BEST OF CES 2025

PCs were the star of the show at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Guy Cocker was there to scout out the best CPUs, GPUs, laptops, and product concepts that should all be coming your way this year

BLUEPRINTS UNWRAPPED

Zak Storey tells you what you need to know when planning your next build

EMULATION

MAKING WINDOWS ON ARM GREAT AGAIN

Tweak Windows 11's privacy settings

YOU’LL NEED THIS WINDOWS 11 Notepad (included with Windows)

Spot phishing emails

YOU’LL NEED THIS UBLOCK ORIGIN (optional) ACCORDING TO

Play Arcade Classic with MAME

YOU’LL NEED THIS MAME www.mamedev.org/ release.html WHILE

Use Windows Phone Link’s new features

YOU’LL NEED THIS AN ANDROID CELLPHONE Windows

Declutter Windows desktop for 2025

YOU’LL NEED THIS WINDOWS 10 OR 11

in the lab tested. reviewed. verdictized.

The rising cost of the humble PC GPUs might

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Guy Cocker THE RELEASE of a new high-end

A Mixed Bag: RTX 50 Series Launch

A story of demand, limited supply, and technical challenges

TIKTOK GOES BACK AND FORTH

TIKTOK’S US FATE: RESTRICTIONS, REPRIEVE, AND RESALE

Tech Triumphs and Tragedies

A monthly snapshot of what’s good and bad in tech

INTEL LAUNCHES CORE ULTRA 200HX AND 200H CPUS

Arrow Lake architecture will deploy to laptops

AMD DELAYS RDNA 4

We might have to wait for the new graphics cards

‘Tar Pit’ traps built to devastate AI scrapers

WEB DEVELOPERS HAVE struggled with the bandwidth and

Facebook flags Linux as ‘security threat’

Facebook has been facing a backlash after banning

Copilot+ PCs get local DeepSeek-R1 support

Microsoft has announced NPU-optimized versions of DeepSeek-R1 for

Nvidia Multi Frame Generation put to the test

NVIDIA’S BLACKWELL RTX ARCHITECTURE was announced last month. I’ve now had plenty of one-on-one time with the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080, and I want to talk more about Multi Frame Generation (MFG) in particular, because it’s a major marketing bullet point for the RTX 50-series GPUs.

THE BEST HANDHELD GAMING PCS

A dream shared by PC gamers everywhere has

Fare well, RTX 4090

NVIDIA’S VERY HIGHEST-END GPUs are the best value. There, I said it, and now everyone can shoot me down, call me a shill, and dance on my hastily dug grave. But before you ramrod your muskets and cock your flintlocks, let me elaborate. This is not hyperbole, but a genuine point of view.

DOCTOR THIS MONTH THE DOCTOR TACKLES...

> VPN server issue > Wot, no Bitdefender? > Windows off-screen

UNOBTAINIUM

More elusive than Bigfoot, and more powerful than Zeus’s lightning bolt, the RTX 5090 is here

LETTERS

WE TACKLE TOUGH READER QUESTIONS ON

THE BUILDS

THIS MONTH’S STREET PRICES...

HOW TO STEP-BY-STEP GUIDES TO IMPROVING YOUR PC

examining technology and putting it to use

AUTOPSY THIS MONTH WE DISSECT...

ModRetro Chromatic

How to use ChatGPT Projects

YOU’LL NEED THIS CHATGPT A ChatGPT Plus Pro, or

Nvidia GeForce RT X 5090

The fastest GPU around, but not the huge leap we’d hoped for

Lenovo Legion Tower 5i (Gen8)

A great entry-level gaming PC and a solid buy for 1080p

Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro

A user-friendly motherboard with a long life

HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14

A well-rounded laptop that’s good for work, school, and even casual gaming

Asus ROG Strix B850-FGaming WiFi

AMD boards are too expensive. Fact

OneXPlayer OneXFly F1 Pro

The first AMD Strix Point-powered über handheld

WD Black SN7100 1TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD

Subtle change leads to one serious upgrade

Asus ProArt PA602

Big, bulky, and beautifully built

NZXT Kraken Elite 360

Monolithic design improvements

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

Just as bizarre and ambitious as its inspirations

NVIDIA App vs AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition

GPU software heats up