The lithium-ion battery inside your power bank isn’t designed to run forever. After years of use and hundreds of charges, its performance and capacity will decline, while the risk of more severe issues increases. There are things you can do to prolong your power bank’s lifespan, while also ensuring you can use it safely. And if it’s already a few years old, there are signs that your power bank may be reaching the end of its life and needs to be disposed of properly.

The risk of a power bank causing a fire, which is the result of a chain reaction known as a thermal runaway, is low. But when it does happen, the fires are intense, occasionally explosive, and difficult to extinguish. Anker recently recalled more than 1.1 million aging power banks, and while the company says it only received 19 reports of fires and explosions, the incidents caused multiple injuries and over $60,000 of property damage.

Knowing how to detect when a power bank has reached the end of its life can help prevent hardware failures and reduce the risk of a fire, but so can being proactive and knowing how to use the device properly.

It may seem obvious, and it’s not foolproof, but buying a power bank from a reputable brand can increase the chances it’s made from higher-quality components and materials, and that it’s free from manufacturing defects. Cheaper power banks may seem like a bargain, but the corners that have been cut to reduce their price tag could have negative impacts on their performance and reliability.

Larger and more expensive power banks with greater capacities — like a 20,000mAh model instead of a smaller 5,000mAh one — also generally last longer, according to Anker. More capacity means a power bank has more battery cells to distribute the power load, putting less strain on them individually per charge cycle and increasing their lifespan.

The thermal runaways typically responsible for power bank fires are caused when the chemical reactions in a rechargeable battery produce more heat than can be dissipated, resulting in a rapid, uncontrolled release of energy. To help mitigate the risk of overheating, you should avoid using or storing power banks in environments where there’s extreme temperatures. For example, don’t store them in a vehicle that’s at risk of getting extremely hot inside, and avoid leaving them exposed to direct sunlight.

Storing your power banks in a cool, dry, and dark location such as a closet is a good idea, but putting them all in a single container may not be. Keeping a little space between them reduces the risk of an overheating power bank causing another one to overheat.

It’s also important to stop using a power bank and dispose of it properly if it’s been pierced or damaged, which includes accidental drops. Although it may look fine on the outside (aside from a scuff or a dent), it’s impossible to know how the battery inside has been affected, and it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Anker’s suggestions for extending the life of a power bank include only charging it to between 50 and 80 percent capacity to prevent accidental overcharging, and to avoid completely draining it before the next charge. It also recommends against using your power bank to charge another device while it’s being charged, which can generate excessive heat and put extra strain on the battery.

Some higher-end power banks allow for software and firmware updates, and companies will occasionally release updates that improve their performance or fix bugs that reduce their capacity or lifespan. You can check the specific manufacturer’s website to see if this is a feature offered on your model and whether updates are available for download.

There are no tools that can definitively tell you when it’s time to replace a power bank, but a common symptom of batteries that have reached the end of their life is reduced performance. If it’s taking significantly longer to fully recharge the power bank than when it was new or if the number of times you can use the power bank to recharge your device has been reduced, it might be time to replace it.

Power banks, particularly smaller models, will always get warm when being charged or while powering other devices. But if your power bank gets so hot that it doesn’t feel safe to physically handle, that could be a sign that there are potential problems.

it’s a good idea to regularly check manufacturers’ websites for product recalls. Anker recently recalled over 1.1 million aging power banks.

Image: Anker

 

Other symptoms that are easier to spot include physical changes like a deformation or swelling. One of the safety features of lithium-ion batteries is a sealed casing that prevents chemicals like electrolyte from leaking while also protecting internal components. Excessive heat, or the age of the battery, can cause the electrolyte material to decompose, which creates a buildup of gases, making the protective casing expand like a balloon. If it expands enough, it can cause parts of the power bank itself to bulge outward, which is easy to spot. If left too long, those expanding gases can cause a battery to burst.

Some issues are impossible to detect, so it’s also a good idea to regularly check manufacturers’ websites for product recalls. Companies like Anker and Baseus have dedicated pages where recalled products are listed. You can also search for specific brands and products on the US Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) website to find information about recalls.

Even though the risk of a fire and explosions is low, power banks and other devices that use rechargeable lithium-ion batteries need to be disposed of properly and should never be thrown away with your home’s regular trash or recycling. There have been several reports of garbage truck fires caused by lithium-ion batteries getting damaged by the vehicle’s crushing mechanisms, and prioritizing convenience over someone else’s safety is irresponsible.

Some stores that sell electronics, like Staples and Best Buy, offer recycling programs, but they typically have limitations on what they’ll accept. According to Best Buy’s website, its stores won’t accept “items that present a health or safety hazard” or “any product subject to a CPSC recall.” You’ll want to first confirm what your local store is willing to accept.

If you’re trying to get rid of a power bank that’s been officially recalled or is showing signs of being at the end of its life, you’ll need to ensure you’re following local laws and regulations when it comes to proper disposal and find a recycling facility near you that’s equipped to handle electronics that are potentially dangerous.

Your local municipality may recommend specific facilities to use. In addition, the US Environmental Protection Agency website lists several organizations that can help you find a disposal facility based on your location, including Earth911, Call2Recycle, and the Consumer Technology Association’s Greener Gadgets. But as with retail locations, it’s a good idea to first contact the electronics recycling facility and confirm the types of devices that it will accept.

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At long last, and after much player questioning, Borderlands 4 developer Gearbox Software has confirmed that a very highly requested feature will be in the studio's latest entry in its popular looter shooter franchise. However, it won't be available when the game launches on September 12, and will be something fans have to wait for.

The feature in question is Photo Mode — a tool that allows players to capture cinematic screenshots of their gameplay, often with options like color grading filters, tweakable depth of field settings, letterboxing, and more. Photo Mode has increasingly become viewed as a staple feature as games have grown more and more graphically impressive over the years; thus, it's disappointing that it won't be in Borderlands 4 at launch.

Borderlands 4 creative director Graeme Timmins announced that the mode was coming on Tuesday morning, also revealing that it will be delayed until post-launch: "Hey guys, wanted to confirm that Photo Mode will be coming to Borderlands 4! It'll be a feature that we add in an update after the game launches," he wrote on social media.

It's always exciting when older games get revitalized in the modern gaming era by surprise major updates, and later this week, one is coming to what is widely considered to be one of the best zombie games of all time: Dying Light. Techland's 2015 open-world survival horror title may be a decade old, now, but that hasn't stopped the developer from working on a new patch for it.

First teased in scarce detail in January, the patch has been revealed as the Dying Light: Retouched Update — a huge glow-up for the title that's significantly improving the quality of its textures, lighting, physics-based rendering (PBR), and draw distances while also integrating a remastered score, new music tracks, and enhanced sound effects.

News of the Retouched Update came on Tuesday morning, with Dying Light franchise director Tymon Smektała publishing a blog post that goes over the changes in full detail. In it, he also announced that the patch will be free, and is coming to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC (Steam, GOG, Epic Games Store), PS5, and PS4 on June 26 (this Thursday).

(Image credit: Techland)

 

(Image credit: Techland)

 

(Image credit: Techland)

 

Something important to note is that Techland has stressed the Retouched Update features enhancements, and is not a full-fledged remaster. To that end, fans can look forward to upscaled, more detailed textures, better lighting, and more realistic PBR reflections (see the above gallery), but none of the in-game assets have been completely rebuilt from the ground up or anything like that.

 

"Over the past couple of years, we've added a lot, customized a lot, and learned how to squeeze more from the tech we already have. One day, someone just started applying those learnings to some old assets — and it just clicked that we could do that across the whole game," explained technical game director Grzegorz Świstowski.

 

“It was a lot of manual work — but increasing the texture resolution or quality can have a huge impact on how the environment appears on screen,” added lead 3D artist Krzysztof Knefel.

 

The two then discussed PBR and draw distance enhancements, with the maximum level-of-detail (LOD) for the latter getting raised from 260% to 340% in the settings menu. By taking advantage of that with "modern and better systems" (at the moment, it's unclear if this specific feature is limited to PC or not) you'll be able to see high-quality detail farther into the distance.

 

On the audio side of things, Dying Light's original composer Paweł Blaszczak returned to remaster the game's soundtrack, even going so far as to record it on tape to preserve the game's "retro-tape sound." New tracks and ambient sound effects have been implemented to enrich the soundscape, too, and Techland "seriously juiced up the hit reaction audio in combat" as well.

 

An official screenshot of a brutal melee fight against infected in Dying Light.

(Image credit: Techland)

 

Smektała concluded the post by addressing why the Retouched Update took so long to develop, explaining that it was difficult to bring these enhancements to Dying Light without causing issues due to the game's age.

 

"We were working with 10+ year old technology. Even with all the new experience we've gained over the years, figuring out how to apply those learnings to the original Dying Light engine while keeping everything stable was a challenge," he said. "And let me tell you, it was a massive amount of manual work."

 

Notably, Techland committed to making sure the Retouched Update didn't change Dying Light's system requirements — something many budget PC users and last-gen console players will no doubt greatly appreciate. "You can't just crank up the details and hope it still works on everyone's system, specially on consoles — we were testing endlessly to ensure we didn't run out of memory on last-gen consoles," added Grzegorz.

 

All in all, Dying Light: Retouched looks like a fantastic update for the beloved classic, and gives fans a great reason to return to it as they wait for the August 22 release of Dying Light: The Beast (notably, Dying Light protagonist Kyle Crane will be the protagonist of that game as well; he didn't appear in 2022's Dying Light 2). I never finished the game myself, but with all these improvements elevating it to new heights, I've finally got some motivation to do so. See you in Harran.

 

Oh, and now also seems like a good time to mention that the Definitive Edition of Dying Light with all of its DLC content is selling for just $7.09 on CDKeys — a massive discount on its $49.99 MSRP. Take advantage!

 

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The RTX 5050 is a $249 card ($50 cheaper than the RTX 5060), and it will be available in the second half of July, according to Nvidia. It has 8GB of video memory with a 128-bit bus, 2,560 CUDA cores (same as the 8GB RTX 3050), and the latest-generation RT cores (40 TFLOPS) and Tensor cores (421 AI TOPS). Interestingly, this is the only RTX 50-series graphics card with GDDR6 memory—the rest of the lineup utilizes a more modern GDDR7 standard.

Despite a notable memory downgrade, the RTX 5050 still supports all the features found in more expensive Blackwell cards. Those include DLSS4 multi-frame generation, 9th-generation NVENC, 6th-generation NVDEC, PCIe Gen5, and more.

As for power, TGP is rated for 130W via a single 8-pin power connector. Nvidia also recommends a minimum 550W PSU.

Nvidia skipped a 50-tier graphics card in the Ada Lovelace generation (RTX 40 Series). While there is a mobile RTX 4050, the most affordable desktop GPU from the RTX 40 series lineup is the RTX 4060. Now, facing the growing pressure from AMD with its RTX 9000 series GPUs, Nvidia is offering more options at the lower end of the price spectrum.

You can find more information about the RTX 5050 on the official Nvidia website.

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Now, Dell has acknowledged the issue in a recently published support document. As the situation currently stands, Night Light does not work on the secondary display on certain Windows Arm PCs when an external monitor is connected to them. This happens on the following PC models:

• Inspiron 14 5441
• Inspiron 14 Plus 7441
• Latitude 5455
• Latitude 7455
• XPS 13 9345

Now, Dell has confirmed that this is not due to any hardware or software issue on its side, it's just a limitation of the Qualcomm Oryon chipset. In essence, this is a problem that is outside the control of Dell.

What this means is that while customers can utilize built-in and third-party tools to adjust the color profiles of their displays, Dell can't really get Windows Night Light to work as-is on external displays connected to any of the Arm PCs listed above.

The company has emphasized that there are no plans to support Windows Night Light on its existing Arm PCs, and that customers will just have to make do with what they have. However, this feature will likely work as designed with the "next generation" of Arm computers, which will presumably leverage a chipset that is not held back by this limitation. Windows on Arm has enjoyed decent support from software developers in recent times; Microsoft will be hoping that it can keep the momentum going with its next Snapdragon PCs.

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I come bearing good news for PC builders who hate spending big money; signs are pointing to AMD launching a new Ryzen 5 9600X3D processor this year.

The information comes from X user MelodicWarrior, who found the 9600X3D chip listed in AMD's latest "SI Driver for Radeon" update notes.

AMD really didn't try to hide the 9600X3D at all. The link to the update notes has the CPU clearly listed alongside Zen 5 X3D chips already on the market, including the 9950X3D, 9900X3D, and 9800X3D.

The Chromebook Plus 14 comes with a 14-inch OLED display, with optional touchscreen models. Customers can customize this laptop with up to 16 GB of RAM based on their performance needs. Thanks to the power-efficient SoC, Lenovo claims that this Chromebook can last up to 17 hours on a single charge, the longest battery life on a Chromebook Plus.

The Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 is now available for purchase in the US, starting at $649 from Best Buy and Lenovo’s official website. To make the purchase more valuable, Google is offering a one-year subscription to its Google AI Pro plan (a $240 value) with every Chromebook Plus.

To take advantage of the powerful on-device AI capabilities of the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14, Google is releasing the following two exclusive AI features:

• Smart grouping: Users can use AI to organize open Chrome tabs and documents into logical groups.
• Image editing in the Gallery app: The Gallery app can be used to remove backgrounds, make stickers, and more.

Apart from the above exclusive features, Google is also releasing the following updates to all Chromebook Plus models starting today:

• Select to search & Text capture: A Google Lens-like capability is now available on Chromebooks. Users can just long-press the on-screen launcher button or use the screenshot tool to select anything on their screen for instant Google Search results. Users can also use the new "Text capture" to automatically extract text from images and send it to Google Workspace apps or calendars as editable text.
• The Quick Insert (QI) key, which was introduced earlier this year, now allows users to easily generate images using AI in addition to its existing capabilities.
• The new "simplify" feature within "Help me read" will help students convert complex language into more understandable content.
• Google’s popular NotebookLM research and note-taking app is now pre-installed on every Chromebook Plus.
• Netflix’s popular Squid Game: Unleashed game is coming to Chromebooks as an optimized desktop app with keyboard and mouse controls and some exclusive in-game items, including skins.

With its high‑performance, premium hardware and advanced AI features, the new Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 is trying to position itself as a strong contender against Windows laptops in the premium segment.

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It took me a long time to appreciate Death Stranding. I’m not even sure I fully got it after my initial playthrough, which was equal parts mesmerizing and dull. The game, in which you play as a postapocalyptic delivery man in a world ravaged by a breach with the afterlife, demands a lot from players. The gameplay is fiddly and frustrating, and the storyline is often inscrutable, at times seeming to make no sense. While it borrows elements from walking sims and stealth games, there’s nothing like Death Stranding, and so it’s hard to calibrate your expectations accordingly.

It really wasn’t until the end of the game that I felt I finally understood what director Hideo Kojima and his team were going for. And with all of that out of the way, playing the sequel was a more rewarding experience.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is a direct follow-up. You once again control Sam (played by Norman Reedus), who now is living in hiding with his adopted child, Lou, after previously connecting all of America to an internet-like network by walking across the entire country. But it’s not long before his life of domestic bliss is interrupted. At the request of Fragile (Léa Seydoux), Sam agrees to connect Mexico as well, and, after strange gates begin appearing, he eventually heads to Australia to connect them too. Along the way, he continues to gain a deeper understanding of the event known as the death stranding, and does a lot of digging into where Lou actually came from.

Image: Kojima Productions

 

Structurally, Death Stranding 2 is very similar to the original. It’s all about taking on jobs. As Sam trudges across the continent, he makes lots of deliveries and completes other tasks, in the hopes of getting people on board with this new connected world. The future of Death Stranding is one of isolation; the landscape is bleak and empty, cities exist almost entirely independent of each other, and Sam mostly only encounters other humans through their holograms. Oh, and deadly ghost-like creatures haunt the landscape, which is what makes Sam — who has the rare ability to be able to return from the dead — the one person who can link everyone back up.

Practically, this means that the game is built around walking. Sam must prep for each trek carefully, loading up with weapons, traversal gear, healing items, and precious cargo. Then he walks the long distance from point A to point B, navigating rivers, mountains, and angry ghosts, all while staying balanced to keep the cargo safe. The big change in the sequel is that there is a great variety of missions, and it opens up much more quickly. You rapidly get more weapons (including guns with special bullets for fighting those ghosts, known as BTs) and tools to make things faster and easier, like 3D-printed trucks and trailers for transporting big orders.

The missions are generally more interesting. Sometimes you have to worry about keeping the cargo above a certain temperature; other times you’re tasked with rescuing a hostage. One of my favorite quests involved finding a kangaroo in the middle of a raging brushfire and returning it to a sanctuary. The Australian landscape is much harsher and more diverse, forcing you to also deal with strange creatures that sap your gear’s battery and epic-scale sandstorms. For the most part, the variety is very welcome, and helps break up the monotony that occasionally plagued the original. But some of the missions are a little too much like a typical action game, which Death Stranding does not excel at. Any time things devolve into combat, which is slow and clunky, the game loses a lot of its momentum and unique flavor.

There are other quality-of-life tweaks. Fragile and her crew — which includes a navigator named Tarman who has a pet demon cat and is modeled to look like Mad Max director George Miller — operate aboard a flying craft that can be used for fast travel. There’s also a robust codex for reading up on terms like “timefall” or “stillmother” that you might not understand, as well as a very helpful “story so far” section that I consulted every time I booted up the game.

Image: Kojima Productions

 

The biggest change, though, is actually me — and the fact that I have some idea of what’s going on. That’s not to say that Death Stranding 2 is any less weird. In fact, it might be even stranger than the original. Now you’re accompanied by a talking marionette called Dollman, and the new cast includes Shioli Kutsuna playing a woman who creates a healing rain (she’s named Rainy, naturally) and Elle Fanning as someone with mysterious powers that are somehow connected to her hatred of wearing shoes.

But with much of the narrative heavy lifting out of the way, I was ready for this, and able to lose myself in Death Stranding 2 more easily. I still don’t understand everything, at least not fully. Even after dozens of hours with the original, I had to regularly refresh my memory on terms, while also trying to grasp new ones (there’s so much to learn about tar). But the basics that kept me in a state of confusion initially — who Sam is, why he carries a baby in a jar, what the heck a Beach is — are now part of my lexicon, letting me immerse myself a lot deeper into this world, and letting Kojima’s team get even weirder.

That might make Death Stranding a tough series to recommend for some. It’s possible it won’t fully click until you play one long and confusing game, and then jump into its similarly demanding, if more accessible, sequel. But for me, that struggle was worth the effort, because, again, there just isn’t anything like Death Stranding. It’s haunting, beautiful, and forced me to focus all of my attention on it, something that’s becoming increasingly rare in modern games. It can just take some time to get past that barrier.

_{Death Stranding 2: On the Beach launches on the PS5 on June 26th.}

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Borderlands 4 has been the talk of the town as of late. From "real fans" being able to afford the title to the game only costing $70 (thank goodness!), the game has been on players' minds (it even dropped early access). Now, even more so, since we have a stellar story trailer that dropped!

The humor of Borderlands will return in full force, but the trailer opening is much darker in tone. Showcasing what will hopefully be a return to the form of villainy we've come to expect from Borderlands.

The new vault hunters have crashed on the planet Kairos, ruled by the tyrant The Timekeeper. Your mission is simple: overthrow The Timekeeper.

The only issue (that we know of so far) is you and the other vault hunters have a device called "The Bolt" implanted within you. As a control device, The Bolt limits your character's free will in an attempt to control you.

Quick links:

1. Windows 10 and 11
2. Windows Insider Program
3. Updates are available
4. Reviews are in
5. Gaming news

Windows 11 and Windows 10

Here, we talk about everything happening around Microsoft's latest operating system in the Stable channel and preview builds: new features, removed features, controversies, bugs, interesting findings, and more. And, of course, you may find a word or two about older versions.

Microsoft released a new out-of-band update to fix boot issues on certain Surface devices. The company announced certain Windows 365 updates, such as VBS and HVCI support (by default) and app provisioning in Windows 365 instead of entire cloud PCs. Microsoft is also removing legacy drivers from Windows Update in a new "strategic move."

On the negative side, we have the latest Patch Tuesday updates breaking the DHCP Server in all Windows Server editions. Also, there is some bad news for PC users with Windows Hello cameras: after the April 2025 Patch Tuesday updates, Windows Hello does not work in the dark. The change was quietly introduced to address security issues.

That is not all, though. As it turned out, solid-state drives from WD could still block your computer from installing Windows 11 version 24H2, which was released in October 2024. Also, Microsoft's Family Safety feature is now blocking Chrome, for some reason.

Here is an editorial from Usama Jawad (welcome back) about how, four years after the initial release, Windows 11 still does not offer strong enough reasons to upgrade from the outgoing Windows 10. Also, Usama shared his thoughts about the Start menu and why he had stopped caring about its changes altogether.

Speaking of the Start menu, check out our overview of what users wanted from Microsoft and what the company delivered in the redesigned Start menu, which was recently announced.

Windows Insider Program

Here is what Microsoft released for Windows Insiders this week:

Some hidden stuff in the recent Windows 11 preview builds includes a new adaptive battery saver. This feature dynamically adapts battery saver mode according to your workflow, but in its current form, it is not fully operational. Even though Microsoft acknowledged its existence, the adaptive part still needs improvements.

Another useful change in the recent builds is the return of a clock in the notification center. This time, however, Microsoft makes it more customizable, and you can toggle it on or off. Also, the company is moving more Control Panel bits to the Settings app and adding a rather unexpected customization feature that will let you select where system indicators (flyouts and sliders) appear on the screen.

Microsoft started rolling out a new update for the Snipping Tool app. The latest release lets you save screen recordings as GIFs. Shortly after that, we posted a guide with a bit more detail about the feature.

Updates are available

This section covers software, firmware, and other notable updates (released and coming soon) from Microsoft and third parties, delivering new features, security fixes, improvements, patches, and more.

Microsoft is working on a Dashboard redesign for PowerToys. Developers published an early look at what is coming to the app in future updates, revealing a better-organized page with quick links, a shortcut overview, and a list of available modules.

This week's Office updates are rather mixed. OneDrive, for one, is having problems finding files. Microsoft acknowledged the issue, which affects users on Windows, iOS, Android, and the web. Unfortunately, that is not the only negative story about OneDrive. A new report from a frustrated user revealed a scary tale of Microsoft locking them out of an account full of invaluable content.

Outlook also has some issues, this time, with opening emails, and Microsoft 365 will soon disable outdated protocols for file access. Finally, Copilot in Excel received a major update for context awareness, which made the assistant more useful when answering questions about data.

This week's browser updates include several releases. Firefox announced a new method for pinning and unpinning tabs. It is now available for testing in the Nightly channel. Microsoft Edge was updated with fixes for two security vulnerabilities (high severity) originating from Chromium.

Finally, here is this week's Microsoft 365 Roadmap with an overview of all the new stuff that Microsoft added to the website.

Here are other updates and releases you may find interesting:

• Microsoft 365 security in the spotlight after Washington Post hack.

• Microsoft expands European sovereign cloud offerings with new data and key controls.

• Microsoft Defender XDR received TITAN-powered Security Copilot recommendations.

• Microsoft reportedly plans more layoffs.

• Watchdog found Microsoft guilty of confusing advertising when it comes to Copilot.

   

Here are the latest drivers and firmware updates released this week:

• AMD released a new chipset driver for Ryzen processors under version 7.06.02.123, which followed a security update for TPM-Pluton.
• Nvidia 576.80 WHQL with fixes for the RTX 5090 FE, new game support, and a long list of fixes.
• You can get some extra performance on certain AMD Ryzen chips with a simple system tweak.
• Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 received big firmware updates with multiple fixes and improvements.

Reviews are in

Here is the hardware and software we reviewed this week

This week, Steven Parker reviewed the TerraMaster D4 SSD, a palm-sized DAS with up to 32TB of storage that you can connect over USB4. This thing is rather impressive, and for a modest price tag, it delivers a tiny footprint, great looks, full RAID support in TOS 6, quick connection, and more.

On the gaming side

Learn about upcoming game releases, Xbox rumors, new hardware, software updates, freebies, deals, discounts, and more.

AMD and Microsoft announced some big news this week. The two companies revealed a new multi-year partnership, which secures AMD as the future maker of chips for Xbox consoles and other hardware. Sarah Bond announced the partnership in a new video on the official Xbox media channels.

Turn 10 Studios announced a new Forza Motorsport update. Update 21 brings IndyCar content, Career mode expansion, Featured Tours, new reward cars, and more. It is now available on Xbox and PC via the Microsoft Store and Steam.

Minecraft is another Microsoft-owned game that received a big update this week. The long-anticipated graphics overhaul is finally here with directional lighting, volumetric fog, improved shadows, reflections, godrays, and a lot more. In addition, Mojang released Chase the Skies, the latest content drop, which adds happy ghasts, new music disks, a locator bar for players, environmental fog in the overworld, new background music, and all sorts of small gameplay changes.

Microsoft announced new games for Game Pass. The latest additions include FBC: Firebreak, Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, Start Trucker, Wildfrost, Rematch, Call of Duty: WWII, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and more. As usual, some games are leaving the subscription.

Valve released a big update for the Steam overlay. The latest version introduced major upgrades to CPU and VRAM usage, temperatures, and other important metrics that you might want to track when playing games on your gaming rig.

Deals and freebies

Also, be sure to check out this week's Weekend PC Game Deals article, which features rhythm bundles, fishing festivals, DRM-free summer sales, and more.

Other gaming news includes the following:

• Take-Two confirmed Borderlands 4 will not cost $80 for the base game.

• The Coalition expanded the Gears of War: Reloaded beta after its rocky start.

• Ara: History Untold 1.4 update delivered overhauls to AI, map generation, combat, and more.

• Star Citizen Alpha 4.2 update lands with radiation hazards, dynamic rain, and more.

   

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Paul's Hardware (1.52M subscribers)

June 22, 2025

Video length: 12m 41s

0:00 Welcome to Paul’s Tech News - June 22, 2025 

1:49 NVIDIA to launch 24GB GeForce RTX 5090 DD 

4:13 The U.S. Navy is selling MSRP Nvidia RTX GPUs — 5070, 5080, and even 5090 

5:34 AMD leaks entry-level Ryzen 5 9600X3D CPU expected before end of the year 

7:27 AMD’s next-gen Radeon GPUs to support 80 Gb/s HDMI 2.2 

TECH BRIEFS 

9:17 Intel to lay off 10,000 workers, outsource marketing to Accenture and AI 

10:23 GamersNexus Tariff Investigation Part 2 

11:09 DARPA sets new records for sending power wirelessly

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Gamers Nexus (2.46M subscribers)

June 22, 2025

Video length: 28m 13s

In hardware news this week, we talk about AMD's Ryzen 5500X3D surprise launch, the Intel B770 rumored GPU (BMG G31) in the news again, a heist of $1.4 million of Nintendo Switch 2 consoles, more AMD and Microsoft Xbox consoles coming out, and more. Intel is also facing more layoffs as Nova Lake-S enters the rumor mill, this time with layoffs focused on the fab and factory ("foundry") side of things. In other news, Nexus Mods has new owners.

00:00 - Recap for the Week 

01:23 - GNCA Videos, GN Updates 

05:35 - 1.4 Million Dollar Theft of Nintendo Switch 2s 

07:36 - AMD Provides Threadripper 9000 Benchmarks 

11:28 - AMD Launching Ryzen 5500X3D 

13:11 - Intel Arc BMG-G31 GPU Spotted Again 

14:21 - Nexus Mods New Owners 

18:40 - GPUs Use RGB to Warn Against Cables 

19:39 - Next-Gen Xbox x AMD Consoles 

22:09 - Intel Mass Layoffs Again 

24:54 - Intel Nova Lake-S Rumors 

26:13 - Engineer Makes PS1 Motherboard

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Gamers Nexus (2.46M subscribers)

June 21, 2025

Video length: 27m 38s

We talk with AMD Engineer Amit Mehra and Level1 Techs' Wendell about "deprocessed" silicon, looking inside and dissecting the CPUs to learn more about microarchitecture, the physical layout of CPUs, and structure. This is purely educational and intended to be an open discussion and interview where we learn alongside AMD's engineer about how CPUs are made and laid out. The demo is first done with an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7995WX CPU, then with a PA-RISC 7300LC from 1995. Amit worked on both of these CPUs, with the PA-RISC chip being his first, and the Threadripper CPU being his most recent that he can publicly disclose.

00:00 - Inside AMD Threadripper Silicon 

02:06 - Chip Layout 

05:05 - What Amit Made 

11:15 - Amit's Bug Hunting 

13:05 - 1995 PA RISC 7300LC CPU 

15:33 - Challenges 

17:11 - Radiated Lead Problems 

21:22 - Easter Eggs Inside the CPU Silicon 

26:04 - What Still Applies Today

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For example, the company launched an affordable X3D processor for AM4 this month with the new 5500X3D. These gaming CPUs from AMD have been a massive success, as both AM4 and AM5 X3D chips are quite popular among gamers, and for good reason, too. They are fast, very fast. The massive chunk of vertical 3D stacked last-level cache (LLC) Level 3 cache helps these processors a ton in scenarios such as gaming.

In our Ryzen 9 9950X3D review, we saw that 300+ frames per second are possible depending on the game title. While we did not review the 8-core 9800X3D, it has been found to be even slightly faster than the 9950X3D and is currently the most powerful gaming CPU on the planet. The Ryzen 9 9800X3D is selling these days for around $440-$500, and that may still be out of budget for many users.

As such, similar to the 5600X3D, which is a 6-core 5000X3D processor cut down from the 8-core 5800X3D, AMD is planning to launch a hexacore Ryzen 5 9600X3D that will have two cores disabled compared to the 9800X3D.

The information has been uncovered from the recent system integrator (SI) graphics driver for the recently launched Radeon AI PRO R9700 discrete GPU. The driver (Windows SI Driver for Radeon AI PRO R9700, Version 25.10.13.01) confirms the existence of 9600X3D as well as a 9600 non-X SKU and several other Ryzen PRO 9000 CPUs. The full list of upcoming CPUs is given below:

• Ryzen 5 9600X3D
• Ryzen 5 9600
• AMD Ryzen 9 PRO 9945
• Ryzen 7 PRO 9745
• Ryzen 5 PRO 9645
• Ryzen 5 PRO 9400

In terms of specs, the core configuration of the 9600X3D will be identical to the Ryzen 9600X and 9600, barring things like clock speeds. However, the six-core X3D will have a lot more L3 cache at 96 MB vs 32 MB on the 9600X and 9600.

There is no information on pricing at the moment.

Source: AMD (spotted by Mellodic Warrior on X)

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The crowd-funded sci-fi RPG Star Citizen has received another update to its public alpha build. This time, developer Cloud Imperium Games has delivered new features like radiation as a brand-new hazard, irradiated creatures, the first implementation of a dynamic weather system for planets, and more. Dubbed Storm Breaker, Alpha update 4.2's cinematic trailer can be caught above, showing off the new sandbox activity.

Storm Breaker is the name of the new sandbox activity too, continuing the ongoing Regen Crisis narrative. Players will be going to Pyro 1 and 4 while uncovering the experimentation secrets of the Associated Sciences & Development company while also weathering a never-ending storm, irradiated zones, and dangerous creatures to complete the event's tasks for hard-earned loot.

Speaking of radiation, players will need to wear specialized gear and navigate carefully whenever they come across these special hazardous zones on planets. "This update adds new Radiation accumulation, resistance, and falloff thresholds to player status effects," says the developer. "These effects will appear as new visual and player status cues with REMs on the HUD and can cause consequences resulting in player injury or death if not treated."

Locations on Stanton and Pyro planets can now have rain happen on them at various locations and times. Cloud Imperium calls this the first implementation of its Genesis: Dynamic Weather system. When ready, the full version of this tech will be rolling out to many more planets and will supposedly have rain and cloud formations, lightning, relevant audio, water pooling, and clothing shaders for wetness.

Other changes of the update include better missile and torpedo tracking, new explorable locations, irradiated juvenile sandworms to fight, fixes for space stations and landing zones to reduce clipping and glitches, and much more. The complete release notes for the update can be found here.

Star Citizen Alpha 4.2: Storm Breaker is now available for all backers in the Live channel.

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Valve is introducing accessibility features for players with disabilities in its latest beta for Steam Big Picture Mode and SteamOS. The features — listed in full and explained here — include options to modify the Steam UI, like a high contrast mode, as well as a built-in screen reader for SteamOS.

In its post, Valve describes the features as “just the first accessibility features we’re making available.” For now players on both Big Picture Mode and SteamOS will get:

• A scaling slider for text size
• High-contrast mode to make buttons and text more visible
• A “reduce motion” toggle that disables some animation and screen transition effects

SteamOS devices (at this point, the Steam Deck and Lenovo Legion Go S) can also find:

• A screen reader with adjustable pitch, volume, and reading rate, enabled and disabled either through settings or with a two-button shortcut
• A color filter that affects both the Steam UI and any games you’re playing — you can choose between grayscale, inverted display brightness, or inverted display colors

The features are available on a new Accessibility tab in the settings, seen below for SteamOS.

This is the SteamOS version — Big Picture won’t get the color filter or screen reader.

Image: Valve

Earlier this month Valve also started letting Steam users filter games by accessibility support — including some options similar to the ones above, as well as adjustable difficulty and speech-to-text or text-to-speech chat. It’s encouraging players with disabilities to suggest more features in a discussion thread (a mono audio toggle is looking popular.) And for anyone who doesn’t need these features, while I haven’t been able to try the beta yet, it sounds like might all be getting a bare-bones universal Kurosawa mode.

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The latest information comes from the leaker @Kepler_L2, who took to their social media account on X (via VideoCardz). It strengthens the hopes of the latest HDMI standard and support for faster bandwidth making their way to the next generation of AMD GPUs.

The HDMI 2.2 standard was announced earlier this year and released to manufacturers in the first half of 2025. It pushes the maximum allowed bit rate to 96 Gbps and supports Latency Indication Protocol (LIP) to improve audio and video synchronization.

However, according to Kepler's post, RDNA 5 GPUs are expected to support only 64 Gbps and 80 Gbps modes. This suggests that the 96 Gbps mode may not be supported on the new architecture, while it remains unclear whether this is due to some hardware limitation or will be added later.

Although the new piece of information pertains to GFX13, it doesn't clarify whether it's related to the PRO or Radeon RX series. The company has previously used UHBR 13.5 (54 Gbps) for its consumer-focused GPUs to reduce costs while supporting UHBR 20 (80 Gbps) on PRO cards, according to the leaker. It remains to be seen whether AMD treats the two product lines the same or differently.

Another standard announced earlier this year was DisplayPort 2.1b, which keeps the same maximum bandwidth of 80 Gbps but supports three times the cable length for UHBR20 GPU-to-display connections compared to existing VESA-certified DP80 passive cables.

The new standard is supported on NVIDIA's RTX 50 and RTX PRO Blackwell series GPUs. For now, there is no update on whether AMD will bring DisplayPort 2.1b support to the GFX13 architecture.

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Borderlands 4 is coming soon. Like, super soon. It's less than three months away at this point, and not only will it maintain a decent price point, unlike Microsoft and Nintendo, but it's also eliminating a feature I've come to dislike over the last few years.

Dune: Awakening recently launched on June 5.. uh, wait, no it didn't. It launched on the 10. June 5 was the date for players who paid $20 more for the deluxe edition and were granted what Funcom called a "Head Start."

While the game is fantastic, and I have a review I'm currently cooking up, I can't help but admit I'd be one of those players paying for early access. I have massive FOMO, especially when it comes to MMO and survival games. Dune: Awakening is the double whammy to end all whammies.

We're halfway into the life cycle of World of Warcraft: The War Within, and Blizzard Entertainment has dropped a massive bombshell for the game's next update.

This content update, titled "Ghosts of K'aresh", promises to bring the greatest challenge for players yet, as one of World of Warcraft's oldest enemies, Dimensius the All-Devouring, will be making his grand return since 2007's World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, as the biggest raid boss ever seen in WoW history.

Here's everything you need to know about the Ghost of K'aresh update.

First and foremost, this update will have players explore a new zone called the Shattered World of K’aresh to stop evil forces from summoning forth Dimensius the Void Lord, an enormous monster capable of devouring entire worlds.

Operating out of the hub world of Tazavesh, the Veiled Market (returning from World of Warcraft: Shadowlands), players will gather allies, forge an upgradeable artifact called the Reshii Wraps, and fight through a new Raid dungeon called "Manaforge Omega" to confront Dimensious.

But that's not all, as the Ghosts of K'aresh update will also have players tackle a new Delve dungeon called "The Archival Assault" and a new dungeon called the "Eco-Dome Al'dani".

Additionally, players can participate in a game activity called "Phase Diving" to take on unique quests and enemies, and help cultivate a healthy ecosystem on K'aresh through the Ecological Succession sidequest.

Yesterday, Microsoft confirmed that it's not abandoning the home console market just yet. In a short video teaser, Xbox President Sarah Bond highlighted a "strategic multi-year partnership with AMD" that will include "our next-generation Xbox consoles in your living room and in your hands." But while we know that the "in your hands" part will include devices like the Windows-powered ROG Xbox Ally, there are still few specifics about what exactly Microsoft has planned for its future living room consoles (aside from what Bond calls "the next generation of graphics innovation").

Reading between the lines a bit, though, we wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft was getting ready to finally tear down the thinning wall separating gaming PCs and gaming consoles. A Windows-based, living room-focused Xbox capable of running generic Windows games could accentuate Microsoft's strengths in PC gaming while papering over many of the company's recent struggles in the home console market.

WindowsBox

The once-bright line separating PC gaming and TV-based console gaming has been deteriorating for years. On the hardware side, bespoke console chips and development environments long ago gave way to PC-like architectures that are simpler and easier for developers to work with. And on the PC interface side, efforts like Steam's Big Picture mode and SteamOS as a whole have strived to make playing on a PC with a handheld controller into a more console-like experience.

If handheld players would dig this kind of Windows gaming experience, why not home console players?

Credit: Microsoft

Last week's announcement of the Asus Xbox ROG Ally shows that Microsoft is leaning into this merger. The Windows 11-powered device promises to replace Windows' desktop icons and taskbar with a new full-screen "Xbox Experience for Handheld." The company says this will "minimize background activity and defer non-essential tasks" that take up RAM and computing resources on a full desktop Windows OS. That interface won't be exclusive to Asus' handheld, either; Microsoft has said it will start rolling out to other Windows devices "starting next year."

It's not ridiculous to think that the next Xbox console could be one of those Windows devices. A living-room-focused box running a modified version of that Xbox Experience for Handhelds (call it the "Xbox Experience for Consoles," if you like) would give living room gamers instant access to tens of thousands of games designed for Windows—plus thousands more coming out each year—with an interface and form factor familiar to living room gamers. That kind of software library would give a Windows-based Xbox an instant leg up on the more limited selection of ports available on competing consoles, especially if it also "maintains compatibility with your existing library of Xbox games," as Bond promised.

While Microsoft would likely build its own Windows-based Xbox hardware, it could also license its new console-ified Windows gaming interface to other hardware manufacturers interested in similar living room hardware. Microsoft is well-positioned to run a redo of Valve's abortive Steam Machines effort, only this time without the performance headaches and limited library of Linux ports that plagued that effort.

True, a Windows-based Xbox console would mean Microsoft giving up the ability to charge third-party developers a 30 percent fee for the privilege of offering software on its current walled-garden console marketplace. And competing gaming PC manufacturers that currently partner with Microsoft might not be too happy with the Windows-maker encroaching on their space. But that all might be worth it to help cement Windows—and, in turn, Microsoft—as a central part of the home console gaming space.

Reviving the brand

A Windows-powered living room Xbox is just the kind of thing Microsoft needs to turn around its struggling home console brand. The Xbox One was outsold handily by Sony's PS4, and sales of the Xbox Series S/X hardware have been cratering in recent years. Seemingly acknowledging this, Microsoft has started offering previous Xbox console exclusives to other platforms, giving up the potential of system-selling exclusive games for the prospect of more software licensing fees.

Microsoft's "Xbox Series" consoles haven't exactly been tearing up the sales charts.

Credit: Microsoft

On the PC side, though, Microsoft is still a force to be reckoned with. Practically every desktop or laptop gaming PC runs Windows by default, despite half-hearted efforts by Apple to turn MacOS into a serious gaming platform. And while Valve's Linux-based SteamOS has created a significant handheld gaming PC niche—and is hinting at attempts to push into the gaming desktop space—it does so only through a Proton compatibility layer built on top of the strong developer interest in Windows gaming.

Microsoft is already highlighting its software advantage over SteamOS, promoting the Xbox Experience for Handhelds' "aggregated game library" that can provide "access to games you can't get elsewhere" through multiple Windows-based game launchers. There's no reason to think that living room console players wouldn't also be interested in that kind of no-compromise access to the full suite of Windows gaming options.

Microsoft has been preparing the Xbox brand for this ultimate merger between PC and console gaming for years, too. While the name "Xbox" was once synonymous with Microsoft's console gaming efforts, that hasn't been true since the launch of "Xbox on Windows 10" in 2015 and the subsequent Windows Xbox app.

Meanwhile, offerings like Microsoft's "Play Anywhere" initiative and the Xbox Game Pass for PC have gotten players used to purchases and subscriptions giving them access to games on both Xbox consoles and Windows PCs (not to mention cloud streaming to devices like smartphones). If your living room Xbox console simply played Windows games directly (along with your Windows-based handheld gaming PC), this sort of "Play Anywhere" promise becomes that much simpler to pull off without any need for porting effort from developers.

These are the kinds of thoughts that ran through my mind when I heard Bond say yesterday that Xbox is "working closely with the Windows team to ensure that Windows is the number one platform for gaming" while "building you a gaming platform that's always with you so you can play the games you want across devices anywhere you want, delivering you an Xbox experience not locked to a single store or tied to one device." That could simply be the kind of cross-market pablum we're used to hearing from Microsoft. Or it could be a hint of a new world where Microsoft finally fully leverages its Windows gaming dominance into a new vision for a living room Xbox console.

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A new report from Bloomberg claims Microsoft is planning to cut “thousands of jobs” early next month related to sales. However, it won’t be just sales that are affected, as other groups may also get trimmed according to Bloomberg’s source.

As to reasons for the cuts, Microsoft had already planned to use outside firms for sales, and it’s well-known that Microsoft is heavily spending on AI these days, which Bloomberg cites as one cause for the workforce reduction.

These aren’t the first jobs for Microsoft either, as the company laid off 3% of its workforce (6,000 employees) in May, and another 305 jobs at the beginning of June. Earlier this year, the company held performance-based job cuts, which were “less than 1%” of its workforce, but it also followed 10,000 jobs being cut in January 2023 (about 5% of its workforce at the time).

Layoffs in tech are not unusual, especially following post-pandemic reductions and pulling back on overspending. Intel is reportedly laying off 20,000 employees, as it faces significant headwinds in chip manufacturing and has a new CEO.

Microsoft is not exactly suffering as a company, either. It reported solid financial results for FY25 Q3, with $70.1 billion in revenue (up 13% year-over-year) and a net income of $25.8 billion (up 16% year-over-year).

Nonetheless, many companies are culling in anticipation of the larger role AI will play in day-to-day operations and the current fad of reducing middle management.

As of January 1, 2025, Microsoft’s global workforce was estimated to be around 235,000 employees. By June 2025, that number had dropped to approximately 228,000.

Now available via the Steam Beta client, the performance monitor now has multiple detail levels to choose from. These are FPS Single Value (the original version), FPS Detail & Graph, FPS Detail CPU & GPU Utilization, as well as the behemoth FPS Detail & Graph, CPU, GPU, & RAM Details options. As expected, each option adds more and more information to what's shown to the user on the overlay.

Screen position, contrast and saturation, as well as background opacity, can also be adjusted from the same overlay settings page.

The image above shows the maximum detail option available for users, with everything from generated frames to helpful graphs and VRAM information being shown while playing a game.

"The performance monitor can help you understand your frame rate (both including frame generation, and base game frame rate), and it can help you see if CPU utilization might be your bottleneck, or if your GPU is," says Valve regarding its latest upgrade. "You can see if you are out of system or video memory and if those factors are impacting performance as well."

Valve said that some of these features, in this initial beta release, will only be available on Windows machines, at least for now. "Much of it will apply to other supported operating systems and while some metrics are not supported on other operating systems additional support is planned for later," added the company.

Check out this handy FAQ set up by Valve that explains what each setting means as well as notes on what issues players can diagnose, like micro stutter or bottlenecks, using these overlay additions.

To try out the new feature before it goes out to everyone, you can switch to the Steam Beta Client by heading to the app's Settings > Interface section and changing the Client Beta Participation dropdown to the latest version available. Following that, to enable the new performance monitor, go to Settings > In Game section, and change the detail level to the level you would like.

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Obsidian Entertainment's 2010 title Fallout: New Vegas is widely regarded as one of the best RPGs ever made in the video game medium, and despite its aging visuals and notorious bugs and glitches, it's stood the test of time and remains a truly phenomenal game. In particular, it's one many Fallout fans return to frequently, as many disliked the way Bethesda's Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 veered away from the franchise's classic RPG roots.

Another game that evokes that classic Fallout feel and was seen by some as a spiritual New Vegas successor was Obsidian's 2019 title The Outer Worlds. But while the sci-fi RPG was generally well-liked and gave New Vegas lovers a taste of something similar, many felt it lacked the roleplaying depth and narrative nuance that made the studio's Fallout entry truly special. I certainly do, and for that reason, I've gone back to it far less than I have with New Vegas.

The developer recently gave players an in-depth look at its sequel — The Outer Worlds 2 — during the Xbox Games Showcase, though, and what Obsidian showed has me confident that its second entry in the series will be a major step up from the first installment. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it looks like the Fallout: New Vegas sequel we never got, and there are five reasons why — all of which I'll go over below.

It's got New Vegas-style character building

One of 2025's largest upcoming games is Borderlands 4 — the next mainline entry in Gearbox Software's long-running, highly popular co-op looter shooter franchise, and also its first game since 2022's Tiny Tina's Wonderlands spinoff. With an entirely new planet, story, colossal arsenal of guns to collect, and cast of Vault Hunters, it has the potential to be one of the year's best games. But tragically, over half of the entire userbase on the PC gaming platform Steam may not even be able to play it.

That revelation came when Borderlands 4's price was finally revealed on Monday, as its PC system requirements were listed on Steam at the same time. The minimum requirements in general are quite demanding — notably, you'll need at least NVIDIA's RTX 2070 or AMD's RX 5700 XT for your GPU, along with 16GB of RAM and 100GB of SSD space — but the real killer is the minimum demand for a CPU with eight cores or more.

Most popular budget-friendly processors frequently used in gaming PC builds only have six cores instead of eight or more. In fact, according to Steam's recent May hardware survey, a whopping 50.39% of Steam users have a chip with six cores or fewer. This means that effectively over half of the players on the world's most popular PC gaming client won't be able to run Borderlands 4 at its lowest settings.

This naturally won't be a problem for anyone gaming on a higher end system outfitted with a top-notch CPU, but for tons of players using budget or even mid-range rigs, there's a fairly high chance they'll need to make a processor upgrade just to get Borderlands 4 to properly boot up.

There are thousands of different PC cases available to pick from for your first (or next) system build, and the variety can cause some trepidation as to what should be valued most.

"Which PC case should I get?" is a question that I often see posed by newcomers to the PC build world, and, unfortunately, there's not a single right answer I can offer that covers everyone.

I can, however, offer some guidance regarding the features that I value most after a couple of decades of building custom PCs.

Whether they make the PC build and future maintenance easier or they let your performance hardware reach its full potential, here are my top 5 features I think every PC case worth your money should have in 2025.

5. Tempered glass side panels

 

Nothing wrong with showing off your hardware via tempered glass side panels (HYTE Y60). (Image credit: Rich Edmonds / Windows Central)

 

PC hardware, such as memory (RAM), graphics cards (GPUs), motherboards, and coolers, has become increasingly aesthetically intricate over the years, and bundling your system behind steel panels is usually the wrong move.

 

Unless you're going for a silent build with insulated case panels or a stylized mesh build, the PC case you choose should have a tempered glass panel (or two) to help show off your hardware.

 

And make sure it's tempered glass and not plastic (usually acrylic) used in the construction. While plastic panels are lighter and less prone to breaking, they scratch more easily, they can get foggy over time, and they don't have the same premium look as tempered glass.

4. Accessible dust filters for case venting

The Corsair iCUE 5000X RGB case has removable dust screens covering all air intakes.

(Image credit: Windows Central)

 

Corsair iCUE 5000T has the same magnetic top dust screen as the 5000X model.

(Image credit: Rich Edmonds / Windows Central)

 

The PSU air intake on the Corsair iCUE 5000T has a slide-out dust filter.

(Image credit: Rich Edmonds / Windows Central)

 

The Corsair iCUE 5000X case has a magnetic dust screen along the top air venting.

(Image credit: Windows Central)

 

Any good case is going to have air moving through it constantly (see Feature #1), and with that air comes dust and detritus.

 

Unless you want to frequently clean out your PC case — trust me, even the most ardent PC dusters will eventually see some buildup — buying a model with built-in filters is something I strongly recommend.

 

This is especially true if, like me, you live with pets. Cats are particularly notorious for wanting to sit on or around a PC due to the heat it produces, and their hair is fine enough to get through larger mesh coverings.

 

While you can certainly devise your own sleek filtering to fit your PC case, it's almost guaranteed that it won't look as good as if it comes pre-installed.

 

This feature isn't always readily advertised on product pages, so be sure to check out reviews for cases that have made your shortlist.

 

Bonus points go to removable screens; remove them, run them under water, let them dry, and pop them back into place for easy cleanup.

3. Modern port selection on the front panel

Having USB-C on a case's front I/O connectivity is a must.

(Image credit: Windows Central)

 

A look at the NZXT H9 Flow's front port selection, including USB-C, dual USB-A, and 3.5mm audio.

(Image credit: Future)

 

Even the compact HYTE Revolt 3 offers USB-C alongside dual USB-A and 3.5mm audio.

(Image credit: Rich Edmonds / Windows Central)

 

In your desktop PC, most of the physical I/O connectivity is handled by the motherboard. There you'll generally find multiple USB ports, Ethernet, audio outputs, and more.

 

But because the motherboard's ports all point out the back of the PC, you want to be sure that your case has the right connectivity on the front to handle your most-used peripherals.

 

In general, a good PC case in 2025 should have at least a couple of USB-A 3.2 ports, USB-C 3.2, and a 3.5mm audio jack. Believe me, that doesn't seem like much, but they're almost guaranteed to come in handy.

2. Easy cable management

A look at the channels reserved for cables below the motherboard in the NZXT H9 Flow RGB+.

(Image credit: Future)

 

A look at the punch-out side channel for cabling in the NZXT H9 Flow RGB+.

(Image credit: Future)

 

NZXT's H7 case is another example of good cable management right out of the box.

(Image credit: Rich Edmonds / Windows Central)

 

Proper cable management isn't just about aesthetics. It can also affect how your PC performs.

 

A PC case cluttered with cables is going to stagnate with elevated temperatures, no matter how many fans you have pushing air into the system. A cluttered case is also no fun to work in, and future upgrades can suffer.

 

PC cases have come a long way on that front in recent years, and there are many options that come out of the box with everything set up for proper cable management.

 

How well a case handles cable management is something that you can often judge from product images (at least as long as they're detailed enough to show the internal layout).

 

However, this is usually one of the main areas covered by testers, and again, I recommend reading reviews.

1. Proper airflow to keep your hardware cool

A look at the trio of fans on the bottom of the NZXT H9 Flow RGB+ case.

(Image credit: Future)

 

The Lancool 205 might be a compact case, but its mesh front panel and clear internal layout make for excellent airflow.

 

The back panel on the H9 Flow RGB+ is all mesh for easy airflow, as is the panel covering the angled front fans.(Image credit: Future)

 

If you only want to follow one point from my list, make it this one. A case without good airflow is not worth your time and money.

 

Compact and specialized PC builders are likely prepping a retort right now, and, yes, I agree that there are standout situations where airflow takes a backseat.

 

For the average PC builder, however, getting a case that doesn't choke your performance hardware is the most important aspect of a new system.

 

So, how do you know if a PC case offers good airflow? There are a few clues to watch for.

 

First, you want a PC case with at least one large mesh or filtered front panel to handle primary air intake. It should have mounts for multiple fans (if fans don't come pre-installed).

 

Second, the case should offer an unobstructed path for air to move from the front intake to the rear exhaust. This is where proper cable management plays a role in airflow.

 

Third, you might want to consider a case with bottom and/or top venting. If you're using an air cooler for your CPU, adding a few fans to the top of the case can help push out the hot air that's naturally rising.

 

And if you opt for a liquid-cooled AiO setup, the top venting can be used for the radiator's heat exhaust.

More tips on how to choose the best PC case for your next build

These five features that I think every PC case should have are a starting point for would-be PC builders, and I'm interested to know what other tips you, the reader, have to offer.

 

Please be sure to drop some comments in the section below!

 

Source

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