800 panel. Now it's yours for just $369 from NewEgg. There are two fairly obvious catches. First, like all variants of the Spectrum One it doesn't come with a stand. If you already have some kind of VESA arm, you're good to go. But Dough's own stand will cost you $100.

The other snag is that this is the OG matte version, not the glossy follow up. Generally, we love glossy for the heightened impact and sense of contrast. But not everyone agrees.

What's more, if you use your monitor in an environment with lots of ambient light, a matte anti-glare coating can be a godsend. So, you pays your money and you takes your choice.

Either way, what you are getting is a sweet 27-inch IPS panel with crispy 4K pixel density and 144Hz refresh. The Spectrum One is also HDR600 certified, so it's extremely punchy when it comes to brightness.

It's also much more nicely built than your average budget monitor and sports a USB-C interface with fully 100W of power delivery for optimal single-cable connectivity to a laptop.

Honestly it's just a whole lot of very high-end gaming monitor for what is arguably a much more mid-range price. The only remaining problem is that pricing for the kind of GPU you'll ideally want to keep that 4K pixel grid humming along at 144Hz haven't exactly become mainstream.

OK, scaling techs like DLSS and FSR have made 4K more doable for anything less than a megabucks graphics card. But in the real world, a GPU that's up to the job of driving this display is going to cost a lot more than the $370-ish asking price of the Dough itself. Which is a pity.

When you dig down into the details, OLED's shortcomings can often be traced directly or indirectly to limitations involving blue OLED subpixel technology. The problem with blue OLED tech is that it's much less efficient than red and green, the other two primary subpixel colors.

That means that at a given power, blue OLED produces less light than red or green. Conversely, it uses much  more power and produces much more heat at comparable brightness. Fix the blue OLED problem and you fix OLED tech more generally.

Well, that's what LG claims to have done with its new "Dream OLED" panel technology (via ET News). The innovation involves a new panel utilising so-called blue phosphorescence. 

Previously, blue OLED technology was restricted to less efficient fluorescent emission tech, while red and green OLED could be manufactured with more efficient phosphorescence emission.

In fact, the new LG panel reportedly uses a dual-stacked technique with both phosphorescence and fluorescent blue OLED in an effort to achieve both better efficiency and longevity.

Of course, the detailed implementation of such a technology is complicated. Neither LG nor Samsung, the two main players in OLED panel tech, actually implement a pure OLED RGB substructure. LG's WOLED panels have an all-white OLED emission layer that is then passed through RGB filters, while Samsung actually has all-blue OLED emission which then excites an RGB quantum dot layer.

When you drill down even further into those OLED emission layers, you'll find they have a further substructure, which is where the blue OLED solution will pay dividends. Anyway, blue OLED tech has long presented a barrier to creating OLED panels that can offer both strong full-screen brightness and good longevity with resistance to burn in.

This new Dream OLED panel tech from LG is said to be under production evaluation and could be commericialized "within the year". Of course, that just means LG could begin manufacturing the panels for sale within a year. Actual PC monitors or TVs with the new panels would take a little longer.

But the take home here is LG seems to be addressing the big questions concerning OLED technology, namely how to match LCD for full screen brightness while also putting burn-in worries to bed.

It's unclear exactly how far LG's Dream OLED panels will go in delivering all that. But it certainly seems like they will be another step in that direction.

Taking on the role of the Destined One, you will battle against richly detailed enemies and face challenging bosses. Journey your way through lush forests and frozen lands enhanced by the beautiful lighting of a fully ray traced game, made possible on for RTX gamer through the power of by DLSS 3 possible.

But before you start your journey, we've pulled together the top four things we think you should know before starting your journey as the Destined One.

1. Don't be afraid to fail

Black Myth: Wukong isn't the most forgiving game, and with an onslaught of bosses lurking around every corner, you're going to face a few challenging foes, each demanding their own combat strategy. Fortunately for you, you're the legendary Monkey King and come with your own bag full of tricks. 

First and foremost, it's worth noting that checkpoints are no more than 30 seconds away from the big boss battles—so you can try a variety of tactics until you find one that works for you. Secondly, you have a fair few skill trees that you can use to tailor and amp up your playstyle. And with free skill point refunds, there's no reason not to try a variety of skills until you find something that suits your playstyle.

In the ‘Foundations' tab alone, you have three overarching skill trees:

• Stamina skills that improve your dodging and sprinting—so you can kite to your heart's content 
• Martial Arts such as the Mobile Spin—allowing you to deflect ranged attacks on the go 
• Survival skills bolster your core stats such as health, mana, critical hit, and more

Naturally, there are more skill trees than just these three, such as Staff Stances, Mysticism (for you mage types), and Transformation… but we'll let you discover those as you explore the intricacies of ancient Chinese mythology. 

2.  Keep a keen eye out for special bosses 

While Black Myth: Wukong features a variety of colour-coded gear to kit out the Destined One, he's far too attached to his mystical staff to let you trade it out for another weapon. So while you won't receive an armoury of weapons to choose from, you can instead find rare creatures dropped from bosses dotted around the lands.

These rare creatives empower your staff with powerful passive bonuses and a pretty awesome signature move to boot. Find yourself the right creature and you transform into pretty much anything. Fancy turning yourself into a giant hammer? No problem! Or maybe you want to release your inner swordsman and clear out your enemies in one fell swoop.. Er slash. Well, there's a signature move for that too. There's a signature move for that too, clear your enemies in one clean swoop… or slash.

3. Explore, explore, explore

Venture off the beaten path, chat to every NPC, and soak in everything the game has to offer. Sounds pretty simple, but with six chapters of the game to sink your teeth into, this might seem like such a mountain, but we promise you it's well worth the climb.

But why, we hear you ask?. Well, everyone knows side quests are the key to beefy powerups, but in Black Myth: Wukong, there's more to it than that! You can only find certain skills through side quests, and they're not all easy to find.

During our playthrough, we found a man who had been turned to stone crying out for a specific item to aid his affliction. After some hard graft, we returned only to be mocked and laughed at for being gullible enough to fall for his trick. Suddenly we could lock onto him, so we smacked him a few times and he gave up a spell that let me parry attacks by turning to stone—a wicked and invaluable skill to have as you will face some tricky bosses.

 4. Sit back and soak up the sunshine 

In a game as beautiful as Black Myth: Wukong, it'd be a waste to simply rush your way through the game without taking a beat to enjoy the incredible environment effects and world detail. With Full Ray Tracing enabled, also known as Path Tracing, the real-time lighting, shadows, and reflections are stunningly realistic and push the boundaries of what is possible in PC gaming.

And thanks to NVIDIA tech like DLSS 3 you can really witness the incredible graphics and how it was meant to be enjoyed. DLSS 3 employs two revolutionary technologies: DLSS Super Resolution and DLSS Frame Generation The first is also often called an upscaler and when enabled, Black Myth: Wukong renders graphics at a lower resolution before using an AI neural network to scale the frame back to full resolution, without any loss in detail.The second uses AI to generate generates entirely new frames, rather than just pixels, delivering astounding performance boosts.

That brings you to the end of our top tips, but why not treat yourself this summer to not only Black Myth: Wukong but to a new gaming rig to enjoy the mysteries of a glorious past on a sparkly new, and more importantly powerful, PC that'll land on your doorstep tomorrow? 

If you're looking to update your gaming setup, to experience Black Myth: Wukong at its very best, then PCSpecialist has all your GeForce RTX 40-Series gaming needs covered. With custom gaming desktops, laptops and pre-built PCs available to order for next-day shipping, such as the GeForce RTX 4070 Super-powered Onyx S, you can jump right into the action.

PCSpecialist also offers pre-configured gaming PCs, where you can change components to fit your exact needs. The Quantum Ultra, with an Intel Core i9 14900KS and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Super, will give you the very best performance and 4K gaming experience with Full Ray Tracing in Black Myth: Wukong and other high-intensity, visually outstanding AAA games.

Should you want a different case, faster RAM, more storage, or even braided cables and RGB lighting strips,you have the option to configure your own spec entirely. With over 18 different desktop systems to choose from and configure to your exact requirements, using their easy to use configurator, you'll easily find your perfect GeForce RTX 40-sSeries gaming PC at PCSpecialist. Best of all, they take care of all that frustrating cable management that can tie you in knots… literally. 

Ever wrestled to remove a graphics card, tears of frustration curling down your cheeks as you desperately fumble for the release catch, all the while cursing the heavens at the notion that somebody, anybody, thought this was a user-friendly or remotely ergonomic retention mechanism? Then you're in good company.

But rejoice, because Asus has a new revision of its PCIe Q-Release mechanism, now known as PCIe Q-Release Slim. And it might just be the GPU slot we've all been waiting for. It's totally tool-free, there's no button, and once you understand how it works it's totally intuitive.

Last time around, the Asus PCIe Q-Release involved a more easily accessible quick-release button that essentially popped the retention clip that holds a GPU into the PCIe slot. That saved you from having to get directly at the clip to manipulate it, the latter procedure often presenting something of an ergonomic nightmare for those who lack sextuple-jointed fingers. In other words, everyone.

All very welcome, but it still meant you had to be able to reach the release button located on the motherboard. Even though Asus positioned the button to be easy to get at, access obviously depends on your PC case and the components, cables and connectors installed. Moreover, you could argue that if prodding the motherboard can be avoided, that's always for the best.

Now it can be, thanks to the new Asus PCIe Q-Release Slim slot, which Asus is showing off at Gamescon. Chris has the full skinny on all the boards Asus is showing off at the show. But YouTube channel der8auer has taken a particular look at the new mechanism, which at a glance looks like a standard PCIe graphics slot and into which you insert a graphics card just like a standard PCIe graphic ports.

Indeed, it doesn't have the release button from the previous PCIe Q-Release solution. Instead, it depends on a new mechanism that automatically releases the graphics card if you simply pull the graphics card from the bracketed end with video out ports.

Tug at the middle of the graphics card or the far end, and nothing happens. The system works because the bracketed end of a graphics card is normally secured to the PC chassis with screws or some kind of clip. With that end secured, the GPU won't budge.

Of course, we haven't had a go with the new slot ourselves. So, we can't definitely comment on how slickly and reliably it actually works. But, in theory, it looks like the perfect solution to a long-standing pernickety problem.

All of which means you can now add the graphics card slot on your motherboard to the list of first world problems that suddenly got made much better and you can't understand why it took so long, which includes wheels on luggage and loops to stop you dropping your skiing gloves off the chairlift. Huzzah.

As with the rest of the Neo range, the Facecam is packaged in a basic white recycled box. It comes with a matching monitor stand complete with transparent front lip for screens, and has a braided USB cable hardwired in. Pulling the pill shaped camera out of the box, the first two things I noticed were how light it feels, almost like empty plastic, and the mechanical notch for the privacy shutter. 

Sadly, the shutter doesn't feel satisfying to move. It is very easy to use and feels noticeably different when it's in and out of place, so at least is unlikely to be in the wrong position accidentally. Plus, the cover slides in front of the lens, but behind the main housing, which should keep it safer during travel. 

This camera is also completely devoid of a mic, which I think is excellent. Webcam mics are never good and are usually too far away to begin with. By not having a mic, Elgato has saved me a tonne of frustration, be it from my programs choosing it as the default mic, or having just another device listening in. No mic plus a privacy shutter means you can leave this cam plugged in and don't have to worry about yet another digital spy or accidental embarrassment. Plus the LED is large and remains on whenever the camera is active.

All in all, It's a huge step up from a tab of electrical tape over the lens. 

The Elgato Facecam Neo pumps out 1080p at up to 60 fps making it more than enough for most streams and meetings. It's not the best choice for video with those specs but still does well. 

For a light little webcam that can fit easily into most settings it's very capable. It does a great job of colours and skin tones but tends to lean just a little towards oversaturation, which ramps up when it tries to compensate for low light. I've plugged it into a few PCs with different software and it's been seamless every time. However, you might want to grab Elgato's free camera hub software to get access to all the features. 

The hub has controls for many things, like zoom and brightness, which can be saved to the camera to then be used in other apps. Most of these I was able to leave on auto quite happily, but this was also the only way I could see to enable the much sought after HDR setting.

Enabling HDR will restrict you from 60 fps to just 30, but will make a huge difference if you've got bright lights like windows messing up your shot. I can have a bright window behind me and still be nice and clear as opposed to creepy shadow creature. I just wouldn't recommend using it in all scenarios.

As well as losing out on those 30 frames, I found at my well lit desk, turning HDR on didn't look any different and would really mess with the autofocus. The focus became very sluggish and sometimes would be stuck at a blur, unable to focus at all. The autofocus isn't particularly snappy, generally speaking, which has bothered me occasionally, but it at least usually gets there within a few seconds max, and then holds it well until drastic changes.

Thankfully, with HDR on and a big window behind me, more like what it's designed for, I didn't have this issue. So in that sense it's not really a problem but does raise some questions about the autofocus. There are also options to turn the focus from auto to fixed in the software, which might be a workaround if you need it. Unfortunately, all of this means you might actually need the Elgato camera hub to make changes. Being able to save settings to the camera is a huge help here, but it makes me wish it had profiles, or even just a button for toggling HDR. The good news is the app is free and easy to use, so this shouldn't be a huge barrier.

While wonderfully versatile, if you're wanting a dedicated webcam to hangout at your already well lit station, the Facecam Neo may not be the best choice. You could swap out some of that versatility and go for something with a fixed focus made for desks, and a better sensor that might deliver a higher quality image, like the Elgato Facecam MK2. Or even go for something fancier and 4K if you wanted to make videos as well. This isn't necessarily the webcam I'd recommend first for a single, already well lit, desk setup.

Instead, this is a camera that will work fairly well even if you are plagued with horrible light. It only takes a few tweaks to have it working well at a purposely lit streamer's desk as it does to have it in an awkward office. It's lightweight, small, works immediately with all the software I've tried it on (including FaceTime on my iPad), and without also trying to be a mic. Plus, 1080p at 30 - 60 fps is still more than enough for streaming and video calls. 

Those are some pretty big wins, especially for under $100 USD. It all comes together to make the Facecam Neo a smart choice, especially if you've got harsh light or use this cam on different setups easily.