Caulfield lost her seat at last year`s general election, after nearly nine years as the MP for Lewes. Read...

Every Windows PC usually starts from the built-in hard drive, as the term “Windows PC” implies. This is because the Microsoft operating system is not anchored in or with the hardware, but is installed on your storage device. However, given the right environment, the computer can also be started in other ways: from CD/DVD, via the network and from external data carriers such as USB flash drives. Because flash drives are most important for external booting, our guide focuses on this scenario. In principle, however, the explanations also apply to other connected storage, such as larger USB hard drives, internal data carriers that are connected via USB cable or adapter, and inserted SD and micro SD cards. Why boot Windows from a flash drive? If the PC usually starts with Windows from the hard drive, the question is justified as to why you should boot from a USB stick. In some cases there are good or even compelling reasons for this. For example, if you bought the computer without Windows, you have to install the operating system first. This can be done easily, quickly and flexibly from a flash drive with customizations. Or if Microsoft’s operating system no longer starts even in safe mode, you can of course reinstall it. get windows 11 pro for cheap Windows 11 Pro Firstly, however, it is advisable to attempt a repair with a bootable rescue system. The same applies to malware and virus infections as well as accidentally deleted data. This is because an externally booted, so-called live system also provides access to files that are hidden by Windows or the malware. When recovering data, it is crucial that a live system, unlike Windows, does not overwrite empty hard drive areas without being asked, thereby reducing the chances of recovery. Booting from a USB stick also helps with system-related operations such as partitioning the system hard drive and cloning the complete system onto a new PC or a larger SSD. Finally, live systems make it easy to try things out: Instead of installing a Linux distribution or something else on an additional partition including dual boot, booting from the stick eliminates any configuration effort. Important knowledge so that everything works when booting You might be familiar with Microsoft’s Media Creation Tool: It creates bootable flash drives for installing Windows 10 and 11. With this tool, all you need to do is confirm the default settings five times, so you don’t have to change anything to configure the setup stick. If it’s so easy, why bother with (a bit of) theory? In fact, the Media Creation Tool hardly causes any problems. But “how” Windows is installed with it is beyond anyone’s control. However, the way it is installed is crucial for certain functions and is therefore important, as the new system should run as long and error-free as possible. Back to the Windows installation stick. All newer computers have long been working with the modern bios successor Uefi (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface). This interface between the mainboard and other hardware ensures that all components function smoothly. Two advantages of Uefi over the old bios are the Secure Boot security function and the GPT (Guid Partition Table) partition style of the boot hard disk. Because the latter is closely linked to starting the computer in true Uefi mode and many computers continue to support the bios compatibility mode, the correct installation and operating mode is crucial. Because the Uefi menus differ from PC to PC, a particular setting is not always easy to find – if it is not missing altogether. The picture shows the choice of boot mode. IDG However, this is not easy to control, as Uefi has hardly any fixed standards: Sometimes the compatibility mode is called “CSM” (for “Compatibility Support Module”), sometimes “Legacy Bios”, sometimes simply “Legacy”. Some motherboards even change the boot mode automatically if the Uefi boot fails. In addition, each Uefi menu is structured differently and certain functions cannot always be found immediately – every motherboard and PC manufacturer really does its own thing here. However, as the Media Creation Tool does not allow any settings for the Windows startup mode, you may only be able to see after installation whether the PC is starting in true Uefi mode and the hard drive is running in GPT partition style. Rufus – More control during Windows installation Rufus offers much more configuration control for your Windows setup stick. This is how it works: Insert a USB stick of at least eight GB into the computer and then start Rufus; no installation is required. At the top of the program interface, you will see the inserted USB flash drive under “Drive”. In the line below, check whether the small black arrow is present on the far right behind “Selection”. If not, click on the settings icon at the bottom and change the “Check for new version” setting from “Disabled” to “Daily (default)”. After two clicks on “Close”, restart Rufus, now with a selection arrow for downloading the ISO file from Windows. The two functions mentioned are marked in the illustration at the top right. Tip: As an alternative to downloading via Rufus, you can obtain the ISO files from Microsoft or via the Windows ISO Downloader tool. Continue by clicking on the arrow behind “Selection”, switch to “Download” and click on the button again. Now select the desired Windows version including language and 64-bit architecture. Once everything is set, download the ISO file via “Download”, confirm the storage folder in the next step and wait until the download is complete. Before you click on the “Start” button straight away, take another look at the program interface: For real Uefi operation, the option “GPT” and to the right of it “Uefi (without CSM)” are correct as “Partition scheme”. Finally, create the bootable stick by clicking on “Start -‘ OK -‘ OK”. A stick configured with the option “Uefi (without CSM)” ensures that Windows works in real Uefi mode. On newer computers, it is usually sufficient to insert the stick, switch on the PC and press the boot selection button displayed on the monitor when starting. Use the arrow keys to select the USB stick and confirm with Enter to start the Windows installation. If booting from the stick fails, check the boot mode setting in the Uefi menu again and switch to “Uefi” if necessary. Also check that “Secure Boot” is activated. Tip: You can access the Uefi menu from the Windows operating system by clicking on “System -‘ Recovery -‘ Advanced Boot -‘ Restart Now -‘ Troubleshooting -‘ Advanced Options -‘ UEFI Firmware Settings -‘ Restart” in the Settings app. In Windows 10, “Recovery” is located under “Update and Security” instead of “System”. Important: There is no single correct boot option for all systems. If a live system does not offer Uefi, select the CSM variant in the Uefi menu of the PC to boot from the special stick. If booting from the stick fails What should you do if a USB stick boots without problems on other computers but not on one? First make sure in the Uefi menu that general booting via USB is authorized (“Enabled”). You may need to switch on the option separately for different USB ports. If the problem persists, plug the stick into a different socket. On a notebook, try both sides of the device; on a desktop PC, try the front and back – the only thing that really helps is trial and error. Avoid using USB docks and other pass-through sockets. Not all USB sockets on a computer are equally suitable for booting from a stick. In practice, the only thing that helps on both notebooks and desktop PCs is trial and error. IDG The stick configuration may also not match the current Uefi settings: Change the boot mode from “Uefi” to “Legacy” or vice versa. If the Uefi supports both modes at the same time, try this setting. Depending on the contents of the stick, the mobile data carrier may then appear twice. Another stick can also help. Many other tools: Balena Etcher, Unetbootin & Co. There are also a number of other tools for generating bootable USB sticks. Balena Etcher is characterized by its particularly simple operation. After selecting the ISO file – either saved locally or as a download link – and the flash drive, simply click on the “Flash” button. This is convenient, but nothing can be configured. The interface of ISO to USB is unadorned, but the program fulfils its purpose. Unetbootin focuses on different Linux distributions so it’s not recommended for Windows systems. With Universal USB Installer, the name says it all: In addition to dozens of different Linux variants, the tool offers presets for various anti-virus, rescue and emergency systems. The tool also creates installation sticks for Windows 10 and 11 by selecting the option “Windows 10 or 11 Installer”, not (!) “Windows 10 or 11 on USB”. With Balena Etcher, bootable sticks are created in no time: select the ISO file on the left, specify the USB stick in the centre, then start by clicking on “Flash” on the right. IDG Finally, Universal USB Installer can create multi-boot sticks, i.e. mobile data carriers with several installation or live systems from which you can select the one you want. Win-USB also supports multi-boot sticks, but here the pre-selection of systems is very limited. We will come back to the multi-boot sticks at the end of this guide. The prerequisite for creating bootable sticks with all the tools is the ISO file. You can usually download this from the provider’s website and then integrate it into Rufus & Co. Sometimes, however, a Google search is quicker than contacting the software provider itself. For licensing reasons, not all ISO files can be freely downloaded from the Internet. get windows 11 pro for cheap Windows 11 Pro This applies, for example, if a live system is not based on Linux, but on Windows PE (Preinstallation Environment) from Microsoft. In these cases, you must first install the Windows software and then generate the ISO file. The option can usually be found on the software interface under “Tools”, “Tools”, “Boot medium”, “Rescue” or similar. The ISO file is created with just a few mouse clicks and all the components required for Windows PE are then automatically downloaded from the Internet. Finally, you can generate your boot stick from the finished ISO file using Rufus, for example. Converting a PC from CSM to UEFI mode Computers that have long since been upgraded from Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10 or 11 may still be running in CSM compatibility mode, although true UEFI operation would be possible. You can check this by typing msinfo in the Run field in the taskbar. If the system overview shows the entry “UEFI” after the “BIOS mode” entry, the PC is running in true Uefi mode. However, if it says “Previous version”, we recommend changing the system. To do this, check whether the mainboard supports Uefi mode in the Uefi menu as described. If the PC is running in CSM compatibility mode (“previous version”) and the conditions are right, it can easily be switched to real Uefi operation. IDG If this is the case, first convert the system data carrier to the GPT partition style using the MBR2GPT tool integrated in Windows before switching to true Uefi mode. Multiboot: Packing several live systems onto one USB stick Reserving separate boot sticks for the many live and installation systems would be confusing and a waste of sticks. You can avoid both with a multiboot system, where you call up the system of your choice after booting. Ventoy makes it easy to create and configure a multi-boot stick. To save several systems, select a sufficiently large stick with 16 gigabytes or more storage space if possible. After inserting the stick, start Ventoy and click on “Install -‘ Yes -‘ Yes” on the interface. This step, which is only necessary at the beginning, makes the stick bootable and creates two partitions of different sizes on it. While the smaller of the two often remains invisible in Windows Explorer, the larger one appears as a normal drive: you copy the ISO files of your choice to this drive. After booting from the stick, the Ventoy interface lists the different boot systems with their file names for selection and starting. While FAT32 is the appropriate file system for most boot sticks, Ventoy uses exFAT. This also allows ISO files over four GB in size. Tip: To add or remove a system, add or delete the corresponding ISO file in the Windows file explorer. Read...

Having achieved supremacy in most reviews of high-end gaming CPUs, AMD is now flexing a bit. The company recently pointed out that several of its Ryzen X3D CPUs can reach 1,000 fps in esports titles when paired with the right GPU. Unfortunately, that GPU isn’t always made by AMD. Nevertheless, AMD China has published a slide listing six titles in which two of its CPUs — the fantastic Ryzen 7 9800X3D and Ryzen 9 9950X3D — can hit 1,000 frames per second. The slide was published by @realVictor_M on X. An AMD representative in the United States said via email that the slide “appears to be genuine,” though it would have been authored by AMD’s regional PR team overseas and couldn’t be authenticated by press time. The slide simply points out that three CPUs can achieve 1,000 fps when the games Counter-Strike 2, League of Legends, Valorant, Player Unknown: Battlegrounds, Naraka: Bladepoint, and Marvel Rivals are played using the Ryzen CPUs. Not all of the CPUs listed could hit 1,000 fps on all of the games; as the slide indicates, the only games that all three chips could achieve those numbers in were League of Legends and Valorant. It’s also possible that the slide contains an error: on the left, AMD lists the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and the mobile Ryzen 9 9955HX3D processor as part of the “1,000 Club,” as translated by Google Translate and Tom’s Hardware, which noted the slide. But its matrix of games lists the 9800X3D twice, though paired with two separate GPUs. AMD also set some constraints: the test PCs ran at 1080p, and at 540Hz. The test PCs ran Windows 11 24H2, and turned off the Security Account Manager and Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) — though our tests with VBS showed that turning it off or on didn’t have much effect besides a few percentage points’ worth of performance on certain games. Still, even a few frames may have made the difference. We can’t know for certain. It’s also worth noting that of the GPUs listed, only one is made by AMD. In fact, of the three GPUs listed — Nvidia’s GeForce RTX GeForce 5080 and 5090, as well as AMD’s Radeon RX 9070XT — AMD only achieved 1,000 fps consistently with the GeForce GPUs, and not its own. In general gaming, theres always some tension: do gamers really need something like 300 fps and above, or should they instead dial up the resolution and/or visual effects for a prettier experience? In esports, however, it’s all about the victory, and there’s some truth to the “frames win games” slogan. In this case, AMD appears to be making a valid argument that esports aficionados should be buying a Ryzen X3D chip…but also a GeForce to go along with it. Read...

The director general says the corporation is `aware of the concerns` around Israel`s participation. Read...

Nvidia’s Founders Edition graphics cards are supposed to be the reference design, shorn of any extras and, crucially, sold at retail prices without any markups. So it was alarming when the Founders Edition of the RTX 5090 and 5080 disappeared from Nvidia’s official store over the weekend. Some wondered if they were gone for good. Turns out, no. When pressed on the lack of availability for the most expensive consumer graphics cards on the market at their standard prices, an Nvidia spokesperson said that they’re just out of stock temporarily due to high demand. They gave the statement to WCCFtech, which posted the reply on Sunday. “GeForce RTX 50 series Founders Editions continue to be in production. They are limited edition products so, from time to time, go out of stock on our website and return when back in stock.” There are all kinds of issues causing a squeeze on graphics cards at the moment, Nvidia’s cards most of all. High demand from gamers (and scalpers, though that appears to be winding down), output supply problems as Nvidia also supplies GPUs to AI-hungry industrial clients, general economic turmoil. But it looks like those sought-after Founders Edition cards aren’t disappearing anytime soon, even if they will remain elusive to anyone hoping to get them at the MSRP. Read...

Current laptops with Intel Core Ultra Series 2 processors rely on a hybrid chip design that is specifically geared towards energy efficiency. The Neural Processing Unit (NPU), used for the first time in consumer systems, plays a central role here. This dedicated computing unit for AI tasks relieves the CPU and GPU of inference-based processes such as image recognition, language processing, or modelling. While the CPU had to take on many of these tasks in conventional systems, the NPU enables a significantly more differentiated load distribution. This lowers the average system load and noticeably reduces energy requirements. As many NPU calculations can be carried out at a low clock frequency and in parallel, the energy balance is significantly improved compared to purely CPU- or GPU-based architectures. Energy-saving components in Intel Core Ultra The Intel Core Ultra V models in particular combine four performance cores with four efficiency cores and a dedicated NPU to form a tiered computing unit. The P-cores take over performance-critical tasks, while the E-cores and NPU remain continuously active in the background and run routine processes and AI functions with low power requirements. Mark Hachman / IDG The integrated Intel Arc Graphics also plays a role in this context: it enables hardware-accelerated video decoding and graphics-intensive display without an additional dedicated GPU, which relieves the cooling system and reduces the overall power consumption. The NPU delivers up to 48 TOPS of computing power with minimal power consumption. This benefits AI applications and AI functions as well as users, as the energy requirements of notebooks can be significantly minimised. Intel Microsoft’s energy-saving mechanisms under Windows 11 Parallel to the hardware platform, new energy-saving strategies have been implemented with Windows 11. The “User Interaction-Aware CPU Power Management” analyzes user activity in real time. If no interaction via keyboard, mouse, or touchpad is detected, the system automatically throttles CPU performance without interrupting active media playback or presentations. In addition, the “Adaptive Energy Saver” function also activates the energy-saving mode regardless of the battery status, provided the system load and usage scenario allow this. Sam Singleton In both cases, the NPU can ensure that AI-supported functions remain active in the background without negatively impacting the energy balance. The AI also balances priorities in the background, for example by delaying cloud synchronization or adaptive process rest. HP Omnibook and other Copilot models in comparison Devices such as the HP’s Omnibook X line already integrate these technologies system-wide. In combination with an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V and an Intel Arc 140V GPU, the NPU enables locally executed features such as Windows Studio Effects or AI functions in HP AI Companion without noticeably draining the battery. Many other models also achieve battery runtimes of over 24 hours in mixed operation thanks to the use of NPUs. Models such as the Surface Laptop 6 or the Surface Pro 10 integrate a dedicated NPU directly into the Intel Core Ultra SoC, supplemented by high-performance CPU cores and integrated graphics. Other compatible devices also rely on the Copilot concept, which combines powerful NPUs with intelligent energy management. Devices such as the Galaxy Book with RTX 4050/4070 or the Surface Pro 10 with Intel Core Ultra 7 demonstrate these possibilities. In practice, this means that even when language translation, background blurring or real-time image optimization are actively used, power consumption remains low. Software-based optimization and AI offloading A significant contribution to energy savings is made by shifting compute-intensive workloads to the NPU on the software side. Applications such as Zoom, Adobe Premiere Pro or Amuse are increasingly using native ONNX runtime-based interfaces to offload AI processes such as image generation, object tracking or audio filters to the NPU. Adobe This reduces the energy requirements of the CPU, which is particularly noticeable during long periods of use in video conferences or creative applications. The NPU is accessed via standardized interfaces such as DirectML and Intel and AMD platforms, which have native integration into the ONNX runtime. The resulting reduction in load on the main processors makes a decisive contribution to more even load distribution and therefore longer battery life. Interaction of CPU, GPU, and NPU in practice In modern notebooks, the CPU, GPU, and NPU work as a dynamic processing trio. While the CPU continues to control the operating system and general applications, the GPU takes over graphics-intensive tasks or parallelized computing operations. The NPU concentrates on dedicated AI processes and enables continuous processing with low energy consumption. Windows 11 assigns these tasks specifically, and continuously evaluates which unit is most efficient for execution. IDG / Mark Hachman This means that recurring tasks such as speech transcription, person recognition, or background noise filters can be processed directly on the NPU. This not only lowers power consumption, but also reduces the system temperature, which enables lighter cooling systems and therefore more compact and lighter notebook designs overall. Local processing instead of cloud offloading The local execution of AI workloads on the NPU replaces the usual cloud access in many cases. This means that image analyses, language models, or layout suggestions no longer have to be calculated online, but run entirely on the device. This not only reduces latencies, but also avoids unnecessary network activity. This is another factor that reduces power consumption. At the same time, the availability of these functions is increased even without a network connection, for example on the train or when travelling. Battery life then benefits in two ways: through lower computing load on the CPU and GPU and through reduced Wi-Fi or LTE/5G activity. Windows 11 shows NPU utilization in Task Manager for the first time Microsoft has expanded the Task Manager for control and transparency of this new architecture. In addition to CPU, GPU, and RAM, NPU utilization is now also displayed as a separate measured value. This allows users to understand how much their AI applications are actually benefiting from the dedicated hardware. For developers, the ONNX runtime in combination with the Windows Performance Analyzer also offers detailed diagnostic functions that can be used to specifically analyze inference times, operator load, and load curves. This enables fine-tuned optimization for maximum energy gain and minimum runtime delay. Sam Singleton Battery life as the new benchmark for AI PCs While attention has long focused on computing power and model size, there is now a paradigm shift. The actual runtime of a device is increasingly becoming the most important quality criterion for AI-optimized notebooks. Modern AI notebooks achieve video playback times of over 26 hours under realistic conditions, a value that would be almost impossible to realize without NPU-supported power distribution. At the same time, the combination of an adaptive energy-saving mode, local AI offloading, and intelligent load controls opens up new possibilities for mobile applications where the power supply is not always guaranteed. Conclusion: Saving energy with specialized AI hardware The integration of NPUs into current notebook platforms not only marks a technological advance in terms of AI performance, but also enables a sustainable reduction in energy consumption through intelligent task sharing for the first time. In combination with the new energy-saving functions of Windows 11, the result is a platform that not only works faster in everyday use, but also noticeably more efficiently. For users, this means longer battery life, less waste heat, quieter systems, and an overall better balance between performance and mobility, without sacrificing modern AI functions. Read...

Andrew Fox has been appointed General Manager for HPE Networking in Australia and New Zealand, leading growth and AI-focused networking strategies. Read...

Social media has recently been lit up with claims that a recent Windows update is killing SSDs. According to Microsoft, Windows isn’t at fault. In fact, recent reports show that this problem only occurs on drives with pre-release firmware updates from storage manufacturer Phison. (Pre-release firmware updates are internal builds that never should’ve seen the light of day in actual consumer hardware.) The good news is, the latest Windows update won’t kill your SSD. Even if you’re affected, you can restore your drive with a firmware update. The bad news is, your SSD can still fail for a number of other reasons. Putting Windows Update aside, let’s talk about some of the other real threats to your SSD and what you can do to protect it. Check for SSD firmware updates SSD manufacturers provide utilities that check for firmware updates and monitor your drive’s health. They’re worth installing—and it’s especially true since this recent issue is related to pre-release firmware updates. It’s a good idea to check if your drive has the latest stable firmware installed. Firmware updates may fix bugs and prevent other problems with your SSD. Avoid any beta firmware update files you may see for download on your SSD manufacturer’s website. First, you’ll need to figure out what SSD you have in your PC. One easy way to check is to open File Explorer, right-click your “C:” drive, click “Properties,” and then look under the “Hardware” tab. Or you could just download and launch CrystalDiskInfo. (It’s one of our favorite Windows apps for checking the health of your PC.) Pick the right utility based on your SSD manufacturer: Samsung Magician, SanDisk Dashboard, and Crucial Storage Executive are some big ones. (Despite the name, SanDisk’s utility also handles firmware updates for Western Digital drives.) Perform a web search for the name of your laptop manufacturer and “SSD utility” to find the right utility app. If you have a laptop, your laptop manufacturer’s software may handle firmware updates for the built-in drive, too. This isn’t guaranteed, though. You may need to run a utility created by the company that manufactured the laptop’s built-in SSD instead. Chris Hoffman / Foundry Since I have a Samsung SSD in my desktop PC, I downloaded Samsung Magician. Look for an “Update” option in the app and check if there are any available firmware updates for your drive. If so, make sure you get them installed sooner than later. Ensure your SSD is properly cooled SSDs can generate a lot of heat—especially PCIe 4.0 SSDs and PCIe 5.0 SSDs! Some SSDs come with heatsinks and some don’t, and you can also install an aftermarket heatsink on a standard M.2 SSD. But whether you need a cooler for your SSD really depends on the particular drive you have and the general thermal profile of your case. CrystalDiskInfo is a great way to check your SSD’s temperature, health, and other statistics. If you’re curious about how well it’s cooling, you might also want to run a benchmark using CrystalDiskMark (a synthetic benchmark we use to test SSDs here at PCWorld), which can stress test your drive and monitor it during real-world operations like file transfers. But make sure you check its temperature while writing a lot of data to the drive, not just while reading data from it. Chris Hoffman / Foundry As a rule of thumb, it’s best to keep your SSD below 70 degrees Celsius. If you see the SSD getting hotter than that, that’s a sign it may be throttling itself and not performing at max potential in an effort to stay cool. The exact temperature you need to watch out for depends on your drive—look up its specs in the manual to find its rated operating temperatures. If it’s too hot, look into improving the airflow in your PC’s case and/or installing a heatsink on your SSD. Don’t completely fill the drive Solid-state drives wear down faster when they’re near maximum capacity. That means if your SSD has been at 95% capacity for a long time without much breathing space, it has likely worn down more than necessary. This is less of an issue these days thanks to overprovisioning—many SSDs have a good chunk of “extra” storage—but it’s still a good idea to keep a decent amount of free space on your SSD. Nor Gal / Shutterstock.com For utmost longevity, you should aim to keep your SSD below 80% capacity whenever you can. One added bonus here is that SSD write operations are also faster when the drive is less full, so keeping a lot of free space can help boost your drive’s overall performance. Don’t cheap out on your SSD Not all SSDs are made equal. They differ in capacities and write speeds, and some SSDs are rated for more intensive write cycles, which means some drives wear out faster than others. For consumer-grade SSDs, the biggest difference is TLC (Triple-Level Cell) vs. QLC (Quad-Level Cell) flash memory. Drives with TLC storage have a higher TBW (terabytes written) rating, meaning they can perform more writes before the flash memory cells wear out. The trade-off is that QLC drives tend to be cheaper, for obvious reasons. Mark Hachman / IDG A QLC drive is fine for light PC use, but a TLC drive will hold up better if you’re doing a lot of writing to the drive. For example, a 1TB QLC drive may have a 220 TBW rating while a 1TB TLC drive might have a 600 TBW rating. The exact numbers will depend on the individual drives. If you’re a high-demand PC user—whether you’re downloading huge PC games, editing big media files, or performing any other kind of work that involves regularly writing a lot of data to the drive—you’ll get more mileage out of a TLC drive. The next time you buy a drive, check out our recommendations for the best SSDs for all budgets. Just in case: Back up your files Everything breaks eventually. While a modern SSD doesn’t have the fragile moving parts that made traditional mechanical hard drives vulnerable to failure, it can still break down. You may turn on your PC one day only to find your SSD has failed due to a hardware problem or electrical issue, even if its firmware is problem-free. Aiseesoft The only way to truly protect your data is to maintain backups. Back up locally, back up to the cloud, or both. But whatever you do, make regular backups so you aren’t caught off guard when your SSD fails. One final ‘smart’ warning Windows Update isn’t the main threat to your SSD. Firmware bugs, excessive heat, and write-related wear and tear are all problems you can avoid. Electrical issues and hardware failures are also possibilities. Keep on top of those and your SSD should last a while. Note that some SSDs show a “health status” via something called a SMART early warning system, and you can view this using tools like your SSD manufacturer’s utility app or CrystalDiskInfo. But SMART isn’t foolproof. There’s no guarantee you’ll get an early warning when your SSD is on the brink of failure. An SSD could be showing “in good health” and still end up bricked and unbootable the next day. Here’s the takeaway: a software bug probably won’t take out your SSD, and most SSD risks are things you can see coming and adequately protect yourself against. Ensure you’re using current stable firmware, keeping your drive cool, not filling it to the brim with data, and regularly backing up your files just in case. If you do all that, there’s a good chance your SSD will outlast most of your PC’s other components. Subscribe to Chris Hoffman’s newsletter, The Windows Readme, for more real-world PC advice from a real human. Read...

Microsoft is improving protection against malicious files and links in Microsoft Teams, a problem that has been growing lately. According to a Microsoft 365 Message Center alert, users will start receiving warnings when they send or receive messages classified as malicious. In addition, messages in chats and channels that contain EXE files will be blocked altogether since EXE files are a common vector for malware. Thanks to enhanced integration with Microsoft Defender, all communication from blocked domains will also be disallowed. “To help users stay protected from malicious content, we’re introducing message warnings in Microsoft Teams,” says the alert. “This new feature displays a warning banner on messages containing URLs flagged as Spam, Phish, or Malware—whether the message is internal or external. These warnings enhance user awareness and complement existing security protections like Safe Links and ZAP.” See the official support page to learn more about how link protection works in Teams. The rollout of this new Microsoft Teams security feature will begin with a public preview later in September and is expected to reach general availability by November. It will be available to Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (MDO) customers and Microsoft Teams enterprise customers. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Terrific performance Synapse utility app is fantastic Smartly designed, comfortable keyboard Thunderbolt 5 Light and quiet (for a gaming notebook, anyway) Cons Battery life is abysmal Windows doesn’t accommodate dual-mode screen well Boot sequence could be more responsive Ports could and should be labeled Our Verdict Razer’s Blade 18 outperforms basically everything else out there, with an exception or two. This relatively quiet gaming notebook does suffer from the short battery life of its rivals, and the default 4K screen is so good that the cool dual-resolution mode will probably go underused. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Razer Blade 18 (2025) Retailer Price Razer $4599.99 View Deal Check Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices Razer’s Blade 18 is the limo you take to the airport: probably way too much laptop for your daily needs, sure. But why not simply enjoy it? Someone who buys an 18-inch laptop simply wants the best and biggest laptop around, a desktop replacement capable of playing any game at maximum frame rates. That’s fine for most people. Smart buyers, however, will consider the Blade 18 since its aesthetics have a purpose. For 2025, the laptop brings several notable updates: Intel’s latest Arrow Lake architecture, Nvidia GeForce GPUs up to the RTX 5090, and a new dual-mode screen that combines a 4K creator-class display with a high-resolution esports monitor. Fantastic performance, smart design, even weight that won’t burn out your biceps. There’s very little I didn’t like about the Razer Blade 18. Overall, the Razer Blade 18 excels where performance matters most, combining thoughtful design and powerhouse hardware, though its battery life and minor quirks remind you this is a premium desktop replacement, not a portable workhorse. Razer Blade 18: Configuration options Razer’s 2025 update of the Razer Blade 18 steps up to Intel’s Arrow Lake Core Ultra 9 275HX, whose mobile performance impressed me. But there’s also Razer’s first use of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5000 lineup, memory that jumps to 64GB, and up to 4 TB of storage. Razer has returned to using a dual-mode screen, first seen on the 2023 version of the Blade 16. That model offered a less robust version of what’s in the 2025 Blade 18. During the day, you can edit on its 4K, 240Hz display. By evening, switch to a 1080p, 480Hz mode for esports gaming. Razer’s RGB logo adorns the back of the Razer Blade 18.Mark Hachman / Foundry Razer used to sell its Blade laptops on Amazon as well as its own site. At the moment, however, most models have been pulled from Amazon. The only place to buy the Blade 18 appears to be Razer’s website. If the Blade 18 is simply too much, Razer also ships the Blade 16 and Blade 14, though the components step down a bit. A larger notebook allows for more cooling, which means more power can go through the CPU and GPU. Both the Blade 16 and Blade 18 offer an RTX 5090 option, but the Blade 18 supports 175W of GPU power versus 160W on the Blade 16. That usually translates to higher performance. At Razer, your choices are limited: every version ships with an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX. Otherwise, you can downgrade the GPU from an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 with 24GB of VRAM to an RTX 5080 (16GB VRAM) or to a 5070 Ti option. The way Razer phrases it seems like simply dropping down to an RTX 5080 will save you $1,100, period. But Razer ties your GPU selection to other RAM and storage options, so that there are essentially four versions of the Blade 18 to choose from: Razer Blade 18 with RTX 5090, 4 TB (2TB + 2TB) SSD, 64GB RAM: $4,599.99 (as tested) Razer Blade 18 with RTX 5090, 2TB SSD, and 32GB RAM: $4,199.99 Razer Blade 18 with RTX 5080, 1TB SSD, 32GB RAM: $3,499.99 Razer Blade 18 with RTX 5070 TI, 1 TB SSD, 32GB RAM: $2,999.99 Razer also tosses in some “gifts” — at press time, Borderlands 4, Battlefield 6, and a month’s worth of Game Pass Ultimate PC — with the purchase of the Blade 18, as well. Mark Hachman / Foundry Razer Blade 18: Specifications Display: 18-Inch dual-mode IPS display: 3840×2400, 240Hz; 1920×1200, 440Hz (non-touch) Processor: Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX (5.4GHz turbo, 24 cores/24 threads) Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, 12GB GDDR7 VRAM/RTX 5080, 16GB GDDR7 VRAM/RTX 5090 (150W + 25W dynamic boost), 24GB GDDR7 VRAM (5090 as tested) NPU: No Memory: 32GB-64GB DDR5-5600 (64GB as tested) Storage: 1TB-2TB M.2. NVMe PCI 4.0; 4TB (both M.2. slots filled) (4TB as tested) Ports: Thunderbolt 5 (DP 2.1, 100W charging), Thunderbolt 4 (DP 2.1, 100W charging), HDMI 2.1, RJ45 (2.5Gbps Ethernet), UHS-II SD, 3.5mm headphone jack Security: Windows Hello (camera) Camera: 1440p, 30 Hz (user facing) Battery: 99Wh Wireless: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 Operating system: Windows 11 Home 24H2 Dimensions: 15.74 x 10.84 x 0.86-1.1in. Weight: 7.06 pounds Color: Anodized black Price: $$2,999.99 – $4,599.99 ($4,599.99 as tested) Razer Blade 18: Out of the box Most ultra-premium gaming laptops that I’ve seen tend to prioritize the internal components over the external chassis: throw in a bit of RGB bling and spend the rest of your engineering talent worrying about keeping the components cool. Take the rival Maingear Ultima 18: it’s just a big black slab. Stick it on its end, and you can imagine a tribe of apes worshiping it while “Also sprach Zarathustra” plays. Razer’s Blade 18 is different. Instead of extending the laptop’s underside the length of the laptop, there’s a “bump” that protrudes from the underside, housing the cooling module. A small cutout “exposes” some of the components behind a clear Mylar plastic window, lit by user-adjustable RGB lighting. Mark Hachman / Foundry Add to that the existing RGB-lit Razer logo that’s already mounted on the top/rear of the laptop itself, and that’s a healthy dose of RGB right there. Fortunately, it’s out of sight, and at least the vapor chamber lighting can be disabled, if necessary. All this isn’t totally unique; the Alienware 16 Area 51 includes a similar cooling bump and light-up logo. But it’s still an interesting twist that attracts the eye. (Note to Razer: if you’re going to leave the logo lighting on at all times, an Ambilight mode might be a neat addition.) Unlike other gaming laptops I’ve tried, the Blade 18 doesn’t feel ungainly. At 7.06 pounds, it’s surprisingly manageable. The chassis is made from CNC-milled aluminum and features a fingerprint-resistant coating. (That’s technically true. Fingerprints might not stick, but the chassis will pick up oil and dust, and I had to spend a few minutes polishing the chassis for photos.) You’ll find a couple of fun quirks right off the bat: the first is the dual-mode display, which we’ll talk about in a bit. The second is the keyboard, which not only offers a number of adjustable RGB lighting effects, but also assigns two RGB LEDs to selected keys. Put another way, when you hit the SHIFT key, the RGB lighting will illuminate only the “%,” “^,” and “&” keys, not the numbers themselves. Notice how when the SHIFT button is depressed, only the punctuation lights up, not the numbers. And yes, the chassis attracts fingerprints.Mark Hachman / Foundry One of the few things I didn’t like about this laptop is that the relatively uninspired boot sequence. Hit the power button, and the Blade just sits there — or seems to. While there’s a small green light on the front of the keyboard tray that lights green during the boot sequence, the rest of the laptop seemingly doesn’t respond. Only after the Windows boot sequence appears on the screen does the laptop respond with a “ripple” of RGB lighting across the keyboard, a visual signal that you’re ready to go. The power cord might be a bit polarizing, too. I’ve used Maingear laptops and bemoaned the jiggly, rear-mounted power cord. Razer uses a side-mounted power cord (connected to a 400W charger) and it’s quite stiff to work it in and out of the charging port. Some of you might like that (how often do you remove a gaming laptop’s power cord, anyway?) but I found it slightly annoying. Note that while this laptop does include a Thunderbolt 5 port, that port doesn’t support the full 240W charging spec — just 100W instead. Of course, even TB5 couldn’t supply the nearly 400W that the Blade 18 demands under full load. The fan noise on the Razer Blade 18 certainly does get loud under load, as expected from a gaming notebook. It’s not overwhelming, just a bit unpleasant. There’s minimal coil whine, but it’s there. Razer says that it’s expanded the vapor chamber to its largest ever, combining triple fan blades and 0.075mm exhaust fins to generate 280W across the package. Our thermal tests (more in the performance section, below) detected no thermal throttling under prolonged CPU and GPU testing. That’s the result Razer was designing for. I like to put my laptops on my desk’s keyboard drawer, and the Blade 18 is a bit too big for that. You’ll need a flat desk, or risk the laptop supporting itself on its cooling bump. That’s probably fine, but still. (I did all my testing on a flat surface.) One note on the ports, which are listed above: this is the first laptop I’ve seen with both a Thunderbolt 5 and a Thunderbolt 4 port on it, neither of which are labeled. The TB5 port is on the right, and the TB4 port is on the left. The left side of the Razer Blade 18 includes a Thunderbolt 5 port, which is unlabeled, as well as the HDMI and USB port.Mark Hachman / Foundry I found myself repeatedly returning to the hyper-detailed Razer Synapse application, which contains controls for adjusting the lighting, laptop performance, and display. Razer includes several performance profiles, (Balanced, Silent, Performance, and Turbo), which I bounced in and out of depending on the application. Unfortunately, the “Silent” mode wasn’t entirely silent, even when simply writing this review, and I would have liked it to shut down the fan entirely. Synapse also failed to launch the “Razer” module for adjusting the performance when I rebooted the laptop without an internet connection. Turning on the Wi-Fi reinstated the module and the performance settings, which were still there after turning off the Wi-Fi. I don’t know if it was a glitch or not, but I wasn’t impressed. That’s one of the few things I didn’t like about Synapse, which is about as well-thought-out as utility software goes these days. I’m a little surprised that Razer shipped the laptop with Windows 11 Home, not Pro, but PCWorld’s software store features some killer Windows 11 Pro deals — at press time, a Windows 11 Pro license is just $13. On this side, there’s a Thunderbolt 4 port as well as Ethernet, more USB-A, and the power port and 3.5mm jack.Mark Hachman / Foundry Razer Blade 18: Display A major change for the 2025 Blade 18 is the display. Previous models offered either a QHD+ mini LED panel (2560×1600) at 300Hz or a 4K screen at 300Hz, both stretched to 18 inches diagonally. That’s the traditional way of buying a laptop; you choose one or the other. With the 2025 version of the Razer Blade 18, you get a dual-mode display — both for the price of one, basically. The price, if there is one, is that there’s no touchscreen. You can use the incredibly handy Razer Synapse application to switch between display modes.Mark Hachman / Foundry Specifically, the Blade 18 offers a 3840×2400 240Hz display, switchable to a 1920×1200, 440Hz option after rebooting the laptop. The idea is that creators will spend all day designing using the 4K option, then swap to the super-high-refresh-rate option for after-hours fun. In reality, I actually never wanted to switch to the 1200p mode, since playing games at 4K+ resolutions at 240Hz is pretty damn cool all by itself. Since the Consumer Electronics Association considers 4K to be 3840×2160, you’re getting a bit better than a 4K screen just to begin with. Ditto for the 1080p-ish 1200p mode, too. The drawback is that both share the same IPS panel, which some might consider a downgrade compared to the miniLED panel of yesteryear. The Razer Blade 18 (2024)’s miniLED panel boasted 2,000 “dimming zones” that can be turned off and on to approximate the elite contrast of an OLED panel. IPS doesn’t really offer the same visual contrast. Another issue is that Windows didn’t automatically adjust the scaling when switching from 4K to 1200p resolution. The scaling became enormous, and in some applications, I couldn’t access menu items at the bottom of the window without connecting to an external display. Windows, unfortunately, thought that the new resolution was a minimum, so that the only adjustment to be made would be to make the text and windows even larger. The Razer Blade 18 color gamut, as measured under the 4K (left) and 1080p) settings (right). That only seemed to happen with the laptop display, however, under Windows. The games I tried adjusted for the new settings. And when connected to an external display the text on that display rendered normally. Still, if you’re going to buy a laptop with a premium display, it should work correctly. Otherwise, the color gamut on the Blade 18’s display wasn’t quite as good as a creator-class notebook, but it put out a hefty 532 nits of luminance whether it was in the 4K or 1080p mode. That’s enough for working outside, though the abysmal battery life of this laptop will mean that you won’t be working long before you hunt down a power outlet. Razer Blade 18: Keyboard and trackpad Razer’s purchasing department obviously bought the Blade 18’s trackpad at the warehouse store, with an enormous touchpad that’s nearly 6-inches wide and 3.75-inches long, reaching nearly from the edge of the keyboard tray to the spacebar. Unfortunately, only about half was easily clickable, with an additional quarter or so clickable after applying substantial pressure. That gives the trackpad a bit of a vestigial feel. After all, Razer would be happy to sell you one of its branded mice. Mark Hachman / Foundry The keyboard, however, is far better. The Blade 18’s keys depress with 1.5mm of key travel, which is about where I like it. Keep in mind that I typically use a business keyboard, where 1.25mm of key travel is common — I welcomed the additional travel distance. If you’re looking for a truly mechanical keyboard with far more key travel, however, something like the Alienware X16 R2 might be more your style. Each key is configurable via the Synapse key to configure it for a keypress, macro, mouse movement, or more, and there are even four dedicated “memory keys” to store specific configurations. Using the Synapse application, you can adjust each key’s function in eight different ways! As mentioned above, many of the keys have dual RGB LEDs inside them, all configurable from the Synapse application. Depress the SHIFT key, and specific keys light up; that goes for the function (FN) keys as well as the NUMLOCK keys. That’s hella cool, and I was unreasonably happy that Razer included that function. The Razer Blade 18 in a darkened room.Mark Hachman / Foundry When playing a game, the WASD (and R and C) keys light up by default (or at least by a setting that I didn’t recall tweaking). Given that I’m a left-handed gamer and use the keypad instead, that’s actually a little insulting. However, there’s a full 10-digit number pad to the right, an important concession to lefty gamers who use that instead of WASD keys. Razer Blade 18: Webcam, microphone speakers The Razer Blade 18’s webcam is passable. Supposedly it allows for 1440p video captures at 30 Hz, but I suspect that it’s using some of that additional resolution to crop in and “zoom” in on your face using Windows Studio Effects. In any event, the image is somewhat soft, and my face looked a bit too ruddy under artificial light and too washed out under natural lighting. This isn’t necessarily a plug for PCWorld’s recommendations of the best webcams, though if you can afford a $4,000 gaming laptop, what’s an additional $50 or so? What Razer is primarily concerned with, however, is the laptop speakers, especially when playing back movies and playing games. Razer’s speakers are passable, and a bit bass-heavy; that’s not surprising for a laptop with four woofers and a pair of tweeters, all enhanced via THX. Nothing stood out in my mind as something I’d prefer listening to, and that was while the laptop’s fans were set to “Silent.” Mark Hachman / Foundry Typically, gameplay on a gaming laptop is accompanied by roaring fans. While Razer’s Blade 18 doesn’t overwhelm you with noise, the fans are loud enough to drown out the small nuances. A game like Expedition 33, for example, demands headphones to ensure you hear the full range of the score. Put another way, the typical Blade 18 customer will be using headphones anyway. The noise filtering on the two dual- array microphones, though, is nearly perfection — some of the best I’ve (not) heard, ever. I usually hold up my phone and move it behind my head and off to the side, playing back rock music and then some white noise at a loud volume. The Razer Blade 18 filtered it all out — every bit — perfectly. I couldn’t really find any built-in controls for this, so it must have done it by default. Just be sure and adjust the Windows settings for the mic (System > Sound > Properties > Test mode for microphone audio processing) to the Communications drop-down setting, or else your voice will sound somewhat hollow. Razer Blade 18: Is it a Copilot+ PC? No. As we segue into our performance testing, it’s worth pointing out that most of the Intel Core Ultra Series 2 processor family does include an NPU with the requisite 40 TOPS requirement to earn the Copilot+ designation. The Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX does not. But the 275HX does include an NPU with 36 total TOPS. And Nvidia’s 5090 GPU — basically the most powerful mobile GPU on the planet at the moment — will absolutely chew through AI tasks while just falling short of earning Microsoft’s AI badge of honor. Crazy! Razer Blade 18: Performance Spend $4,500 on an 18-inch notebook, and you probably have one requirement: that it play any game you’d like, at full resolution. We can’t say this with certainty, but the Blade 18 will certainly get you almost all of the way there. Note: in the performance tests below, frame generation and upscaling are off. Some gamers call these “fake frames.” The results here are “farm-to-table” frames, rendered directly by the notebook itself. You can turn on these upscaling features for additional performance, though some people notice a small drop in visual quality as a result. In almost all cases, the laptop is good enough to deliver more than playable framerates without any AI enhancements. In the high-end “Turbo” mode, the Blade 18 pulls close to its rated 400W at full load.Mark Hachman / Foundry For a laptop like this, you want to take the best gaming laptops out there, lock them in a room, and don’t let them out until one survives. The only fair thing to do is to put the $4,599 Razer Blade 18 up against other industry heavyweights. We chose the $3,599 Maingear Ultima 18, the $5,099 MSI Raider A18 HX A9W, the $4,199 MSI Stealth 18AI Studio A1V, the $3,700 Gigabyte Aorus 17X, and the $3,349 Alienware 16 Area-51 AW30. All of these except for the last two include 18-inch displays, which gives the chassis more than enough room for sizeable cooling options. We plugged in last year’s $3,549.99 Alienware m18 R2 with a Core i9 14900HX and an RTX 4090; how does that compare with 2025’s newest CPU and GPU? We also added Razer’s own 16-inch, which offers a different CPU but a similar RTX 5090 GPU (at 175W) and at a very comparable $4,499 price. I tested the Razer Blade 18 in both of its “4K” and “1080p” configurations, because I wasn’t sure if the performance would differ. As it turned out, they do not. But it’s a question I didn’t know the answer to with certainty, so it was worth investigating. Likewise, I tested the Razer Blade 18 in both its default “Performance” configuration as well as the top-end “Turbo” mode. Turbo kicks the power consumption up a notch, from a peak of 380W to 392W — close to the rated 400W charger limit. In some cases, performance increases. I tested using this setting as well, and the “Turbo” results are designated using the black outline around the red bar indicating the Razer Blade 18’s score. We can generate a general level of CPU performance using the Cinebench benchmark, which pushes all of the laptop’s CPU threads to their utmost to render a scene. Mark Hachman / Foundry On the desktop, AMD’s Ryzen AI processors have bested Intel’s Arrow Lake architecture. In mobile, it’s much closer, and the Ryzen 9 9955HX3D squeaks by a tiny margin, even above the “Turbo” setting. We’ve used older Cinebench benchmarks in the past; the R2024 test takes longer and works the system harder. In general, however, all of these 18-inch (and even one 16-inch) notebooks are very close where synthetic CPU performance is concerned. Handbrake takes this approach and extends it. This is an open-source conversion tool, originally designed to allow you to shrink down movies to store on a tablet for use on a long airplane flight. It asks the CPU to run at its fastest speeds for a long duration — this test could take over an hour to run on a Celeron a decade ago, but this now requires just minutes to complete (6.78 minutes, for the Razer Blade 18) to convert an entire 90-ish minute movie. We measure the time in seconds it takes Handbrake to complete the job. Mark Hachman / Foundry The one test we were not able to run was UL’s PCMark 10, which according to UL’s support staff has a known issue with Nvidia’s latest GPU driver and the RTX 5090. That’s disappointing, as PCMark still uses a representative swathe of applications, from web browsing to video chats to light gaming and CAD work, and generates a score. While I’d like to include these numbers to provide a complete picture, I think I can safely say that the Razer Blade 18 will handle all of your office tasks with ease. We can move on, then, to the GPU performance. We’ve used the UL 3DMark test to evaluate synthetic 3D performance, specifically the Time Spy test for compatibility’s sake. You’d expect the RTX 5090 inside the Razer Blade 18 to perform well, and it does. Mark Hachman / Foundry Gaming, of course, is a big reason why you’re buying this laptop. We use a representative series of three games as a benchmark across generations of laptops and desktops. Shadow of the Tomb Raider, published by Square Enix, doesn’t feel especially old, yet it was released in 2018. We push the graphics quality to its highest setting and turn off frame-generation, ray tracing, and various effects. You can see the massive generational jump from gaming notebooks that use CPUs and GPUs just a generation old and what the latest laptops like the Razer Blade 18 can achieve. For reference, most gamers may tolerate 30 frames per second in some games, but 60 fps is usually considered the minimum, with 90 fps preferred. All of our gaming benchmarks are expressed in frames per second (fps), and you’ll have no issue here. Remember, this laptop has a dual-mode screen. But while I ran these benchmarks on the 4K as well as the 1080p, high-refresh-rate settings, I saw no difference. Mark Hachman / Foundry Here we see that, well, there are games and settings that will push the Blade 18 to its limits. Deep Silver’s 2019 game, Metro: Exodus, certainly does. Here, we use the game’s “Extreme” settings, which does leave ray tracing off, but turns on other effects to give the game a more dynamic look. While all of our test laptops can play this game, there’s a definite spread between the most powerful devices on the top of this chart, and those below. Mark Hachman / Foundry It’s hard to believe that Cyberpunk: 2077 is almost five years old, too. This game has been a phenomenal benchmark, with a wide variety of available settings. This is a game which would like you to turn on ray tracing. For this test, I do — both the 1080p Ultra settings are tested, as well as the “Ray Tracing Overdrive” setting which really asks everything of the laptop. Remember, we turn off upscaling and frame generation to help generate consistent scores. But after turning on frame generation and upscaling, Cyberpunk delivered 130 fps (minimum 118 fps) on the Ray Tracing Overdrive setting at the native settings of the panel, 3840×2400. In other words, you can push Cyberpunk, at maximum settings, to deliver playable frame rates at the native panel resolution. (At 1080p, the result was 269 fps.) All of this subsample of tests dialed up the laptop to its maximum Turbo settings. Mark Hachman / Foundry Although Razer doesn’t market its Blade 18 as an AI workstation, the fact that it includes an RTX 5090 GPU with a hefty 24GB of VRAM automatically qualifies it for AI use. I recently reviewed the Framework Desktop, which includes AMD’s “Strix Halo” Ryzen AI Max chip, with gobs of memory. That allows it to load large AI LLM and image models, which gives it a leg up in terms of AI capabilities. It’s also much quieter. But the fact remains that most AI apps take full and best advantage of a GPU. These are test workloads, so the models used by UL’s Procyon test are going to be smaller and more outdated than the state of the art. But they’re also standardized. In this context, there’s simply no content between an “AI workstation” and the gobs of GPU compute power than an RTX 5090 can generate: four times the Framework Desktop. The same holds for AI chatbots or LLM text generation, too. Here, I’m much more sympathetic toward AMD’s processors. One of the measures of LLM performance is simply how quickly the response can be generated, in both the time to the first token (or word) and how quickly the entire answer is generated. In my book, speed matters a bit less if you can’t read as quickly as the AI generates its response. The Framework Desktop can allocate up to 96GB of VRAM for AI in our review unit. By comparison, the 5090 GPU in the Blade 18 allows only 24GB. This means the Blade 18 is much faster at calculating AI responses, though you might prefer the quality of results it produces. So there’s a subjective as well as an objective angle to this particular test. The weak spot? Battery life, naturally. For whatever reason, gaming laptops simply don’t last longer than a few hours in terms of battery life unless they’re tweaked. And this is just video playback. Just become accustomed to bringing your charger in case you want to game on the road. And remember, the Thunderbolt port doesn’t supply enough juice to keep the Blade 18 running for long. Mark Hachman / Foundry The chart above ranges from awful to rather good, actually. You might not be impressed with how the Razer Blade 16 performs on all of the gaming benchmarks, but it won’t conk out as quickly as the Razer Blade 18 will, that’s for sure. All told, the Razer Blade 18 delivers 4.9 hours of battery life while playing back video. But it’s a gaming laptop, right? So how long does it last while gaming? On battery, looping the Time Spy gaming benchmark, the laptop’s uptime was just one hour, six minutes. That is really bad. Synapse does come with numerous adjustments and configurations that can be made while on battery, but you’re still trying to draw blood from a stone. Razer Blade 18: Conclusion Of all the gaming laptops we’ve tested, I think that the $3,349 Alienware 16 Area-51 AW30 offers the most bang for your buck, though it’s a smaller 16-inch machine. But aside from the truly abysmal battery life — which, to be fair, is typical of most gaming laptops anyway — the Razer Blade 18 shines. I wondered whether Razer’s goal of a thin, “light” gaming laptop would fall short. A typical 18-inch gaming laptop weighs about eight pounds, while the Blade 18 comes in just above seven pounds. As our performance tests indicate, it certainly doesn’t fall short. My main gripe is that Windows doesn’t smoothly handle shifting between the two screen modes, which means near-constant UI adjustments. The stiff charger and quirky boot sequence add minor annoyances, though Synapse remains an exceptionally well-thought-out piece of software. Overall, the Razer Blade 18 excels where performance is concerned, which certainly is the key metric. But it’s also clear how much thought and care went into the design, and that won me over early on. In all, the Blade 18 easily earns PCWorld’s Editor’s Choice award. Read...