A week ago we looked at the slightly underwhelming AMD Ryzen 9600X and 9700X, which were marked by modest gaming performance increases in some titles, more significantly better content creation grunt and slightly better thermals. Now it's time to look at the second half of AMD's Zen 5 quartet, the £459/$499 Ryzen 9 9900X and £609/$649 Ryzen 9 9950X. These are powerful 12-core and 16-core parts that ought to be more of interest to content creators than gamers, so do they make a better case for Ryzen 9000? And does either one manage to exceed the top-level gaming performance of the 7800X3D?

Unfortunately, after four days of frantic benchmarking and troubleshooting, I'm not sure AMD has succeeded on either of these points. Our Ryzen 9900X and 9950X testing has been marked by confusingly poor gaming performance, including performance regressions versus the 7900X and 7950X, alongside a few examples of genuine uplifts that nonetheless don't go far enough to making these CPUs worth recommending.

This review does at least mark the debut of two improvements to our benchmarking suite compared to last week's reviews, which itself marked the introduction of an entirely new automated benchmarking system for Digital Foundry - and therefore only included a more limited selection of games than we've offered in the past.

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Low profile mechanical keyboards are a popular choice for anyone that prefers the short, snappy feel of a great laptop keyboard but wants something a little more capable, durable and customisable. While full-height mechanicals were the first to go mainstream, low-profile alternatives are becoming increasingly common, and there's an exciting arms race resulting in some truly impressive designs.

Today we're looking at three such keyboards: a refined gaming-focused board from industry giants Logitech, a fancy typists' offering from Chinese boutique brand iQunix and a weird, stylish and unmistakenly early Apple keyboard from London one-man-brand Electronic Materials Office.

Despite being nominally part of the same category, these keyboards couldn't be more different in terms of their intended use cases - and that has lead to fascinating differences in design. Here are reviews of the G515 Lightspeed TKL, Magi65 Pro and Altar 1.

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Low profile mechanical keyboards are a popular choice for anyone that prefers the short, snappy feel of a great laptop keyboard but wants something a little more capable, durable and customisable. While full-height mechanicals were the first to go mainstream, low-profile alternatives are becoming increasingly common, and there's an exciting arms race resulting in some truly impressive designs.

Today we're looking at three such keyboards: a refined gaming-focused board from industry giants Logitech, a fancy typists' offering from Chinese boutique brand iQunix and a weird, stylish and unmistakenly early Apple keyboard from London one-man-brand Electronic Materials Office.

Despite being nominally part of the same category, these keyboards couldn't be more different in terms of their intended use cases - and that has lead to fascinating differences in design. Here are reviews of the G515 Lightspeed TKL, Magi65 Pro and Altar 1.

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Despite an early warning that no Switch 2 news would be forthcoming in their June briefing, Nintendo Direct was still a satisfying summer showcase with plenty of exciting titles. We ran our own Digital Foundry Direct special looking at the announcements, with John Linneman and Oliver Mackenzie highlighting some of the most anticipated games - including new Metroid, Zelda and Lego titles.

While the video version of that Direct is available to watch below, I thought it might be interesting to talk about my personal highlight from the show, and perhaps more critically, how the announcements we've seen today might factor into an eventual Switch 2 launch line-up.

Starting off then, I was blown away by the Lego game: Lego Horizon Adventures. The original Horizon games - Zero Dawn and Forbidden West - have an unimpeachable setting, and it's fascinating to see this translated into a world of coloured bricks. Most importantly, there's been surprisingly little lost compared to the full-fat Unreal Engine 5 version of the game for PS5 and PC. High-quality Lumen RT reflections become SSR and pristine virtual shadow maps become traditional shadow maps, but the visual character of the game remains - despite the cutbacks necessary to get to even 30fps on Switch versus 60fps elsewhere.

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PC component and peripherals business Corsair has announced plans to acquire Endor AG, the parent company of sim racing brand Fanatec. The move comes a month after Fanatec announced a new CEO amidst widespread condemnation from the sim racing community over botched product launches, shipping delays and customer service failings, which have soured the reputation of a company that produces otherwise well-regarded sim racing gear, from wheels and direct drive wheelbases to pedals and other accessories.

There's clear logic behind the move, as Corsair doesn't currently have a sim racing brand in their (extremely wide) ecosystem, unlike rivals Logitech who launched their first direct drive wheelbase last year and Turtle Beach who did the same earlier this year. Corsair is also extremely proficient when it comes to the logistics of actually producing and selling its products worldwide, something that Fanatec has struggled with historically and has come to a head over the past six months.

As well as Fanatec having only EU and US stores, leaving UK buyers to face significant import duties and long shipping times, the firm also faced controversy over its policy of charging up-front for orders which may not be fulfilled for months. Black Friday discounts in November 2023 in particular resulted in a huge amount of interest, with the Fanatec website toppling over for much of the day, but many customers of the sale reported not receiving their orders well into 2024 and support queries going unanswered.

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PC component and peripherals business Corsair has announced plans to acquire Endor AG, the parent company of sim racing brand Fanatec. The move comes a month after Fanatec announced a new CEO amidst widespread condemnation from the sim racing community over botched product launches, shipping delays and customer service failings, which have soured the reputation of a company that produces otherwise well-regarded sim racing gear, from wheels and direct drive wheelbases to pedals and other accessories.

There's clear logic behind the move, as Corsair doesn't currently have a sim racing brand in their (extremely wide) ecosystem, unlike rivals Logitech who launched their first direct drive wheelbase last year and Turtle Beach who did the same earlier this year. Corsair is also extremely proficient when it comes to the logistics of actually producing and selling its products worldwide, something that Fanatec has struggled with historically and has come to a head over the past six months.

As well as Fanatec having only EU and US stores, leaving UK buyers to face significant import duties and long shipping times, the firm also faced controversy over its policy of charging up-front for orders which may not be fulfilled for months. Black Friday discounts in November 2023 in particular resulted in a huge amount of interest, with the Fanatec website toppling over for much of the day, but many customers of the sale reported not receiving their orders well into 2024 and support queries going unanswered.

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PC component and peripherals business Corsair has announced plans to acquire Endor AG, the parent company of sim racing brand Fanatec. The move comes a month after Fanatec announced a new CEO amidst widespread condemnation from the sim racing community over botched product launches, shipping delays and customer service failings, which have soured the reputation of a company that produces otherwise well-regarded sim racing gear, from wheels and direct drive wheelbases to pedals and other accessories.

There's clear logic behind the move, as Corsair doesn't currently have a sim racing brand in their (extremely wide) ecosystem, unlike rivals Logitech who launched their first direct drive wheelbase last year and Turtle Beach who did the same earlier this year. Corsair is also extremely proficient when it comes to the logistics of actually producing and selling its products worldwide, something that Fanatec has struggled with historically and has come to a head over the past six months.

As well as Fanatec having only EU and US stores, leaving UK buyers to face significant import duties and long shipping times, the firm also faced controversy over its policy of charging up-front for orders which may not be fulfilled for months. Black Friday discounts in November 2023 in particular resulted in a huge amount of interest, with the Fanatec website toppling over for much of the day, but many customers of the sale reported not receiving their orders well into 2024 and support queries going unanswered.

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SteelSeries' Arctis Nova Pro Wireless is more than a good gaming headset for all consoles plus PC - it's our current top pick overall, beating out names like Corsair and Logitech, thanks to its combination of sound quality, comfort and convenience. This week SteelSeries announced a hardware revision to that DF-favourite design, with a tweak to the placement of the internal mics needed for the headset's ANC functionality, as well as a new white colourway.

SteelSeries were kind enough to send out the new iteration of the headset in that new white colour, and it's clear on close inspection that this is a relatively minor hardware revision. One of the few downsides to the original design were that the ANC nubbins inside the earcup could touch the ears of some people in an annoying and potentially uncomfortable way, and it's this issue that the new revision is designed to address.

You could work around the original problem with third-party ear pads with thicker designs, such as these great-looking options from Wicked Cushions, but it's good to see that SteelSeries has taken the feedback on board and hopefully eliminated the issue for good on all Nova Pro headsets going forward. I didn't find the ANC mic touched my ear on the original model, but it's clear even from a surface inspection that the new design is a little less prominent and therefore unlikely to cause irritation.

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Last week, I took to Eurogamer to announce a Warehouse Sale for Digital Foundry merchandise, and this week we have development: new 'Bespoke' merch has hit the DF Store, featuring a fan-made design that really tickled us given our collective predilection for uttering this phrase.

As well as the long-rumoured Bespoke tee, which comes in a double-sided blue/purple gradient design on a black shirt, you can also pick up a nifty metal pin (pictured above). Finally, the Bespoke Collection also includes a sticker pack, with a DF Approved seal of quality, a DF Retro PVM design and two #stutterstruggle frame-time graphs - including one blank design to chart your very own traversal or shader compilation stutters.

We've been working on these designs for the past three months or so - and significantly longer in the case of the PVM design - so it's great to finally see them go on (virtual) store shelves. I think they've turned out wonderfully, having had the chance to test out some of the early samples, and I'm particularly happy that the excellent Bespoke design by community member Dacvak now has the chance to be appreciated by a wider audience.

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It feels pretty appropriate that my last deal post for RPS is for my favourite PC peripheral: the humble mechanical keyboard. This mechanical keyboard is more humble than its peers too, with a $30 asking price that is absolutely exceptional for a name-brand keyboard that gets rave reviews: the Keychron C3 Pro.

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You may have noticed that SSDs got extremely cheap towards the end of 2023, and then they rebounded somewhat in 2024. We normally expect better deals at Black Friday than during the rest of the year, but this is something a bit different, with oversupply in 2023 leading to significant reductions that aren't likely to be repeated in 2024. However, there are still some better deals than others, and unless you can hop in a time machine they're still well worth covering.

The subject of today's deals post is the Kingston KC3000, an SSD that I use in my own testing PC thanks to its high capacity, impressive PCIe 4.0 speeds and generally aggressive pricing. Today you can pick up the 2TB KC3000 for £123, a fair price for a drive that cost more than £150 at the start of 2024.

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Here's a heck of a deal on a high-end Mini ITX case perfect for small form factor systems. This is the Kolink Rocket Complex, a whimsically-named case with a beautiful metal design and a tower-style (rocket-like?) taller-than-wide form factor. It originally retailed for £155, but now you can get it from Overclockers UK for just £70.

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Today's my last day writing deals at RPS! That's a shame, but I have still have two to four articles to share with you, and I'm going to start with this ultrawide monitor from Lenovo, the Legion R45W-30. This is a huge 45-incher, offering what is essentially two 1440p 165Hz screens side-by-side. It normally retails for £799, but today Very are offering it for £100 off - £699. That's a good price for what is essentially two mid-range gaming monitors seamlessly joined into one.

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SteelSeries make some of my favourite gaming headsets - and RPS' favourite wireless gaming headset, which today is discounted to under £100 versus its normal price of £175. That's a good price for the Arctis 7+, a comfortable and great-sounding headset that works not only on PC but also on Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S - that's all the consoles!

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Here's something a little different: a seven-port powered USB hub from Sabrent that makes it easy to connect a huge amount of peripherals and drives to your PC without having to fumble blindly with the back of your PC - or turn one of your laptop's USB ports into many many more. It normally goes for £30 to £40, but today you can pick it up for just £19 at Amazon UK.

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If you like to play competitive games that benefit from a higher frame-rate and refresh rate, then this 1440p 240Hz monitor for $300 in Best Buy US is well worth knowing about. This is an HP OMen 27qs to be exact, a well-regarded Fast IPS model that combines good all-around characteristics with excellent motion handling and that high refresh rate - now discounted by $130.

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If you're after a Steam Deck at a bargain price, The Game Collection is selling 512GB LCD models for £375 with the code LEAP20 at Ebay, which takes 20% off the previous £450 price for these new models.

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Mario vs Donkey Kong for Switch is a classic remake of the Game Boy Advance original, reimagining each stage in higher fidelity, turning interstitial stills into animated videos and even adding some additional content. Digital Foundry's John Linneman and Tom Morgan had the chance to play through the game on both platforms recently, summarising the differences between the two versions and the quality of the remake overall.

The deliberate resemblance between the two versions is evident even from the start screen, with Mario and Donkey Kong staring at each other from opposite corners of the screen on both Game Boy Advance and Switch. From here, there's a similar save data screen, then you're straight into a cutscene - with essentially a series of stills for the GBA version that have been turned into fully realised and high-quality 16:9 video for Switch. This sequence ends and Donkey Kong squeezes into a keyhole on both versions, starting the first level proper.

Looking at that first screen, it's clear that it's a 1:1 remake with the same tiles, background and scale - but the wider screen of the Switch allows us to see further to the right of these relatively small puzzle stages. Even the interface is nearly identical, with lives in the upper left and time in the upper right - just the score has been removed from the top centre for a cleaner presentation.

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Counter-Strike 2 is Counter-Strike. The formula hasn't really changed since the 1999 original - terrorists and counter-terrorists sparring to eliminate the other side or plant/defuse a bomb at one of two designated locations - but Valve's 2023 release runs better on modern hardware than 2012's Global Offensive and offers sparingly more gameplay possibilities too. Fundamentally though, the core combination of tactical, round-based 5v5 competition and satisfyingly difficult shooting mechanics remain as enrapturing and enraging as ever.

Competitive play is at the heart of the game, even more so than in CS:GO, with the Premier ranked mode taking centre stage. Here, solo and grouped players are placed into teams of five, go through a map veto process to select the stage and starting sides, then compete in a best-of-24-rounds match with their individual ELO rating on the line. These matches are a good deal shorter than CS:GO's best-of-30 contests, increasing the importance of the first rounds on each side and making it a little harder to stage a late comeback.

On the plus side, one-sided stomps are mercifully shortened, while still allowing for overtime in close matches and the exquisite economic interplay that differentiates the game from other shooters. Do you spend all of your hard-earned cash to try and steal a round against better-equipped opponents now, or save your money and accept you'll lose the next round in order to be on even footing in the round after that?

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Counter-Strike 2 is Counter-Strike. The formula hasn't really changed since the 1999 original - terrorists and counter-terrorists sparring to eliminate the other side or plant/defuse a bomb at one of two designated locations - but Valve's 2023 release runs better on modern hardware than 2012's Global Offensive and offers sparingly more gameplay possibilities too. Fundamentally though, the core combination of tactical, round-based 5v5 competition and satisfyingly difficult shooting mechanics remain as enrapturing and enraging as ever.

Competitive play is at the heart of the game, even more so than in CS:GO, with the Premier ranked mode taking centre stage. Here, solo and grouped players are placed into teams of five, go through a map veto process to select the stage and starting sides, then compete in a best-of-24-rounds match with their individual ELO rating on the line. These matches are a good deal shorter than CS:GO's best-of-30 contests, increasing the importance of the first rounds on each side and making it a little harder to stage a late comeback.

On the plus side, one-sided stomps are mercifully shortened, while still allowing for overtime in close matches and the exquisite economic interplay that differentiates the game from other shooters. Do you spend all of your hard-earned cash to try and steal a round against better-equipped opponents now, or save your money and accept you'll lose the next round in order to be on even footing in the round after that?

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Digital Foundry's tools of the trade is a new series looking at the tools - physical and virtual - that DF members use to carry out their work analysing video games and hardware. In this first episode, Will Judd shares his thoughts on digital callipers, specifically the Hozo NeoCaliper.

There are a handful of tools that should be in any PC gamer's toolkit, from the Phillips-head screwdrivers you'll need to build or modify pretty much every PC out there to the Allen keys that can help you adjust sim racing rigs, monitor arms and other more substantial furniture. However, one useful tool I've not seen mentioned much is a set of callipers - whether that's a traditional analogue set or more newfangled digital alternatives. I've used a set of the latter for several years now, and I'm always amazed at how useful these can be for PC building in general - and PC journalism more specifically.

First, the general stuff: callipers are extremely useful for small form factor Mini ITX builds, where you could start by just cramming every component into your case, but it's often better to measure your components before you begin to make sure you'll have enough clearance. Callipers won't replace a tape measure for extremely long objects - I'm thinking of graphics card length, for example - but smaller objects like CPU tower coolers or radiators can be measured quickly and accurately with digital callipers, allowing you to ensure that your intended setup is actually workable in the often limited space available. It's worth pointing out that as well as measuring the size of objects (outer diameter), you can also measure gaps (inner diameter) - the arms on the top of a set of callipers grip in the opposite direction, allowing you to see exactly how much space you have available.

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I always love it when stuff I've legitimately bought appears on sale, and that's the case today with this XPG Caster DDR5 kit that's 10% off on Amazon UK today. That brings this 32GB dual-channel DDR5-6000 CL40 kit to £64, a great price for this spec - especially for an RGB-enabled model.

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Mechanical keyboards can be pretty cheap these days, but I've not never seen one on sale for as little as £4.99 - especially not for a full-size RGB model available for a brand I've actually heard of before! That is indeed the case at GAME though, who are selling the Trust Gaming GXT 865 Asta for £4.99 plus another £4.99 in shipping - that's £20 less than this keyboard normally costs!

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The Intel Core i5 12600K remains a powerful CPU for gaming and content creation even in 2024, and offers better value than successors that use the same socket, like the 13600K and 14600K, due to similar performance at a lower price.

Today you can find the 12600K for £167 at Amazon UK as a US import, versus £221 for the same CPU via Amazon UK itself. That £167 price includes an import fee deposit and shipping too!

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I'm a big fan of oversized mouse pads - desk pads, some call them. Today you can pick up just such a mouse pad from Lenovo in a comfortable 900x300x3mm (31.5x11.8x0.12") size for just $10. To get this reduction from the normal price of $18, use code SAVE15ACC at the checkout. This particular model, for your reference, is the well-reviewed Legion Speed Gaming Mouse Pad XL.

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Corsair's Shift series of power supplies are one of my go-to recommendations, thanks to their reliable power delivery and convenient side-mounted connectors, and now you can pick up a factory refurbished 850W 80+ Gold unit for just £84 from Scan, versus £145 for the very same PSU new at Amazon or £150 at Scan. That's a huge, nearly 50% saving, and well worth it - even for a factory refurb unit with a 12-month warranty.

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The Logitech G915 Lightspeed TKL is a phenomenal gaming keyboard with low-profile mechanical switches, reliable Lightspeed wireless and a compact layout, yet Logitech normally ask well over £100 for it - and double that when it first launched! Today though, the G915 TKL Lightspeed is 55% off, dropping it to the more reasonable price of £99.

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The AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is my current go-to high-end gaming CPU recommendation, on account of its brilliant top-tier performance at a mid-tier price. The CPU normally costs around £375, but today it's down to £350 at Amazon UK. This isn't the cheapest we've ever seen this model, but it's the best price recorded in 2024 so far and a solid £25 below the going rate.

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The RTX 4070 Super is a rather good deal, offering a significant boost in gaming performance over the earlier RTX 4070 - in fact, it's closer to the 4070 Ti than the vanilla 4070. That makes it a great choice for gaming up to 4K, while costing just a bit over the £500 mark - £539 to be accurate after a £50 discount that puts it below the UK RRP of £579.

That price is for a relatively modest Zotac Twin Edge model which fits easily even into small form factor PC, but thanks to the efficiency of the Ada Lovelace architecture the card should still run quite cool and quiet.

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It seems like just yesterday that we were reporting that the Asus ROG Ally had dropped to £539 in the UK, and now we have a similarly good deal for the US market: the same Z1 Extreme 512GB model for just $599 following a $100 discount at Best Buy.

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Sapphire's Radeon RX 7800 XT Pulse 16GB card has dropped to a new low price at Amazon US, where it's available for just $490. That's a solid $30 below its new list price and a great bargain for a capable current-gen GPU for 1080p or 1440p gaming with 16GB of frame buffer memory.

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SSD prices have been on the uptick recently, following a record-breaking 2023 where oversupply caused the best deals on high-capacity SSDs we've ever seen. That means that current prices aren't going to beat out last year's Black Friday deals, but there are still some decent options that carve out a better value proposition than their peers. One example is the Kingston NV2, a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD going for just £50 on Amazon UK at the moment - some £14 below its UK RRP.

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The Asus ROG Ally has dropped in price in response to the release of the Steam Deck OLED, and now a 10% off code at Very makes this handheld gaming PC even better value. You can now get the top-spec ROG Ally with the Z1 Extreme chipset and 512GB of PCIe 4.0 storage for just £539 with code VTQ8C, a brilliant price that puts it in direct competition with the 512GB Steam Deck OLED.

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