[This stealth game challenges you to do murders, then vacuum up the mess]

The first guard is a burly dude. He's standing next to a porthole in the cruise ship's dining area, which I violently pop inwards to knock him down. Then I smack him with a nearby wet floor sign while he's lying on the ground for good measure, and hide under a table before the dazed thug can get up and spot me. 

Meanwhile, another guard starts approaching through the kitchen. I quickly go into hack mode, remotely ping the oven to attract him to it, then overload it to set him on fire. At the same time I hack a lazy susan on a dining room table—one of those rotating turntables for plates of food—spinning it up to an unsafe speed before launching it into the burly dude's head just as he recovers. Both guards are dealt with.

The next step is to clean the blood off the floor, which I do by sucking it up since I'm a robotic vacuum cleaner.

Justice Sucks takes the stealth assassinations of a game like Hitman and leans into their silliness. My fallback in the recent Hitman games is usually slipping emetic poison into someone's drink, waiting for them to rush to the bathroom to vomit, then drowning them in the toilet. Which is pretty grim, to be honest. In the cartoonish world of Justice Sucks I'm more likely to open a refrigerator to freeze a goon solid, then drop a ceiling fan to shatter them.

Or, since I am a roomba, I might convince a cat to ride on top of me like they do on those cute internet videos before launching said cat at someone in a dust-cloud of claws and meowing. Or I might suck up a whole cactus then fling it, or hack an automatic door to slam shut while someone's walking through it. I've got a lot of options.

(Image credit: tinyBuild)

Justice Sucks started as an experimental game called Roombo: First Blood, which is still available on Steam and itch.io. In that, you dealt with a crew of burglars by setting off various smart-home appliances to messily kill them, then cleaned up the mess before your owners got home. It had a kind of Home Alone vibe, if the traps Macaulay Culkin set off reduced the Wet Bandits to smears of red rather than simply giving them permanent brain damage.

There's a more high-concept story in Justice Sucks, where an evil home security corporation that sends out robbers to encourage people to pay more for their gadgets has kidnapped your owners. Most of the levels actually take place in a kind of vision quest fever dream themed around action movies and TV shows where you—a sentient robotic cleaning device in case you forgot—learn to become the perfect killer. You achieve this with the help of a muscular dancing avatar of hygiene and righteousness named Sexy McClean.

(Image credit: tinyBuild)

Wackadoo as it sounds, this storyline does justify the power-ups you gain by completing levels and challenges. Pretty soon I can leak flammable oil, drop proximity mines, ram enemies, and summon Sexy McClean to anime-punch bad guys into orbit. To use these abilities I need blood, hoovering it up as I reduce hoodlums to stains. Fortunately whatever heavy-duty attachments I'm stocked with chomp corpses up real good, turning human bodies into lumps of meat and bone like something you'd feed a cartoon dog.

After electrocuting, immolating, and decapitating everyone in a level, it's time to clean. With the clock ticking down, I scoot all over the nightclub, airport, or office building, eradicating spills and restoring pot plants I've knocked over. One minute is plenty of time to get these bite-sized levels mostly sparkling, and an oddly pleasant way to say farewell to them. Goodbye, cruise ship. I'll always remember the time I broke a urinal to spill water all over the floor then electrocuted two bozos while they stood in it.

Justice Sucks: Tactical Vacuum Action is available on Steam and the Epic Games Store. 

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[Sunday Gold Review]

Need to know

What is it?  A curious mix of JRPG with point and click adventure in a very Deathloop-esque '70s near future
Expect to pay: N/A
Release date: October 13
Developer: BKOM
Publisher: Team 17
Reviewed on:  Intel i5 12600K, Nvidia RTX 3070, 32GB RAM
Multiplayer? No
Link:  Steam page

The trend in newer RPGs (I'm thinking Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin 2) is to bring you back to full health between fights so that you can focus on the tactical minutia of each battle. Sunday Gold will have none of that. Its three chapter-heists are a war of attrition. You'll manage party members' health, stress, action points, and consumables, solve classic point and click adventure item gathering puzzles, and battle corporate security without any real breaks. It's like someone jammed an old school, hardcore RPG into a Sierra adventure. While the battles themselves are just ok, the puzzle-solving benefits from the constraints and added intensity of managing dwindling resources.

The story is very Final Fantasy 7: You've got the corporate overlord and his secret labs gutting an over-industrialized city, the rag-tag group of freedom fighters⁠—complete with disaffected loner and bruiser lady with a heart of gold⁠—and a secret base to return to under a dive bar. It's red meat, classic videogame stuff in a neo-'70s sci-fi setting.

I'm into the comic book art, but it's that ruthless game of attrition that really makes Sunday Gold exciting. Your characters use the same pool of action points (AP) in exploration mode and in combat. Ending a turn of exploration triggers a chance for a random encounter. That means it's possible to get into a loop where you finish a combat encounter with no AP left, end your exploration turn early to refresh those points, and instantly trigger another random encounter.

Those Who Fight

This deco penthouse was way more interesting than the bland offices underneath. (Image credit: Bkom, Team 17)

The JRPG-style battles are otherwise typical: There's a rock paper scissors resistance system, enemy armor that you have to deplete and time your best attacks against, and status effects like "bleed" (damage over time) and "fractured" (slower AP regen) for you and your opponents. The persistence of health and AP between fights and exploration adds an element of long term strategizing to each battle that elevates the whole. I found that timing combat decisions such that I finished with max health and AP for the next exploration phase won out over finishing fights as quickly as possible. Pyrrhic victories are a no-go⁠—finishing a battle with low health or AP would royally screw me over for the subsequent exploration turn.

Sunday Gold's addition of scarcity and stress to classic adventure gameplay is refreshing in the current field. It's innovative in a similar vein to fellow 2022 adventure/RPG, Citizen Sleeper, which tasked you with making the most of daily dice rolls to live your best life on a space station. These two games present an alternate path to the way PC Gamer's perennial favorite, Disco Elysium, blended the genres of RPG and adventure. In contrast to Disco Elysium's embrace of build crafting and skill checks, Sunday Gold and Citizen Sleeper are all about thinking on your feet and managing those scarce resources effectively.

The result is something really special⁠: hardcore RPG resource management like you'd find in Baldur's Gate or a single digit Final Fantasy, but in a point-and-click adventure. I couldn't just click everywhere and try every action prompt at my disposal until something new happened like I did in the Monkey Island games when I was a kid, because my party would run out of action points and get torn up by random encounters. I had to think through the puzzles and weigh each action rather than rely on brute force.

There's a set piece about two-thirds through that exemplifies that tight, harried puzzle solving. Your party gets trapped in a classic Star Wars trash compactor situation and you have to find four keys hidden in the room. You get a shared pool of around 25 action points to spend before the trap goes off, wiping your team, but there's more than that many points worth of things to do and problems to figure out. The keys themselves are perched atop high shelves or locked behind an electrified door. The room also contains valuable optional loot like a shotgun for Frank, your DPSer. There's also, however, a smattering of junk actions like shoulder checking the door or fruitlessly shooting at it. On my first attempt I threw everything at it and failed. Chastened, I reloaded and really thought my way through the puzzle.

Sunday Gold really trolled my gamer instincts when I was searching a dead body for an ID card early in the game. My greedy impulse was to pillage every pocket for health potions, but feeling up a corpse understandably drained my character's morale meter (going too low introduces deliberate interface glitches and a strict time limit for combat decision making). Also, it turned out this brutally assassinated corporate stooge didn't have any small keys, amulets of natural armor, or enchanted short swords to make that morale hit worthwhile. Once I'd found the plot-critical keycard, I should've ignored those completionist instincts and gone on my way. Sunday Gold punked me, dangling a carrot and then swatting my hand as I reached for it, and you know what? I deserved it.

My own personal Waterloo. (Image credit: Bkom, Team 17)

Sunday Gold does feature a bit of that old Sierra moon logic for some of its puzzles, to its detriment. There's that adventure game staple of machinery having a missing valve that you have to collect from elsewhere before screwing it in to use it for a valve-y purpose⁠—seriously, who keeps these things anywhere other than where they screw in? It's not always signposted well when a puzzle is limited to one room and when you might have to backtrack to gather necessary components, leaving a few set pieces that sent me clicking around a series of rooms until something, well, clicked—just the kind of behavior Sunday Gold is at its best when it discourages through its AP system.

That occasional muddiness left me thinking the lone progress-blocking glitch I encountered was actually my own inability to solve a puzzle. This obtuse sequence involving lasers and a coolant tank sent me to point-and-click adventure ironic hell: I'd done everything right and exhausted all my options, but the last piece of the puzzle glitched. My character would give an "I can't do that right now" bark when I tried to shoot the dang thing as required. I assumed I was missing some doodad or boobah to complete the puzzle and the LucasArts gods were unhappy with me, but after clicking on everything in the room five times I reloaded a save and discovered it had simply bugged out.

Style Points

"We have the Seventh Heaven from Final Fantasy 7 at home." Pictured: the Seventh Heaven at home. (Image credit: Bkom, Team 17)

Sunday Gold's expressive, impressionistic character design and '70s "conversation pit future" are what really drew me to it initially. The style is somewhat wasted on the game's first two acts, corporate office building and a catalog-direct Umbrella corp secret lab, but your dive bar home base and the final act's Knives Out novelty mansion leverage the setting better. I think there was a lot of juice left in that orange.

Sunday Gold's writing averages to an almost perfect net neutral for me. There are some great bits throughout the game, such as the gruesomely over-the-top evil corporate motivational posters scattered throughout the office chapter, and the world building is cheeky and fun. The game takes place in an extravagantly cruel future London obsessed with zombie dog races and owned by a "visionary" billionaire who looks like a '70s Hollywood producer. The dialogue, however, is perfectly room temperature. Smug con man Frank, activist bruiser Sally, and high-strung anarchist hacker Gavin are fantastic in profile, compelling archetypes with memorable visual design, but they communicate in either bland bants or straight information dumps. The cool visual style can only carry so much.

Storytelling aside, Sunday Gold is a successful proof-of-concept, effectively taping two genres together to make something new and, in some ways, better. It doesn't have the emotional or philosophical heft of a Citizen Sleeper or a Disco Elysium, but it has what really counts: tactical, menu-based combat.

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[Uncharted 4 releases on PC in October with variable framerate and an updated UI]

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is coming to PC on October 19, Sony announced today. (A series of leaks had already pegged October 19 as the launch date, but now it's official.) It'll release on both Steam and the Epic Games Store. 

This will be the first time Sony's treasure-hunting series has released on PC. 

The collection includes Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, and the PC release date announcement trailer above advertises features we find appealing: Ultrawide support, 4K resolutions, variable framerate. The PC version will also support the DualSense Controller's unique features if you plug one of those into your PC.

Sony's announcement post outlines other PC-centric features that port developers Iron Galaxy have included: a redesigned UI, GPU and VRAM detection for settings optimization, "Variable Load Speed," and more, such as support for Razer Chroma RGB dynamics. It'll also work upscaled with AMD Fidelity FX Super Resolution 2.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection has pages on the Epic Games Store and Steam already. 

You can read the entire announcement post on the PlayStation blog. Below, find Sony's recommended system requirements for Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, split into four quality and framerate targets. The publisher says we'll be able to toggle or adjust graphics settings including "texture and model quality, anisotropic filtering, shadows, reflections, and ambient occlusion."

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves minimum requirements (720p, 30 fps, medium settings)

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• CPU: Intel i5-4330, AMD Ryzen 3 1200
• GPU: Nvidia GTX 960 (4GB), AMD R9 290X (4GB)
• RAM: 8GB (16 GB Recommended)
• Storage: 126GB HDD (SSD Recommended)

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves recommended requirements (1080p, 30 fps, high settings)

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• CPU: Intel i7-4770, AMD Ryzen 5 1500X
• GPU: Nvidia GTX 1060 (6GB), AMD RX 570 (4GB)
• RAM: 16GB
• Storage: 126GB SSD

(Image credit: Sony)

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves "performance" system requirements (1440p, 60fps, high settings)

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• CPU: Intel i7-7700k, AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
• GPU: Nvidia RTX 2070 (8GB), AMD RX 5700XT (8GB)
• RAM: 16GB
• Storage: 126GB SSD

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves "ultra" system requirements (4k, 60fps, ultra settings)

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• CPU: Intel i9-9900k, AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
• GPU: Nvidia RTX 3080 (10GB), AMD RX 6800 (16GB)
• RAM: 16GB
• Storage: 126GB SSD

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[Ark: Survival Evolved and a legendary co-op board game are free on Epic next week]

Next week will see the perennially popular survival shooter ARK: Survival Evolved go free to keep on the Epic Games store for another week. From September 22nd to September 29th, the dinosaur-riding survival extravaganza will be totally free. You can just have it.

Free this week are magic fox exploration platformer Spirit of the North and adventure game The Captain. Next week's other free game will be Gloomhaven, a quite good (and huge) digital adaptation of the hit cooperative RPG board game. I gave it an 87 in the PC Gamer review.

Ark's a classic for a reason, though. From its sojourn in the early access wilds to its string of expansions, Ark's blazed a trail that defined the survival genre and has outlived nearly all its peers from the mid-2010s. That's in part due to a focus by developer Studio Wildcard on not just solo survival, but various kinds of cooperative and competitive play.

This isn't the first time Ark has been free on Epic Games, or free at all. It was free in 2020 on Epic and earlier this year on Steam. The giveaway makes some sense, given that Ark 2 is being developed in Unreal Engine 5, which necessitates close collaboration with Epic Games.

That second free period was to celebrate the reveal of that wild trailer for Ark 2. You know, the one where Vin Diesel fights a bunch of dinosaurs because he's not only starring in the game, he's working as an executive producer on it? Either way it shouldn't be surprising to anyone to see known D&D-loving nerd Vin Diesel playing a video game.

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[We finally know when Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 launches]

Activision has been stingy with details about the standalone sequel to Call of Duty: Warzone, but we finally got some concrete details today during the Call of Duty Next event. It's called Warzone 2.0, and it's coming out very soon after Modern Warfare 2.

During today's CoD Next stream, Infinity Ward said Warzone 2.0 will release alongside Modern Warfare 2's Season 1 content. We know that Season 1 is coming on November 16, so it's a solid bet that's when Warzone 2.0 is coming as well. 

This release format is very similar to how Activision launched the first Warzone back in 2020. The free-to-play battle royale began life as a mysterious new mode added to Modern Warfare 2019 until it got so popular that it basically took over the entire Call of Duty ecosystem.

When Warzone 2.0 comes out, it'll have some big changes. First is the Al Mazrah map, which is the biggest Warzone has seen yet. In battle royale, there will no longer just be one circle. Multiple play regions will exist on the map that will eventually combine into a single final circle.

(Image credit: Infinity Ward)

Warzone 2.0 will also have a new mode called DMZ, Call of Duty's take on the extraction shooter genre currently dominated by Hunt: Showdown and Escape From Tarkov.

Read more about Infinity Ward's plans for the Modern Warfare 2 beta, which goes live tomorrow on PlayStation before arriving on PC a week later on Sept 22.

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[Best B550 motherboard for gaming]

The best B550 motherboards offer great performance and value for your AMD build without skimping on features. Compared to the top X570 motherboards, some might think B550s are a big step down, but they're pretty capable AMD mobos. 

The best part about B550 boards is that they can handle the most powerful AMD processors like the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and Ryzen 9 5950X with no problems. There's even support for PCIe 4.0, which has made its way from the top X570 chipset to B550.

The biggest difference between the two boards is how the chipset connects to the CPU—the X570 chipset connects over PCIe 4.0, while the B550 uses PCIe 3.0. If you need more PCIe 4.0 slots and NVMe SSDs, then an X570 motherboard is, on paper, a better choice, but for the vast majority of gamers, a B550 motherboard is more than enough. 

I've been trying to get my hands on as many AM4 compatible motherboards as we can for testing. I  got boards from all the big guys like ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI. I've narrowed the list to those I think have earned a spot in your precious gaming rig. You don't have to thank me; I'm just doing my job. 

Best B550 motherboards

(Image credit: Asus)

1. Asus ROG Strix B550-E Gaming

The best B550 motherboard

Form factor: ATX | Memory support: 4x DIMM, up to 128GB, up to DDR4-4600 | Expansion slots: 2x PCIe 4.0 x16, 1x PCIe 3.0 x4 | Storage: 2x M.2, 6x SATA 6Gbps | Networking: Intel Wi-Fi 6, Intel 2.5Gb ethernet, Bluetooth 5.1 | Rear USB: 3 x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 4 x USB 2.0

Extensive feature set

Build quality

Top-end networking

Stock-clocked performance is unremarkable

Limited bandwidth for peripherals

Allow me to present the Asus ROG Strix B550-E Gaming, the most expensive of Asus’ new lineup of AMD B550 boards.  Nearly $300 for a motherboard based on a budget chipset? Really? If that sounds like something you never knew you needed, hold on. It’s not actually altogether crazy.

Yes, the B550 is strictly the second tier variant of AMD’s latest 500-series chipsets. But it doesn’t miss out on all that much compared to its bigger X570 brother. Essentially, there’s one really significant downgrade, from which a host of detailed changes flow.

For the B550, AMD has hooked up the PCH chip at the heart of the chipset to the CPU socket via a quad-lane PCI Express Gen 3 interface. The X570 gets quad-lane PCI Express, too, but a Gen 4 interface. In simple terms, that means double the bandwidth. In detail terms, consequences for the B550 include support for just a single M.2 PCIe Gen 4 SSD running at full speed, while the X570 chipset supports two. 

What you’ll also be wondering about is performance. Is it actually all that much better than a more prosaic - and cheaper - B550 alternative? At stock clocks and default board settings, the inevitable answer is... no. In fact, the Asus ROG Strix B550-E Gaming is a solid 50 per cent pricier than the likes of the MSI MAG B550M Mortar(opens in new tab) and tangibly slower in most of our benchmarks, including games.

Where the Strix looks stronger, inevitably, involves overclocking. AMD’s laissez-faire approach to clocking the twangers off pretty much any CPU that comes its way, by enabling access to super-simple core ratio tweaks, means you’d almost be mad not to give it a go. The Strix B550-E gets Asus’ slick and familiar BIOS interface that allows access to not only the core ratio but pretty much every setting a keen overclocker could wish for. So you have the choice of bumping the core ratios up and letting the board work out the details, or getting down and dirty with voltages and timings.

While we’re discussing the more extreme end of the performance envelope, it’s also worth noting that Asus’ DOCP (Direct Over Clock Profile) isn’t entirely successful in this implementation. It correctly detects the 3,000MHz XMP profile of our HyperX Predator DDR4 DIMMs, but hangs upon rebooting. Stable operation is possible at 2,866MHz, which isn’t a million miles away. But Asus’s DOCP doesn’t quite deliver on the advertised aim, which is a roughly equivalent experience to Intel’s XMP profiles.

All of which means that we’re back where we started. If maximum bandwidth for peripherals attached to the chipset is critical for you, then no B550 will serve you well. On the other hand, if you're expecting to run a pretty lean system with a single M.2 drive and not all that much by way of added peripherals, you might well decide there’s no point on paying the premium for an X570 board. You can spend the money saved on a slightly faster CPU or graphics card and still have a pretty high-end, and full-featured motherboard.

Read our full Asus ROG Strix B550-E Gaming review.

(Image credit: ASRock)

2. ASRock B550 Taichi Razer Edition

The best premium B550 motherboard

Form factor: ATX | Memory support: 4x DIMM, up to 128GB, up to DDR4-4733 (OC) | Expansion slots: 3x PCIe 4.0 x16, 2x PCIe 3.0 x1 | Storage: 2x M.2; 8x SATA | Networking: Killer 1650x 802.11ax Wi-Fi; Killer E3100X 2.5G LAN | USB: Up to 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 8x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 6x USB 2.0

Razer Chroma support

Strong VRM

Good I/O and connectivity features

Many X570 boards can be had for less

Since the debut of ASRock’s Taichi brand, I've been a fan of its quality blend of price, performance, and features. It’s also one of few sub-brands that doesn’t go all in on a ‘gaming’ theme, which is something many people appreciate. I know I do. With the Razer influence, however, that’s changed somewhat here. The traditional yin/yang and cog machinery aesthetic has been left off with the release of the B550 Taichi Razer Edition. 

This reinvented ASRock Taichi board features a minimalist, yet unmistakably premium appearance that integrates Razer Chroma RGB support. It sure is a lovely-looking board, and if you’re invested in the Razer ecosystem, it’s a board you’ll definitely want to consider for a Ryzen 5000 series build.

As the name suggests, the biggest marketing talking point of the board is its support for the Razer Chroma RGB ecosystem. On the surface, it’s just another flavor of RGB, but Razer does go beyond a typical implementation to include a greater range of effects while offering extensive customization with the Chroma Studio app. There’s also game integration, support for many external apps, and Amazon Alexa integration. So, if you want to RGB your RGB, the chances are Chroma can do it. 

The ASRock B550 Taichi Razer Edition is arguably right at the top of the B550 tree. Whether a B550 board costing as much as the Taichi Razer Edition is right for you may come down to how important RGB is to you and how many M.2 drives you plan to run. Many X570 boards are available at this price with three M.2 slots and feature more PCIe 4.0 general-purpose lanes. There is an ASRock X570 Taichi Razer Edition, and that is some $100 more. Is it worth the extra? We’d say probably not unless your needs are specific. 

The ASRock B550 Taichi Razer Edition can overclock as far as your cooling will allow, it can run fast memory, and it’s got Killer 2.5G LAN and WiFi 6 along with decent audio. It really does look great and will strongly appeal to RGB lovers. Ask yourself if you need extra M.2 slots or things like 10G LAN. If not, then this is a board that’s definitely worth considering. Even if for the aesthetic alone.

Read our full ASRock B550 Taichi Razer Edition review.

(Image credit: MSI)

3. MSI MAG B550M Mortar

The best B550 motherboard for pure gaming performance

Form factor: Micro-ATX | Memory support: 4x DIMM, up to 128GB, up to DDR4-4400 | Expansion slots: 1x PCIe 4.0 x16, 1x PCIe 3.0 x4 | Storage: 2x M.2, 6x SATA 6Gbps | Networking: Realtek 2.5Gb ethernet | Rear USB: 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1, 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 2x USB 2.0

Great stock-clock performance and efficiency

Slick BIOS

Competitive pricing

Poor overclocking

Stingy back-panel port count

Short on luxuries and frills

Entry-level gaming is the aim for MSI’s MAG B550M Mortar board, tested here in base format without integrated wireless networking. It’s a compact board and the only Micro-ATX option among MSI’s initial B550 offerings. The idea? Affordability combined with all the features you actually need and less by way snazzy extras that don’t actually help you go gaming.

First up in the left-it-out ledger are the omissions are inherent to the AMD B550 chipset. That means half the bandwidth to the PCH chip compared to AMD full-fat 500 Series chipset, the X570. That’s significant primarily for peripherals such as secondary SSDs and USB connectivity. You still get 16 PCI Express Gen 4 lanes for graphics and four Gen 4 lanes for a primary SSD, all of which hook straight into the CPU socket.

Inevitably, given the relatively modest pricing, those 16 PCIe 4.0 graphics lanes are restricted to the primary PEG-16 slot. There’s another full length slot below, but it feeds off the PCH chip and is thus restricted to just four PCI Express Gen 3 lanes. In other words, forget about dual-GPU gaming. In reality, that’s pretty much what the market has done in general - forget about multi-GPU... at least for now. So that omission is fine by us and allows this board to be cheaper without having any impact on your gaming or general computing experience.

At this price point something has to give, of course, and the MAG B550M Mortar is conspicuously short on luxuries. There’s no debug display, no physical power or reset buttons, no RGB lighting. Of course, none of those things make any difference in-game and it’s easy to argue the £100 / $100 saving over a premium B550 board like the Asus ROG Strix B550-E Gaming(opens in new tab) can therefore be invested where it really counts - in a better graphics card.

Other economics include details like just one heat spreader supplied for the two M.2 slots and arguably the general air of old fashionedness. That includes memory DIMM slots with clips at both ends and a user manual that feels a little dated and clunky compared to the relative polish of Asus. You can’t say that, however, of the MAG B550M Mortar BIOS menu, which is slick, friendly and full-featured.

If that’s all good, predictably there’s a catch. The MSI MAG B550M Mortar’s Achilles' heel is overclocking. Where the two Asus boards easily achieved 4.2GHz on all cores with our AMD Ryzen 3100 quad-core test chip, the B550M Mortar only manages 4GHz, a paltry 100MHz above the 3.9GHz all-core Turbo rating of the 3100.

No doubt with some fine tuning, more speed could be released, but it’s not encouraging. And if overclocking is a primary concern the simple conclusion when it comes to the MSI MAG B550M Mortar is to jog on; there are better options. But not everyone wants to overclock and, for those who don’t, the performance and efficiency on offer are certainly appealing. Finally, it’s worth noting that the Wi-Fi version of the B550M Mortar is typically available for around $10-15 more and is probably a no brainer if you’re leaning MSI and run your gaming rig wirelessly.

Read our full MSI MAG B550M Mortar review.

Best gaming motherboards | Best SSD for gaming | Best gaming laptop
Best PC cases | Best gaming PC | Best gaming mouse 

(Image credit: ASRock)

4. ASRock B550 Taichi

The best-looking B550 motherboard

Form factor: ATX | Memory support: 4x DIMM, up to 128GB, up to DDR4-5000 | Expansion slots: 2x PCIe 4.0 x16, 1x PCIe 3.0 x4 | Storage: 2x M.2, 8x SATA 6Gbps | Networking: Intel Wi-Fi 6, Intel 2.5Gb ethernet, Bluetooth 5.1 | Rear USB: 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 4 x USB 3.2 Gen 1, 2x USB 2.0

Seriously robust

Great performance

Strong feature set

B550 chipset a little short on bandwidth

Overclocking can be laborious

Not for budget builds

The geared aesthetic of ASRock's premium Taichi motherboards makes this the best-looking of all the B550 boards we've checked out, though that premium nature does make it also the most expensive. Indeed it's priced higher than the ASRock X570 Taichi, making this a difficult recommendation until the almost inevitable price correction will certainly happen over time.

As we’ve explained before, the B550 chipset doesn’t actually lose out all that much in terms of the raw specs compared with AMD's top-end X570 chipset. The main difference involves the interface between the CPU and PCH chip at the heart of the silicon. For the B550, that’s delivered courtesy of a quartet of Gen 3 PCI Express lanes.

But it's got the same sort of specs list as the excellent Asus ROG Strix B550-E, and it means you get all the networking niceties and the gaming performance to put it around the top of the list. It's also got some overclocking chops too, allowing us to hit 4.2GHz on the Ryzen 3 3100 budget gaming chip.

As for actual performance at stock clocks, the ASRock B550 Taichi puts out very nice numbers. Despite claims of support for up to DDR4-5200 it mirrored the other B550 we’ve tested of late in not fancying more than 2,866MHz from our DDR4 3200 HyperX Predator DIMMs. No matter, the Taichi was still quicker at stock clocks than two of the other three B550 boards we’ve benchmarked of late, the MSI Mortar remaining at the top of the pile in that regard.

When it comes to overclocking, the picture is a bit more complicated. In extremis, this is likely the most overclockable B550 we’ve seen. However, ASRock’s BIOS ties the manual CPU core frequency settings to those of the core voltage. Consequently, if you want to manually overclock the CPU, you must also hand tune the voltages.

It's also incredibly well-built, with a metal structure that makes it one of the most robust B550 motherboards around. But yeah, it's tough to look at that price and feel this second-tier chipset is where you want to put your Ryzen money.

Read our full ASRock B550 Taichi review.

(Image credit: ASRock)

5. ASRock B550M-HDV

The best budget B550 motherboard

Form factor: Micro-ATX | Memory support: 2x DIMM, up to 64GB, up to DDR4-4600 | Expansion slots: 1x PCIe 4.0 x16, 1x PCIe 3.0 x4 | Storage: 1x M.2, 4x SATA 6Gbps | Networking: 1Gb ethernet | Rear USB: 4 x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 2 x USB 2.0

Affordable price

Good all-round performance

Has the really critical features you need

Limited expansion

No USB Type-C ports

Four-phase power

Board walk

(Image credit: MSI)

Best gaming motherboard: the best boards around
Best AMD motherboard: your new Ryzen's new home

Our first look at AMD’s second-tier member of its new 500 Series of chipsets, the B550, involved some fairly premium priced boards. Then came the Asrock B550 Taichi, a $300 beast of a B550 motherboard. Arguably, it was all getting a bit silly. Now Asrock is back but this time with B550 option that’s much more what we were initially expecting.

Give it up, therefore, for the Asrock B550M-HDV. Clocking in around $80, it sits rather more comfortably with the value-orientated B550's market positioning. Not that the B550 is a bum chipset. In fact, it isn’t miles away from its bigger X570 brother by most metrics. The key differentiator between the two involves the link between the CPU and PCH chip, the latter essentially being the motherboard chipset thanks to much of what used to be chipset functionality now residing on the CPU package. For the B550, that link is composed of a quartet of Gen 3 PCI Express lanes. The X570? It’s also quad-lane, but Gen 4 spec and so double the bandwidth.

The most immediate and obvious consequence involves storage. You still get Gen 4 links directly into the CPU with the B550 chipset. There are 16 lanes available for graphics and another four for storage, enabling support for a quad-lane PCIe Gen 4 M.2 SSD. But, where the X570 adds support for a second Gen 4 M.2 drive attached to the PCH chip, the B550’s secondary M.2 socket is capped at PCIe Gen 3 speeds.

The immediate conclusion might therefore be why pay more? The answer is that the Ryzen 3100 is not a terribly demanding chip. Odds are, you’d knock up against the limitation of that cheap four-phase power design and minimal cooling when overclocking CPUs with eight-plus cores.

Of course, few existing Ryzen CPUs actually overclock well. So, that potential limitation doesn’t count for much. It’s possible that future AMD CPUs based on the Zen 3 architecture could provide more headroom. But that speculative and, in any case, at this price point you’re never going to get the last word in overclocking prowess.

Overall, then, our main reservation involves features. It would be quite nice to have at least one USB-C socket, here in 2020, plus a second M.2 slot. Either, but not both, of those are things you could add with a PCIe x1 board, though the M.2 slot would be limited to lowly x1 PCIe 3.0 speeds. And it's extra money. If those omissions matter to you, it probably makes sense to shop around and find a board that offers them as standard.

Read our full Asrock B550M-HDV review.

Best B550 motherboard FAQ

What's the difference between a B550 and X570 motherboard?

There isn't a lot of difference between the top two AMD 500-series motherboard chipsets when it comes to straight performance. The main difference is AMD has replaced the PCIe Gen 4 interface used on the X570—which connects the CPU socket to the platform controller hub (PCH) chip at the heart of the chipset—with a PCIe Gen 3 version for the B550.

The Ryzen 3000 and 5000 CPUs can still offer PCIe 4.0 support itself, delivering 16 high-speed lanes for a GPU and a further four for lightning-fast SSDs, but it means the B550 can't support secondary PCIe 4.0 SSDs or graphics cards.

The tighter bandwidth does affect other sensitive areas, such as USB connectivity, but on the whole, it doesn't affect gaming performance. The CPU itself is still offering a PCIe 4.0 connection to the main graphics slot and the primary M.2 SSD connection, ensuring all the bandwidth you could need for a standard AMD gaming PC. 

And there are B550 motherboards, such as the Asus ROG and ASRock Taichi boards above, which offer the sort of power componentry to deliver overclocking performance. AMD has also confirmed that both B550 and X570 will support the next generation of Ryzen CPUs.

Where they differ, however, is in the extended feature set. While those two premium B550 boards have an impressive feature list, the B550 chipset means that bandwidth-sensitive connections on the motherboard will be behind the top range of boards. That's thanks to the relationship between the PCH on the chipset and the CPU using PCIe Gen3, instead of the complete Gen 4 solution across the X570s.

AMD B450 vs B550 vs X570 chipset comparison

	B450 Chipset	B550 Chipset	X570 Chipset
CPU Graphics Support	x16 PCIe Gen 3	x16 PCIe Gen 4	x16 PCIe Gen 4
CPU Storage Support	PCIe Gen 3	PCIe Gen 4	PCIe Gen 4
CPU USB Ports	USB 3.1 Gen 1	USB 3.2 Gen2	USB 3.2 Gen2
Dual Graphics Support	No	Yes	Yes
General Purpose Lanes	PCIe Gen 2	PCIe Gen 3	PCIe Gen 4
CPU Chipset Uplink	PCIe Gen 3	PCIe Gen 3	PCIe Gen 4
Overclocking Support	Yes	Yes	Yes

In general, the B550 motherboards are a tad more expensive than we'd like, with the ASRock B550 Taichi being the most obvious example. It's around the same price as the ASRock X570 Taichi, arguably the better board or the more fully featured.

There are cheaper B550 boards out there, such as the ASRock B550 HDV, but then you are losing out on luxuries like decent power phase design and potentially then overall performance. That might be a cut too far if you're aiming for an affordable home for your next AMD Ryzen CPU purchase.

Your best bet is to keep in mind what features mean the most to you. Do you need wireless networking, will you be overclocking, and how many Gen 4 SSDs are you likely to drop into your new AMD PC? If the answers are no, no, and one, then a B550 will be a good shout. Just make sure the one you pick doesn't have a similarly specced, similarly priced X570 twin lurking around.

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[This flying car mod for Cyberpunk 2077 looks so good it should be a real feature]

My life as a corpo in Cyberpunk 2077 started out pretty promisingly, including a ride in my own private flying limousine to kick off my first mission. Granted, things went off the rails almost immediately when I lost my job and got the ghost of Johnny Utah Wick Harker Constantine Mnemonic Silverhand stuck in my brain, but I sort of expected, at some point, to have my own flying car again. The future, as we all know, is always filled with flying cars. So what gives?

Hard to say if it was an oversight or a feature they didn't have time to add, but a modder has expertly corrected that omission. Let There Be Flight is a mod for Cyberpunk 2077 by Jack Humbert that puts flying cars into the game and lets you take to the sky over Night City. And it looks pretty darn slick:

You're not just hopping into a car and lurching into the air like you're using a noclip cheat mode. The mod adds custom thruster models with a nice glow to the undercarriage of the cars, so it really looks like your car should be able to fly. There are custom sound effects, too, so if you watched the video above on mute go back and turn up the volume. There's a nice thrumming and humming noise when you lift off, like when you're sitting in an airplane and the engines are throttled up.

Throw in the ability to do some barrel rolls, and I can't think of a better way to get around Night City, especially considering how the AI citizens are exceptionally poor drivers. Traffic jams are a thing of the past.

There are a number of different flight modes depending how you want to play, whether you prefer mouse and keyboard or a controller. You can toggle between them and even customize the flight controls, and the mod also adds a new follow camera if you like doing your flying in third-person mode. You can exit the car while it's in flight, though probably don't do that because you'll most likely fall to your death. And don't think that your hovercar makes you an invulnerable pilot: you can still take damage and your car will explode if it reaches zero health.

It's unfortunately not a single-click install: Let There Be Flight is dependent on a number of other mods, so make sure you check the requirements when you download it. You'll find it (and the mods you need to get it running) here on Nexus Mods.

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[Cheap graphics card deals in the UK]

I can't believe it. GPUs are back. This means the return of cheap graphics card deals. It's been a while, but the supply chain situation has finally gotten, the stock is flowing, and cryptocurrency miners are buying up every GPU in sight, thanks to events like the Merge.

Not only are most of the most popular graphics cards back in stock, but some are even affordable again. The inflated pandemic pricing has slowly been easing up as some cards are actually selling at or below MSRP thanks to some generous discounts. Notice I said, "some." You'll still find a handful of RTX 30-series cards selling over their usual retail price. Thankfully, this is a trend we see fading pretty soon.

If you have your eyes on upgrading to a premium GPU, expect to see some hefty discounts as we get closer to the holiday season. However, keep in mind that new GPUs should launch before the end of the year, so if you're looking for the most powerful graphics to stick into your PC, you may want to hold off buying one for a couple of months.

I picked out some of the best GPU deals the internet has to offer, from the very top cards to the very cheapest, to help you find the right graphics card for you and your wallet. 

Palit GeForce GTX 1660 6GB StormX Boost | £188.99 (save £11)
Not a vast saving, but then again this is a cheaper GPU to begin with. The 1660 is a nice card, and while we'd probably get a Super version instead, the lure of a deal is strong.View Deal

PNY GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB XLR8 GAMING OC |£973.47 (save £46)
This is the triple-fan version of the big-boy card, so it's a big one. Ideal for high-end PCs, and here with a tidy £46 saving.View Deal

XFX RX 5700 Xt Thicc II 8GB GDDR6 | £362 via Amazon
No saving here, but this a good price for the RX 5700, which is a nice powerful card, if you've got an AMD build. Go Team Red!View Deal

ASUS GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB GDDR5 | £132.58
A great price on what is a solid last-gen GPU. It won't handle big modern games, but is perfect for a budget rig and will still give you decent frame rates on indies.View Deal

Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti

1. Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti

The fastest graphics card for 4K, ray tracing, and everything else

GPU Cores: 4,352 | Base Clock: 1,350MHz | Boost Clock: 1,545MHz | GFLOPS: 13,448 | Memory: 11GB GDDR6 | Memory Clock: 14 GT/s | Memory Bandwidth: 616GB/s

Fastest graphics card around

Ray tracing and deep learning tech

TItan pricing on GeForce

No ray traced games yet

Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is the latest and most potent GPU around, and it's also one of the largest consumer GPUs ever produced. The Turing TU102 is 60 percent larger than the Pascal GP102 in the 1080 Ti, with 55 percent more transistors. Those extra transistors went into more CUDA cores, but Nvidia didn't stop there, adding in Tensor cores to help accelerate deep learning algorithms like DLSS, plus RT cores to accelerate ray tracing. There are plenty of other enhancements in the Turing architecture as well, but if you want the best, be prepared to shell out: the cheapest 2080 Ti cards start at $999, with many selling for $1,199 and up.

If you're looking for the best value, forget about the new RTX cards. On the other hand, if you're eying a 4k 144Hz HDR G-Sync display and you want the absolute fastest graphics card around, this is the card for you. You could even try adding a second card and using an NVLink connector, assuming you just won the lottery. We're unlikely to see anything substantially faster for at least a year, so you'll be able to sit comfortably at the top of the pecking order for a while.

(Image credit: ©MSI)

2. Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super

Fast and more affordable than the other RTX models

GPU Cores: 2,176 | Base Clock: 1,470MHz | Boost Clock: 1,650MHz | GFLOPS: 7,181 | Memory: 8GB GDDR6 | Memory Clock: 14 GT/s | Memory Bandwidth: 448GB/s

Great for 1080p and 1440p gaming

Affordably priced RTX features

Struggles in ray tracing games

Sideways step from GTX 1070 Ti

Essentially, this is the affordable entry into Nvidia's ray tracing capable RTX card set, clocking in at around $350-400 depending on the size of the model you choose. In terms of output, this isn't a significant step up from the 1070, or the basic 2060, but that means it's more than capable of running games at a solid 1080p and even up to 1440p for all but the most demanding titles. The downside, which is admittedly a non-issue right now, is that it struggles to implement ray tracing effectively in the games that actually use it.

If you're building a new mid-range (or even budget) gaming PC, this is probably the card to go for as it performs admirably under normal conditions, and will serve all but the gaming elite who push for 4K and full ray tracing on all the top games. Whereas that's probably the dream for everyone, the fact this card is less than half the price of most RTX 2080s makes a huge difference when you're putting together your latest rig. 

AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB

3. AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB

The best card for mainstream gaming right now

GPU Cores: 2,304 | Base Clock: 1,257MHz | Boost Clock: 1,340MHz | GFLOPS: 6,175 | Memory: 8GB GDDR5 | Memory Clock: 8 GT/s | Memory Bandwidth: 256GB/s

Excellent performance at 1080p

Usually faster in DX12 games

Uses more power than GTX 1060

Many gamers are on a budget, and while faster cards might make you envious, if you're running a 1080p display they're often overkill. Mainstream GPUs like the RX 570/580 and GTX 1060 3GB/6GB are close to the original MSRPs, with sales even dropping below MSRP. The RX 580 8GB trades blows with the GTX 1060 6GB, typically winning by a few percent in performance but using more power. The overall victor of the midrange category is largely determined by local pricing, with the UK market currently favouring the RX 580.

$200 to $275 is the sweet spot for mainstream gamers, and while the GTX 1060 3GB might seem tempting, the 3GB VRAM is a concern. Most games don't really need more memory, as the difference between high quality and ultra quality textures is often negligible, particularly on a 1080p display. Still, the RX 580 8GB is only about $30 more and is almost always quite a bit faster. Check for sales and discount codes.

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[Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will introduce Destiny-style raids]

One of the most interesting parts of today's CoD Next livestream was the announcement of raids as part of Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer. According to an official blog post, raids will be "a three-player cooperative engagement requiring teamwork and strategic, puzzle-solving thinking in-between bouts of intense combat."

Raids are coming when Modern Warfare 2 Season 1 arrives on November 16 and will apparently be episodic missions that are each a few hours long. The post is otherwise light on details, but I think there's a lot we can infer from what's been said and the environment MW2 will release in. The gold standard for MMO-style raids in FPSes has to be Bungie's Destiny. The former Halo developer's 6-person endgame PvE activity has an almost legendary place in the community, with teams competing around the clock to achieve a coveted world's first completion whenever a new one goes live.

We don't expect Modern Warfare to have deep RPG progression systems or power levels like Destiny, but at its best, CoD raids could offer something similar for its community, maybe even leverage the juggernaut's multiplayer brand in a new direction similar to how Warzone broke into the battle royale space. Warzone's already demonstrated how the confederation of CoD studios' excellent multiplayer map design can translate to something big and open-ended, and I'm hopeful these new raids can do the same.

A huge way Infinity Ward could innovate over Bungie is with how it facilitates queueing and grouping up for raids. Bungie has no matchmaking for any of its endgame content, you have to go in with a premade. While these modes require serious communication that could leave a gaggle of randos slinging gamer words at each other, the lack of amenities for the solo player feels bad when all your Destiny friends quit the game for Final Fantasy 14.

If Infinity Ward offers up some killer, complex raids and easy access to them without a premade group, this could be a slam dunk. I make a lot of assumptions here based on the company's use of the word "raid"—it has connotations of a certain level of complexity, difficulty, and quality for those familiar with MMOs and other live service games, and I hope Infinity Ward's version lives up to that.

Read more about Infinity Ward's plans for the Modern Warfare 2 beta, which goes live tomorrow on PlayStation before arriving on PC a week later on Sept 22.

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[Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is bringing back third-person mode]

Infinity Ward is dropping lots of new Modern Warfare 2 details during its Call of Duty Next event today, including the first trailer for multiplayer and details of Warzone 2.0's DMZ mode. The trailer is pretty much your standard CoD promo—guns, explosions, a remixed song from the '90s. But for a brief moment, we got a glimpse at something that hasn't been in Call of Duty since the 2009 original Modern Warfare 2.

Remember third-person mode? It's back, albeit tentatively. As Infinity Ward flaunted this feature, it's unclear to what extent it'll be implemented in the final game.

(Image credit: Infinity Ward)

The studio described third-person as a "modifier" that it can turn on for any multiplayer mode. That includes Warzone 2.0. It doesn't sound like IW is committing to third-person, but if it proves popular, it could stick around. It definitely looks a lot snazzier than the original Modern Warfare 2's official third-person mode from 2009. It was janky, weird, and definitely just a camera mod, but it had its fans. One of the implications for Warzone and other multiplayer modes would be the ability to see around corners without peeking, a style that PUBG players will already be familiar with.

I guess Infinity Ward listened to all the positive reactions to a glitched third-person mode players encountered in Modern Warfare 2019. 

More Modern Warfare 2 deets are coming throughout the day at CoD Next, including the premiere of Warzone 2.0.

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[Streamers are playing Modern Warfare 2 live right now]

Activision have made the call to let the streamers loose on this year's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 a day before the beta begins. As part of their stream today they're revealing Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer, and part of that is a sprawling multiplayer match involving dozens of streamers.

The official stream, embedded above, has a suite of commentators from the community and Infinity Ward jumping between spectator mode on several groups. Go ahead and jump in live to see some kind of incipient gunsmith-fueled shotgun/SMG meta developing—at least in the half hour I've been watching.

Both Twitch and YouTube have Modern Warfare 2 hub pages for you to hunt down a streamer you like if you'd rather find a streamer you prefer to the official commentary. It's an absolute buffet, with several dozen streamers in several languages.

The action is pretty entertaining, especially on specific streamers' channels. Seeing people who play a ton of CoD work through updates, changes, and tweak things like field of view to get a better experience. For them it's literally their first hands-on with a game they'll play for hundreds of hours over the next year, and this is a rare moment to see their live first impressions.

Infinity Ward also unveiled DMZ, a new extraction mode coming to Warzone 2.0 that sounds a lot like Hunt: Showdown and Escape from Tarkov. You can hit our Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 page for an aggregate of everything going on with the upcoming game.

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[Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 is coming for the extraction shooter crown]

The past year of Call of Duty leaks and rumors have frequently talked about a mysterious new Warzone mode that incorporates "sandbox" gameplay and AI enemies. Today, Infinity Ward confirmed that Warzone 2.0 will include a mode called DMZ, an "extraction mode" that sounds a lot like Hunt: Showdown and Escape From Tarkov.

Infinity Ward is still holding back on details, but we know that DMZ will allow players to enter the map, achieve their goals, and extract from the map whenever they want. That's a major change from the standard battle royale format (which Warzone 2.0 will also include) that forces players into random play zones until only one player or team is left alive.

DMZ will also adopt the gun and equipment buy phase of other extraction shooters. A Warzone 2.0-focused blog post published today says you'll be "collecting gear to keep in your Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 inventory and utilize from match to match."

I expect this to work a lot like Hunt and Tarkov, wherein players purchase guns and equipment from an in-game store and build the loadout they enter the match with. If you die before extracting, everything you bought is lost. Loadouts have been the heart of Warzone since its launch, so this is a natural fit, but I expect Infinity Ward to have its own twists.

Warzone 2.0 is coming out this year, sometime after the October 28 release of Modern Warfare 2. It'll come with a new map called Al Mazrah, which is apparently the largest Warzone map to date.

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[Lil Nas X is president of League of Legends now, whatever that means]

Lil Nas X, the rapper and singer best known for Old Town Road, is now the president of League of Legends. You didn't misread that and, no, I don't understand what the president of LoL busies themselves with either. Lane maintenance? Jungling permits? Microtransaction regulation?

Nevertheless, starting with the 2022 League World Championship, Lil Nas X will apparently be creating "explosive musical moments, an ingenious League champion skin, and a spectacular live Worlds performance for the 180+ million monthly players and fans in the League universe."

First: 180+ million monthly players is an incredible number, though do bear in mind this includes League of Legends itself, then Teamfight Tactics, Legends of Runeterra, LoL: Wild Rift (the mobile version) and the singleplayer RPG Ruined King: A LoL Story. Still, having almost 200 million monthly players is mind-blowing.

This is, to put it mildly, something of a marketing masterstroke. Lil Nas X is as savvy as they come when you're talking about online dynamics and virality (he began his career thinking he'd become an influencer before switching to music), extraordinarily popular (eight million Twitter followers), and completely meme-happy.

He's also got a proven track record in games, having previously collaborated with Roblox on a concert that was watched by 33 million players. There was also a game that tied-in to one of his songs which, well, wasn't very good.

Lil Nas X has now temporarily renamed himself PRESIDENT NASIRATI on Twitter, and has begun sending Good Tweets about the new position.

me after adding multiple furry skins to league of legends pic.twitter.com/iZdLlMU99qSeptember 15, 2022

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Riot has in turn renamed the game's official account LoL Nas X (again, very good), and begun sharing parts of the collaboration, which will include a new song called Star Walkin' which will be the tournament's "anthem".

The artist is currently answering questions online, and has clarified that "there will be 2 music videos 1 from league and 1 from me." There was also this rather amusing answer to someone who asked why certain lyrics were changed from a snippet preview of the song: "the original hook sounded 'donkey' tbh, that and a bit of the verse were the only changes."

"I felt like it was time for me to try something new," writes Lil Nas X. "I’ve left my mark on pop culture in so many ways, and now it’s time to take on the world of gaming. I will be the greatest President of League of Legends, of all time. Also I’m going to make the best Worlds anthem of all time and put on the biggest, coolest, sexiest Worlds in the history of all Worlds! STAR WALKIN’ is the only song anyone is allowed to listen to from now on. Swag fr!"

The song debuts on September 23, just before Worlds kicks off on September 29. After this, the new LoL champion K’Sante the Pride of Nazumah gets the prestige skin designed by the rapper on November 3. This is not purchaseable: Players have to earn 2000 'Worlds 2022 tokens' over the tournament via various means in order to bag it.

Finally, Lil Nas X will take the stage at the Chase Center in San Francisco at the Worlds Opening Ceremony leading into the World Final on Saturday, November 5.

Riot is brilliant at marketing its products, and this is yet another example. Obviously the job title is a bit of a joke, and everything's being played for laughs, but Lil Nas X is a hype-creating machine. More broadly, League of Legends has never looked in ruder health, and collaborations like this certainly don't hurt.

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[So it begins: Elden Ring bags its first GOTY award]

Elden Ring developer FromSoftware took home the Grand Award at the Japanese Game Awards 2022, part of this week's Tokyo Game Show. FromSoft president Hidetaka Miyazaki also received the wordier, presumably also prestigious Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry Award.

Elden Ring is a veritable Skyrim-level phenomenon, and remained at the top of Steam's sales charts for months on end after it released in February. PC Gamer's Tyler Colp awarded it a 90% in our review, and despite some misgivings around its similarity to previous FromSoft games, said that it was just as intoxicating as the Souls games.

We were all braced for this then: the deluge of accolades, the "Winner of over 80 Game of the Year awards" badge on future reprints. The Japan Game Awards Grand Award is truly only the first of many. Gird your loins.

There were other notable winners at the JGA as well. Card puzzler Inscryption won a Game Designers Award from a panel of veteran Japanese game devs, while Resident Evil Village, Final Fantasy 14 Endwalker, Lost Judgment, and others earned Awards For Excellence. Call of Duty: Vanguard secured a Global Award Foreign Product, in a move that can't help but remind me of the American dude in every anime who has a US Flag durag and leather vest.

Between Elden Ring's victory and the personal award given to Mr. Miyazaki, it's been a good day for FromSoft. Less so for parent company Kadokawa, whose president has been arrested in connection to an ongoing Tokyo Olympics bribery scandal. Truly a Gufus and Gallant situation.

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[Sins of a Solar Empire 2 is reaching for the stars]

For a lover of 4Xs who never quite got over the decline of real-time strategy, Sins of a Solar Empire was a panacea. It took most of what I adored about both strategy models and smooshed them together in an epic clash in space. It was a revelation that I expected to inspire imitators, but nearly 15 years on nobody else has attempted to replicate this extremely successful experiment. Thankfully, that's about to change. Sins of a Solar Empire 2 is coming. 

Developer Ironclad Games has been thinking about this sequel for a long time. The last piece of Sins DLC came out in 2018, a decade after the base game launched, and while Ironclad didn't immediately start work on Sins 2 after that—development only began in earnest just over a year ago—discussions were already happening. The Minor Factions DLC wasn't just a last hurrah for Sins: it was a hint at the future of the series.

"We were always thinking, let's do a testbed on this," says Ironclad co-owner Blair Fraser. "Since Sins 2 is going to come out, what would this look like?" The original Sins was "much, much more combat focused", but through the expansions the team was able to experiment more with diplomacy and NPC factions. And for Sins 2, Ironclad has "gone to town" on that aspect of its cosmic conflict. 

So while Sins always had the empire management that you'd expect from a 4X, it looks like it'll be a lot more evident this time, with more interactions that go beyond, as Fraser puts it, "just blowing up the enemy" in real-time space brawls. "Sins 2 is really the merging of what else we can do between tactical and high-level empire management that other people have requested and we never got around to doing." It's a product of 15 years of feedback and feature wish lists.  

But the original's greater focus on that final X, exterminate, is what made it stand out from both its contemporaries and, later, Stellaris, which went down the real-time route but didn't contain Sins' more granular focus on ship combat. That legacy remains important. 

Turret up

This is clear from one of the big new features that Ironclad is currently touting: "You've got turrets that actually move and fire and acquire targets in real-time," Fraser explains. "If you remember Sins 1 and the expansions, given the technology at the time, and the number of units we were using, we were only able to do four banks. All weapons in a bank had the same firing solutions and acquired the same targets. It was just a computational necessity."    

Multi-threading was still new, and the limitations of 2008's technology forced Ironclad to keep things straightforward. But 15 years of advances have allowed the team to make individual turrets and fully-simulated missiles—things Fraser and his fellow designers wish they could have done before—a reality. "Not only does it look awesome, but from a tactical point of view, it introduces a whole bunch of new changes to the combat mechanics."

(Image credit: Stardock)

So now you've got point defence turrets "spinning and trying to track these things and shoot them down", and beefy capital ships with heavy armour blocking the missile fire and protecting the glass cannons in the back, which act more like 20th century artillery. The larger ships are like squads or small armies, with greater capabilities and flexibility, though you won't need to manually control each turret. And you'll still be able to eschew micromanagement by setting ships to autocast their abilities.

For fans of micro, however, there's more to play with and more to consider. Smart positioning of your ships, for instance, is a lot more crucial because ships and celestial objects now create line-of-sight wrinkles.

Ironclad has also changed the system of counters and arbitrary bonuses, so instead of ships getting automatic bonuses against ships of a specific type, their performance is now determined by the properties of the offensive and defensive systems. To put it simply: "If you have heavy armour, anything that has armour penetration will do better against it than something that doesn't."

Detour

The low-level tactical combat isn't the only thing that's going more granular and simulated. The galaxy itself has been given the same kind of love. Planets now orbit their stars, and moons now orbit their planets. "What this creates is a dynamic galaxy you have to plan around," Fraser says. The inspiration for this comes from an unlikely source: Buck Rogers – Battle for the 25th Century, an '80s board game based on the classic sci-fi romp. It wasn't a commercial success, but it certainly had an impact on Fraser, who still has the box sitting on his shelf. 

Where things get really interesting is how the motion of these worlds can screw you, or your foes, over.

You won't need to squeeze into tight jumpsuits or show off your chest hair, but you will need to pay attention to celestial mechanics. As before, everything is linked up in a network of phase lanes, which determine where ships can travel to directly. But since all of these planets and moons now move, your plans will have to adapt. When a planet is closer to one of your occupied worlds, it might be a good time to launch an invasion or shore up your defences, and when they're further away you might want to focus on other things, like your economy or research. This alone feels incredibly novel, but where things get really interesting is how the motion of these worlds can screw you, or your foes, over.

(Image credit: Stardock)

Maybe there's a world you'd really like to snatch up, but it's heavily defended. In that case, you might be better off drawing the enemy fleet away by targeting a less appealing world. And as they are travelling to defend this world, you then grab your fleet and send them to your real target, but because you've been very clever and timed it just right, the enemy fleet can't follow you because the phase lane has shifted and there's no longer a direct route. This happens because planets move at different speeds depending on their proximity to the star, potentially turning them into an obstacle that temporarily severs connections between other worlds.

This sounds complicated, especially in a real-time game, but the UI lends a hand. "Every so often you should hold down the tactical view," Fraser recommends. "And you can see the projections of how the planets are moving. Currently, it's set to 10 minute intervals, so you can see where it's going to be 10 minutes from now, but we may change that and give players the option to set how far they want to project." Planets are also colour-coded so you can tell if they're moving prograde or retrograde, as not every planet moves in the same direction.

These celestial mechanics also inform the rhythm of the conflict and how you'll build your empires. "In a typical game, we've tuned it so that players will start more on the outskirts," Fraser explains. "And because those clusters of planets move a lot slower, they tend to move in a much more cohesive cluster. So the core of your empire, the guts of it, tends to be together for most of the game. At some point in the multi-hour state, they will break apart, but by that point, presumably, if you're winning, you've expanded your empire and you've got a separate frontline anyway. But by design, and based on just a little bit of astronomy, the stuff closer to the star is much less stable. And that's where we'll tend to put the more valuable things. So you get these really interesting contests over these valuable resources and planets."

Objects closer to the star will still take around 30-45 minutes to do a full orbit, but that's also dependent on settings. Like the original Sins, you'll be able to make plenty of tweaks to the sequel, turning things off and on until you create a stellar battlefield that's just right. 

(Image credit: Stardock)

Two topics have generated the most debate within Ironclad. The first is 3D movement. Having more than a 2D plane to work with is a seductive prospect, but this isn't Homeworld, with its exclusive focus on ships; Sins gives you an empire to manage, and heaping yet more complexity on top of what's already a pretty dense game is a risk. Like its predecessor, then, Sins 2 has stuck with 2D movement.

Sins of a Sandbox Empire

The other major subject of debate was the possibility of a campaign or discrete narrative elements like you'd see in Stellaris or Endless Space 2. Ultimately the pure sandbox approach won out—it's what Ironclad knows and what it's already seen success with. "That's not to say we're not very interested in the story of Sins of a Solar Empire," Fraser adds. "There's a very detailed story. It's infused in every ship's ability, all the research subjects, the look and feel of every element, every voice line that every character in the game speaks—the whole thing emits the story."

(Image credit: Stardock)

Ironclad is also sticking with the setting of the original Sins, with the TEC, Advent and Vasari continuing their squabble. Sins 2 is a retelling of the conflict, but sped up. You'll start with the original factions, who then splinter into the loyalists and rebels, and then as you expand you'll encounter features that were present in the Entrenchment expansion, and then the Diplomacy expansion, until you hit the brand new stuff unique to Sins 2. 

Each faction is distinct, from their metal harvesting rate to the fundamental systems that define them. The TEC, for instance, is the only one that can profit from trade lanes. It's their specialty, as the Trader Emergency Coalition, and the game takes place in TEC space. The trade system, according to Fraser, has also been given an upgrade, with greater sophistication and "more decision making". There was asymmetry in the original Sins, of course, but, he adds, "given the scale of the game, we've leaned into it more".

The more notable differences between factions and the complications of a galaxy that's always in motion should be a boon for multiplayer, as well, which, along with modding, was one of the main reasons Sins enjoyed such longevity. It was a great singleplayer game, and that's how I mostly played it, but it really came to life with PvP. And thanks to strides in tech, the Iron Engine 3 should hopefully be more capable of creating a smooth multiplayer conflict in Sins 2, letting you, for instance, rejoin multiplayer matches without any faffing around. You'll also be able to transfer control of your faction to another player if you don't have time to finish the war.

(Image credit: Stardock)

After so many years I'm very keen to start conquering space again. There's no release date quite yet, but we'll be able to get our hands on it before the full launch, whenever that might be.

"It'll be a true early access," says Fraser. "But it's very targeted this time, as well. The initial one will probably be just the core game loop. It won't have the guts, all the extra content and all the extra mechanics. It's just: are players able to run this? Can they complete the game? Build a few basic ships, take over planets and wipe out their enemies. It'll be just that core nugget."

There's no date for early access yet, but we will have more Sins of a Solar Empire 2 details to share in the near future. In the meantime, consider grabbing a physics textbook and brushing up on astronomy.

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[Best gaming motherboards in 2022]

Think of the best gaming motherboard as the foundation for your future PC. Your motherboard dictates what your gaming PC can and can not do. It also tells what components you should buy since not all PC parts fit into all motherboards. A good motherboard should provide you with worry-free gaming lasting multiple CPU and GPU generations.

Before committing to a motherboard, you must ask yourself: How big is your PC case? Do you want to be able to overclock your CPU? Do you need high-performance RAM support? Do you need a block of USB ports? Bluetooth? Wi-fi? If your wish list increases, expect to spend extra. This isn't always bad, especially if you don't plan on getting a new motherboard for several years.

Now we have to consider the most important thing about motherboards; future-proofing. If you're in it for the long haul, you need to be sure that the board's socket or chipset can support high-end processors like Intel's Z690 chipset and its Alder Lake chips or AMD's X570 chipset and its enduring AM4 socket. This makes upgrading whenever those CPUs drop in price easy. Note: we are about to get a new AM5 socket from AMD, meaning the current Zen 3 CPUs are the end of the line for the AM4 socket.

I've tested a bunch of AMD and Intel motherboards over the past year, from Mini-ITX to E-ATX, so you can make the best choice based on feature-set and cost. 

Best gaming motherboard

Best Intel Z690 motherboard

(Image credit: Gigabyte)

1. Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Pro

The best Z690 board for DDR5 at a price that won't kill your bank balance

CPU support: Intel 12th Gen | Socket: LGA 1700 | Size: ATX | Memory support: 4x DIMM, up to 128GB, DDR5-6400 (OC) | Expansion slots: 1x PCIe 5.0 x16, 2x PCIe 4.0 x16 (running at x4) | Video ports: 1x DisplayPort 1.4 | USB: Up to 2x USB 3.2 Gen2x2, 4x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 6x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 8x USB 2.0 | Storage: 4x M.2, 6x SATA 6Gbps | Network: Intel Wi-Fi 6; Intel i225V 2.5G LAN

Four M.2 slots

13 rear USB ports

Strong VRM

Grey metal might not blend into your build

Wi-Fi 6 only

It was almost inevitable that the top-end chipset for Intel's next-gen Alder Lake CPUs would end up being super-expensive. That is compounded by the premium attached to anything which mentions DDR5. Even so, the Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Pro almost bucks that trend by offering a rounded feature set along with DDR5 support for around $330. Sure, in the last CPU generation $300+ was seen as high-end, but for the 12th Gen platform that's positively mid-range.

There are cheaper DDR4 boards around—Gigabyte also makes an Aorus Pro in DDR4 flavor, too, though that's not sold in the US or EU—but if you want to get the absolute most out of the new Intel platform you want DDR5. 

Gigabyte has been smart about the way it's specced out the Aorus Pro. By limiting it to 'just' Wi-Fi 6 wireless (as opposed to Wi-Fi 6E) and 2.5G Intel wired networking connections, and eschewing such unnecessary luxuries as Thunderbolt 4 or another M.2 slot, it has managed to keep the price at least relatively sensible.

And it's a great performer, too, delivering system and gaming performance easily on par with the far more expensive boards we've also tested. The BIOS is maturing regularly as well, which makes us completely confident in recommending the Gigabyte board as our pick of the Z690 bunch.

About the only downside with this option is the high contrast design, with lots of grey heatsinks. Though a lot of the grey chipset and M.2 cooling will be hidden beneath a GPU, it might not be the easiest board to blend in with your build. There's also minimal RGB lighting with just a tiny Aorus logo atop the rear I/O heatsink. That's rare for a gaming motherboard in 2022. There are four RGB headers, though, with two of them being addressable, so you can still add plenty of flashy illumination if you really want.

Gigabyte's Z690 Aorus Pro sits in a genuine Alder Lake sweet spot, where it offers good value for money and a nice, rounded feature set. Features such as Thunderbolt 4, a fifth M.2 slot, or 10G LAN would add considerable extra cost which is hard to justify. With plain Wi-Fi 6, 4x M.2 slots, a strong VRM, and loads of USB ports, most gamers will be happy. And at $330 you'll have a few dollars that you can put towards the scarcer things, like DDR5 memory or a faster GPU.

Read the full Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Pro review.

(Image credit: ASRock)

2. ASRock Z690 Taichi

Mature, yet brand spanking new

CPU support: Intel 12th Gen | Socket: LGA 1700 | Size: ATX | Memory support: 4x DIMM, up to 128GB, DDR5-6400 (OC) | Expansion slots: 2x PCIe 5.0 x16, 1x PCIe 4.0 x16, 1x PICe 3.0 x1 | Video ports: 1x HDMI 2.0, 2x Thunderbolt Type-C | USB: 2x Thunderbolt 4 Type-C; Up to 1x USB 3.2 Gen2x2, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 9x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 3x USB 2.0 | Storage: 3x M.2, 6x SATA 6Gbps | Network: Killer Wi-Fi 6E; Killer E3100G 2.5G and Intel I219V 1G LAN

Dual Thunderbolt 4 Type-C

Mega VRM

Good networking

Only three M.2 slots

Like all high-end Z690 boards, it’s expensive

When ASRock first launched its Taichi brand, we were impressed with its less-is-more design approach. It offered a good feature set and value for money without the excessive RGB overload that was common to gaming boards a few years ago. The brand has now evolved into a genuinely high-end one. The yet-to-be-seen Aqua is the company’s top model, but with its expected limited-edition nature and likely stratospheric price, the Taichi will essentially be ASRock's premium Z690 motherboard for us mortals. And that's not a bad place to be.

The look of the board is definitely unique, and though looks are in the eye of the beholder, for me the cyberpunk theme, with its copper accents and cogs, looks great. You get a good splash of RGB and those cogs above the I/O actually move. It looks expensive. Plus, if you're a fan of Razer products, then there’s a Razer-themed Z690 Taichi for easy integration into the Chroma ecosystem, too.

Notably, the Taichi did well at gaming tests, often leading the pack. Though 1 fps here or there isn’t significant, but hey, it’s better to lead than trail. The board was happy to run DDR5-6400 memory, something not all Z690s could do. This indicates a strong level of maturity, though as is often the case with a brand-new platform and standard, there is surely some refinement to come.

The ASRock Z690 Taichi looks every inch a premium product. Its unique aesthetic will appeal to many. Its key features including Dual Thunderbolt 4 ports, a solid audio solution, and strong early memory support weigh in its favor. At $590 it's an expensive motherboard, though not unheard of for this platform—the Asus Maximus Hero and Aorus Master come in at about the same price.

The Taichi’s great looks, solid performance, and strong feature set make it a serious competitor in its top-end price range. To be honest, we would have liked more M.2 slots, although three should be enough for most, other than that, there's a lot to like here. Apart from the price of course. 

Read the full ASRock Z690 Taichi review.

Best Intel B660 motherboard

(Image credit: MSI)

1. MSI MAG B660M Mortar WIFI DDR4

Tip top features in a tiny package

CPU support: Intel 12th Gen | Socket: LGA 1700 | Size: Micro ATX | Memory support: 4x DIMM, up to 128GB, DDR4-4800 | Expansion slots: 1x PCIe Gen4 x16, 1x PCIe 3.0 x1, 1x PCIe 4.0 x4 | Video ports: 1x HDMI 2.1; 1x DP 1.4 | USB: 2x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C; 3x USB 3.2 Gen2; 2x USB 3.2 Gen1 | Storage: 2x M.2; 6x SATA | Network: Intel Wi-Fi 6; Realtek 2.5G LAN

Solid feature set

Good power design for mainstream

Can power stock i9 12900K

There are Z690s at this price

No support for PCIe 5.0

B660 frame rate sacrifice in games

As a slightly more affordable Alder Lake option than some of the Z690 boards out there, this MSI MAG B660M Mortar WIFI DDR4 sacrifices some of the luxuries, yet still touts an impressive feature set. Not only are we looking at great power design, but this little micro-ATX board manages to fit eight USB ports on the back panel (including one USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C), and a bunch of internal headers on the board itself.

There's no overclocking capability or DDR5 support here, but seeing as it's one of the more affordable routes into the Alder Lake platform it makes sense to go down the DDR4 path. There is a DDR5 version available in the UK, but we've not been able to find it in the US.

One obvious thing missing from the feature list is the support for PCIe 5.0 graphics cards, although seeing as no such cards currently exist, that's not the miss that you might think. Everything else is present and correct though, including a reinforced x16 PCIe 4.0 slot for the GPU, another full-length slot running at x4, and then a final, short x1 PCIe 3.0 slot. The fact you get a pair of PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots for your drives will be plenty for most users too.

You also get 2.5Gbps networking, courtesy of Realtek, and Wi-Fi 6 support from Intel. Your top Z690 boards offer 10Gbps LAN and Wi-Fi 6E, but for our purposes that is another one of those luxuries we can afford to ignore.

When it comes to performance, the switch from DDR4 to DDR5 doesn't make a huge difference, and if we're talking stock CPU performance the same can be said for the switch from Z690 to B660. The 14-phase power design is configured so the Vcore itself gets 12 phases and, combined with the 60A stages, that means the MAG B660M is able to keep a stock-clocked Core i9 12900K running at the same level as it will on far higher-spec Z690 motherboards.

There is, however, a drop in gaming performance with the B660 boards we've tested so far, so this chipset may not be the perfect option for a gaming PC if you're aiming to squeeze the absolute most from your components. It has to be said though, that the difference is slight, and only really noticeable with a super high-end GPU and CPU combination, and even then only at 1080p.

The MSI MAG B660M Mortar WIFI DDR4 is a quality little micro-ATX motherboard, and it's impressive that a sub-$200 board will still run the i9 12900K at its stock settings. This is an ideal board to build an affordable, small form factor gaming PC around, and our only real issue is that there are a few DDR4-based Z690s at this price level that might offer a little more for your money.

Read our full MSI MAG B660M Mortar WiFi DDR4 review.

(Image credit: MSI)

2. MSI MAG B660 Tomahawk WIFI DDR4

A cheaper option for Alder Lake

CPU support: Intel 12th Gen | Socket: LGA 1700 | Size: ATX | Memory support: 4x DIMM, up to 128GB, DDR4-4800 (No OC) | Expansion slots: 3x M.2 PCIe, 1x PCIe 3.0 x1, 1x PCIe 3.0 x16, 1x PCIe 4.0 x16 | Video ports: 1x HDMI 2.1; 1x DP 1.4 | USB: 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, 5x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 2x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 8x USB 2.0 | Storage: 3x M.2; 6x SATA 6GB/s | Network: Intel Wi-Fi 6; Realtek 2.5G LAN

Strong VRM

Excellent I/O

Good value for money

Plenty of Z690 competition at this price

No PCIe 5.0 support

Despite its lack of DDR5 support, the MSI MAG B660 Tomahawk WIFI DDR4 is a worthy contender for the budget Alder Lake builders among us. You're still looking at strong VRM, so the maximum turbo load of a 12900K shouldn't be an issue for it, and you still get a ton of I/O ports for your money. This evolution has taken a genuine step forward since the introduction of the last-gen B560 motherboards and is certainly worth considering if you're looking to save on your 12th Gen build.

The design is black and RGB-less, so it will easily blend into most systems. But there are four RGB headers, including two that are addressable, in case you are looking to keep up effervescent appearances.

There's sadly no overclocking capability with the MAG B660 Tomahawk, but it's a far more affordable option, particularly when compared with some Z690 options. Sure it's lacking a little in the M.2 space, but three slots will cover most of us plebians not looking to store mountains of 4K video or every game in their Steam library simultaneously.

The Tomahawk comes with three PCIe slots. The primary slot is a x16 slot that supports PCIe 4.0, the second is a x16 slot (x4 electrical) that supports a PCIe 3.0 and finally, there's a PCIe 3.0 x1 slot. PCIe 5.0 support for the primary slot would have been nice, though that's not likely to deliver any tangible benefit for GPUs for the foreseeable future.

MSI’s Tomahawk motherboards have a good reputation for offering strong VRM solutions and this B660 entry continues this tradition. It includes a 12+2 phase VRM powered by dual 8-pin power connectors. Bearing in mind that overclocking is not allowed on B660 boards, all it has to handle is the maximum turbo load of a 12900K. It won’t have any problem with that, we assure you. It’s all cooled by chunky black heatsinks. For our review, we used an Intel Core i5 12600K, a chip more likely to be paired with the mid-range chipset. This resulted in a VRM load temperature of just 47°C. Though we use an open test bench, even if you add 30 degrees or more, that’s still well within range.

The rear I/O is another definite highlight of the board. You get Realtek 2.5G LAN and Intel Wi-Fi 6 which will handle the networking needs of most typical users. There are nine USB ports made up of four USB 2.0, four 3.2 Gen 2 ports, and a 3.2 Gen 2x2 20Gbps Type-C port. It's good to see 20Gbps USB begin to filter down the market, too. There’s also a full set of audio ports including a SPDIF. A Realtek ALC1220 chip takes care of audio duties. Finally, there are HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4 ports should you wish to use Intel’s Xe integrated graphics.

All told, the MSI B660 Tomahawk DDR4 is definitely a board worth considering for your Alder Lake setup. It would be a smart value purchase for a typical gamer who runs a single GPU, XMP memory, an SSD or two, and is happy to let a 12th Gen processor do its turbo boost thing without manual overclocking. 

Honestly, that’s probably 95% of the market, maybe higher. At $190 it’s not what we’d call a cheap motherboard, but in a market where a good mid-range Z690 board can cost a lot more, the B660 Tomahawk definitely offers a lot of features while not losing sight of the value that's typically offered by B660 boards.

Read our full MSI MAG B660 Tomahawk WIFI DDR4 review.

Best Intel Z590 motherboard

(Image credit: Asus)

1. Asus TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WIFI

The best Z590 motherboard for Rocket Lake CPUs

CPU support: Intel 10th & 11th Gen | Socket: LGA 1200 | Size: ATX | Memory support: 4x DIMM, up to 128GB, DDR4-5133 | Expansion slots: 1x PCIe 4.0 x16, 1x PCIe 3.0 x16 (x4), 1x PCIe 3.0 x16 (x4), 2x PCIe 3.0 x1 | Video ports: 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x HDMI 2.0 | Rear USB: 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C, 5x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 6x USB 2.0 | Storage: 3x M.2, 6x SATA 6Gbps | Network: Intel Wi-Fi 6E, 1x Intel 2.5Gb ethernet

Decent value for money

Good VRM and cooling at this price

Subtle looks

4+8-pin power connectors could be restrictive

A few more USB at the back would be nice

This is a gaming motherboard positioned as an entry-level option for anyone looking to run Rocket Lake. Asus has always positioned its TUF products as reliable options, with decent pricing and a more basic feature set. Combined it means this is a good affordable option for someone after a no-fuss, solid, and reliable system. And given the pricing of many Z590 motherboards, that makes for a welcome change.

The TUF Z590 Plus features a subtle design with a particularly nice white font. You get a couple of little splashes of RGB around the right side too. It’s a nice look. There are three M.2 slots with the topmost one supporting PCIe 4.0. The two at the bottom are contained under a single heatsink. Also, note the vertical SATA ports that sticklers for cable management might find objectionable. There are a further two regular horizontal ports adjacent to the heatsink. You get six fan headers and two addressable RGB headers too. 

This is a board for anyone who would prefer to allocate money towards a faster GPU or larger SSD instead of paying through the nose for 10Gb LAN or expensive add-in cards. And I can totally get on board with that. Bang for buck and the true essentials are the name of the game here. If you’re on a budget, it’s definitely one to look out for.

Read our full Asus TUF Gaming Z590-Plus WIFI review.

(Image credit: Gigabyte)

2. Gigabyte Z590 Aorus Tachyon

The best Z590 motherboard for overclockers and tweakers

CPU support: Intel 10th & 11th Gen | Socket: LGA 1200 | Size: E-ATX | Memory support: 2x DIMM, up to 64GB, DDR4-3200 | Expansion slots: 1x PCIe 4.0 x16, 1x PCIe 4.0 x16 (x8), 1x PCIe 3.0 x16 (x4), 1x PCIe 3.0 x16 (x1) | Video ports: 1x HDMI 2.0 | Rear USB: 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C, 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 4x USB 3.2 | Storage: 3x M.2, 8x SATA 6Gbps | Network: Intel Wi-Fi 6E, 1x Intel 2.5Gb ethernet

Mega VRM and cooling

Endless tweaking options

Well featured for an OC board

Only really for overclockers

Inevitably expensive

Overclocking focused motherboards have made a proper comeback. All the major manufacturers have Z590 boards specifically designed for serious overclocking. The dual memory slot design, all those buttons and switches, a monstrous VRM, and a unique layout are all aimed at making life easier for overclockers. Then there’s a comprehensive BIOS with extensive tweaking options. It’s clear that this isn’t a regular board with a fancy sticker slapped on it.

The idea behind having only two memory slots instead of four is to minimize trace complexity and bring the slots closer to the CPU. This helps reduce latency and allows for a little more performance headroom compared to a four-slot design. The primary PCIe slot is not the topmost one either, it’s the one below it. This is another choice to aid overclockers who use LN2 cool a GPU by allowing extra room for pots and insulation.

The Gigabyte Z590 Aorus Tachyon won’t magically add frequency to your CPU and memory. What it will do is help you to extract the maximum efficiency out of your system, no matter what cooling you’re using. An enthusiast who loves to tweak, spending time reducing latency and tweaking sub-timings, or a gamer dedicated to finding a few extra FPS will enjoy peace of mind knowing you’ve got a board that’s specifically designed to take whatever punishment you throw at it.

Read the full Gigabyte Z590 Aorus Tachyon review.

Best AMD X570 motherboard

(Image credit: Asus)

1. Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero

The best X570 ever created, and the last AM4 board you'll ever need

CPU support: AMD Ryzen 5000 Series / 4000 G-Series / 3000 Series/ 3000 G-Series / 2000 Series / 2000 G-Series | Socket: AM4 | Size: ATX | Memory: 4x DIMM, Up to 128GB, DDR4-4866 (OC) | Expansion slots: 2x PCIe 4.0 x16, 1x PCIe 3.0 x16, 1x PCIe 4.0 x1 | Video ports: N/A | Rear USB: 4x USB 3.2 Gen1, 8x USB 3.2 Gen2 (1x USB Type-C) | Storage: 3x M.2; 8x SATA | Networking: 802.11ax 2.4Gbps Wi-Fi; Intel I211-AT 1G & Realtek RTL8125 2.5G LAN

Clean design

Great performance

No chipset fan

Expensive

Asus' ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero wants to be the last AM4 motherboard you'll ever need. But what is it that makes a great motherboard? Features are important, as is a stable and refined BIOS, value for money, a good design, but sometimes it's something intangible. Sometimes it's that the damn thing works. 

Motherboard testing is often one of the most painful things a tech journalist has to do. With some boards, you have to fight it to get it to do what you want, or expect it to, or have to crank up some voltage setting to a level you don’t really want to, but the Dark Hero just boots the first time, even as we played with the memory clocks and timings and the Infinity Fabric. 

The Dark Hero features a rather subtle design. Some might even say it’s a little bland. Perhaps we have reached ‘Peak RGB’ with recent motherboards being a little more discrete with their RGB implementations. It’s also unusual that there’s not a Crosshair VIII Apex or Extreme, especially when Gigabyte and MSI have boards priced well above the Dark Hero. 

A $400 USD motherboard can never be described as cheap, but compared to the exorbitant prices of the MSI Godlike and Gigabyte Aorus Extreme, it certainly feels more affordable.

The layout of modern ATX boards tends not to vary too much these days. The primary M.2 slot is sensibly located above the PCIe slot. The second slot at the bottom also features a heatsink. The sockets are easy to access without having to remove the entire heatsink assembly. Plus, there's no chipset cooling fan, which is a boon in our book.

The VRM has been upgraded over that of the regular Hero. The power stages are now rated for 90a, up from 60a which brings it in line with some of the other premium X570 boards. Even if you’re into smashing out benchmarks on LN2 (and this board will see plenty of that in the hands of overclockers), it will handle the punishment with ease. The heatsinks are big and chunky affairs.

The rear IO is packed out. If you need extra USB ports for that head massager or plasma ball, there are few better-equipped boards. There are no less than eight USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, one of which is Type-C. These are joined by four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports. There are also BIOS clear and flashback buttons, the LAN and WiFi antenna ports, and the usual set of audio ports including S/PDIF. The IO shield is preinstalled, which is blessedly now becoming standard practice on decent motherboards.

The Crosshair VIII Dark Hero might not be the best AM4 motherboard ever made, we’d have to review a few hundred others to make that claim, but it’s an easy claim to make that the Dark Hero is certainly one of the best AM4 motherboards we've ever used. Time and months of user feedback will determine if the Dark Hero assumes a position as one of the truly legendary ROG motherboards, but we wouldn’t bet against that happening.

Read the full Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero review.

(Image credit: MSI)

2. MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon WiFi

The best gaming motherboard for AMD Ryzen 3000 builds

CPU support: AMD 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Gen Ryzen / Ryzen APUs | Socket: AM4 | Size: ATX | Memory: 4x DIMM, 128GB, DDR4-4400 | Expansion slots: 1x PCIe x16, 1x PCIe x16 (x4), 2x PCIe x1 | Video ports: HDMI | Rear USB: 4x USB 3.2 Gen2 (1x Type-C), 2x USB 3.2 Gen1, 2x USB 2.0 | Storage: 2x M.2, 6x SATA | Network: Ethernet, 2.4Gbps 802.11ac

2 PCIe 4.0 M.2 Slots

Wi-Fi 6 Compatible

Too few USB ports

The MSI MPG X570 represents an amalgamation of bleeding-edge motherboard tech built to get the most out of AMD's 3rd gen Ryzen CPUs. It has four DIMM slots that can handle speeds up to 4,400Mhz and two M.2 slots sporting PCIe 4.0 connections. 

The rear I/O panel features seven USB Type-A ports for peripherals and a single USB Type-C port for connectivity and high-speed data transfer. There are headers for the included Wi-Fi antenna to help with wireless connectivity, as well as a gigabit ethernet port. 

This version of the MPG X570 supports Wi-Fi 6, and while that does necessitate a Wi-Fi 6-compatible router, it's backward compatible with other Wi-Fi standards and gives the potential for a speed boost down the line. Also of note is the HDMI port, which many X570 boards omit (not that we'd really recommend using an AMD APU with integrated graphics in a high-end board like this).

The MPG X570 features enough compatibility to get the most out of your hardware now and in the future, provided you're willing to pay a premium for it. While it's certainly an excellent mobo, if you aren't already committed to a shopping list of top-of-the-line components now or shortly, you may want to consider a slightly less expensive board for your needs.

(Image credit: Gigabyte)

3. Gigabyte X570S Aorus Master

The best AMD motherboard with a million USB ports

Chipset: X570S | Memory: 4x DIMM, up to DDR4-5100, up to 128GB | Expansion Slots: 1x PCIe 4.0 x16, 2x PCIe 4.0 x16 (x4), 3x PCIe 4.0 x1 | Video ports: None | USB ports: Up to 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 8x USB 3.1 Gen 1, 6x USB 2.0 | Storage: 2x M.2, 6x SATA | Network: Killer E3100G 2.5G LAN | Lighting: One RGB logo, ARGB headers

Strong VRM and cooling

Loads of USB

Four M.2 slots

Single 2.5G LAN only

5G would be nice

The original X570 chipset is starting to show its age, but there's a subtle difference with this motherboard—something given away by that trailing S. That S stands for silence, and unlike many of the first-generation X570 motherboards, this one doesn't require active cooling to keep it running smoothly and coolly. 

Gigabyte's X570S Aorus Master feels like an old dog that's learned some new tricks. The fact that it comes with four M.2 slots alone is impressive along with a decent heatsink. Really the cooling all around gets a thumbs up from us. 

Gigabyte deserves credit for continuing to use finned VRM heatsinks which add a lot of surface area. They're proof that it's possible to blend function with form. A 14-phase VRM with 70a MOSFETS is enough to power a 5950X cooled by LN2 with headroom to spare, which means users of ambient cooling won't face any issues.

Gigabyte's audio implementations usually impress, and the X570S does again. Purists will swear by discrete DACs, or 3rd party solutions, but with a decent ALC1220-VB audio codec and ESS Sabre Hi-Fi 9118 DAC for headphones, along with Chemicon and WIMA audio capacitors, gamers listening to bullets and bombs rather than Bach will be happy.

The rear I/O is fully featured, particularly when it comes to USB connectivity. There are twelve ports consisting of four USB 2.0, two USB 3.1 Gen 1, five USB 3.2 Gen 2, and a single Type-C USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port. Something has to be done about that ridiculous USB naming scheme, but that’s a story for another day. You get clear CMOS and BIOS Flashback buttons, antenna connectors, the standard audio ports with S/PDIF, and finally a single Intel i225-V 2.5G LAN port. 

We’d like to have a 5G option at this price. Additionally, the non-S Aorus Master had dual LAN. A second may be desirable for some but now that Wi-Fi 6 and 6E are becoming widespread, dual LAN and Gigabit, are not as important as they once were. 

The X570S Master proved to be quite strong under multi-threaded loads while its single-threaded performance is about average. Gaming performance is bang on where we expect it to be, within the margin of error. It also showed itself to have strong M.2 SSD performance.

Our only real knock against the Aorus Master is that it only offers a single 2.5G LAN and lacks 5G which is a bit of a bummer. That being said it's still one of the better AMD motherboards out there. I'm a sucker for a motherboard with a ton of USB ports this mobo has SO many. 

The Aorus Master is still keeping AM4 and X570 relevant thanks to its many USB ports and storage options. Even at $400, it's got enough features (and looks good to boot) to justify the higher price point. 

Read our full Gigabyte X570S Aorus Master review. 

Best AMD B550 motherboard

(Image credit: Asus)

1. Asus ROG Strix B550-E Gaming

Simply the best B550 motherboard

CPU support: AMD 3rd and 4th Gen Ryzen | Socket: AM4 | Size: ATX | Memory support: 4x DIMM, up to 128GB, up to DDR4-4600 | Expansion slots: 2x PCIe 4.0 x16, 1x PCIe 3.0 x4 | Storage: 2x M.2, 6x SATA 6Gbps | Networking: Intel Wi-Fi 6, Intel 2.5Gb ethernet, Bluetooth 5.1 | Rear USB: 3 x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 4 x USB 2.0

Extensive feature set

Build quality

Top-end networking

Very pricey for a B550 board

Stock-clocked performance is unremarkable

Limited bandwidth for peripherals

Sure, the Asus ROG Strix B550-E is the same price as plenty of X570 motherboards, but it's a premium motherboard, with all the trappings you'd expect from Asus' Republic of Gamers stables. I'm talking 14+2 power stage, M.2 heatsinks, and pre-installed backplates. You also get Wi-Fi 6 wireless networking as well as Intel 2.5Gb ethernet too. And RGB LEDs, of course.

What you’ll no doubt be wondering about is performance: Is it actually all that much better than a more prosaic—and cheaper—B550 alternative? At stock clocks and default board settings, the inevitable answer is... no. In fact, the Asus ROG Strix B550-E Gaming is a solid 50% pricier than the likes of the MSI MAG B550M Mortar and tangibly slower in most of our benchmarks, including games.

Where the Strix looks stronger, inevitably, involves overclocking. AMD’s laissez-faire approach to clocking the twangers off pretty much any CPU that comes its way, by enabling access to super-simple core ratio tweaks, means you’d almost be mad not to give it a go. 

The Strix B550-E gets Asus’ slick and familiar BIOS interface that allows access to not only the core ratio but pretty much every setting a keen overclocker could wish for. So you have the choice of bumping the core ratios up and letting the board work out the details, or getting down and dirty with voltages and timings.

Allowing the board to do the detailed brain work results in an overclock of our AMD Ryzen 3 3100 quad-core test chip of 4.2GHz on all cores. The Ryzen 3100 is good for a 3.9GHz boost clock as standard, so that’s a 300MHz overclock. Which is significant, if not exactly stellar.

That said, of the B550 boards we've tested, it's the far more affordable MSI board that actually comes out top in our straight performance testing. But the Asus can overclock far better, even if it does chew up more raw power from the plug on the whole.

The Asus ROG Strix B550-E Gaming is the whole package then, and right now is our all-around pick for the best B550 motherboard. Though that still feels like a tough recommendation when X570 boards are the same price…

Read our full Asus ROG Strix B550-E Gaming review.

(Image credit: MSI)

2. MSI MAG B550M Mortar

The best B550 motherboard for pure gaming performance

CPU support: AMD 3rd and 4th Gen Ryzen | Socket: AM4 | Size: Micro-ATX | Memory support: 4x DIMM, up to 128GB, up to DDR4-4400 | Expansion slots: 1x PCIe 4.0 x16, 1x PCIe 3.0 x4 | Storage: 2x M.2, 6x SATA 6Gbps | Networking: Realtek 2.5Gb ethernet | Rear USB: 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1, 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2, 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 2x USB 2.0

Great stock-clock performance and efficiency

Slick BIOS

Competitive pricing

Poor overclocking

Stingy back-panel port count

Short on luxuries and frills

When it comes to gaming performance above all else, MSI's micro-ATX MAG B550M Mortar is your best bet for an affordable next-gen Ryzen machine. It comes in around the $160 mark, making it cheaper than a great many X570 and other B550 motherboards on the market right now. 

At this price point, something has to give and the MAG B550M Mortar is conspicuously short on luxuries. There’s no debug display, no physical power or reset buttons, no RGB lighting. Of course, none of those things make any difference in-game and it’s easy to argue the $100 saving over a premium B550 board like the Asus ROG Strix B550-E Gaming can therefore be invested where it really counts—in a better graphics card.

Other economics include details like just one heat spreader supplied for the two M.2 slots and arguably the general air of old-fashionedness. That includes memory DIMM slots with clips at both ends and a user manual that feels a little dated and clunky compared to the relative polish of Asus. You can’t say that, however, of the MAG B550M Mortar BIOS menu, which is slick, friendly, and full-featured.

The gaming frame rates of the MSI B550 Mortar put it above the rest of the B550 crew we've tested so far, and indeed its straight CPU performance puts it up there with some of the best X570s. That bodes well if you're looking for an affordable home for your AMD Zen 3 CPU of the future; this B550 has a great chance to ensure it performs to its fullest stock-clocked potential without breaking the bank.

But you will be missing out on extra PCIe 4.0 M.2 and x16 graphics slots if those extras mean a lot to you. You can also opt to ditch wireless networking, depending on whether you pick the straight Mortar or the more expensive Mortar Wi-Fi version. The 8+2+1 power phase design is arguably a more unwelcome miss, however, as that results in a board that will not spark any overclocking joy in your heart. But, as an affordable gaming board without OC pretensions, it's a great shout.

Read our full MSI MAG B550M Mortar review.

Best AMD A520 motherboard

(Image credit: ASRock)

1. ASRock A520M ITX/ac

One for AMD's mini-ITX fans on a mini budget

CPU support: AMD 3rd and 4th Gen Ryzen | Socket: AM4 | Size: Mini ITX | Memory support: 2x DIMM, up to 64GB, up to DDR4-4600 (OC) | Expansion slots: 1x PCIe 3.0 x16 | Video ports: 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x DVI-D | Storage: 1x M.2, 4x SATA 6Gbps | Networking: Realtek GbE LAN, Intel 802.11ac Wi-Fi | Rear USB: 4x USB 3.2 Gen1 (1x Type-C), 2x USB 2.0

Good value for money

Wi-Fi included

Ryzen 5000 support

Weak audio

Limited function due to price and size

AMD's budget Ryzen motherboard chipset, the A520, has largely slipped under the radar. While B350 and B450 motherboards were mostly regarded as entry-level, A320 was strictly seen as the resolutely low end. 

The introduction of B550 motherboards, and their associated move upward in price, left a big hole in the sub-$100 market. Enter A520. If you’re on a tighter budget and don’t care about PCIe 4.0 or the overclocking support offered by B550, then the A520 motherboards might be exactly what you need. There’s cheap, and there’s really cheap, but a decent A520 board can more or less do everything a board at double the price can. 

This board supports AMD Ryzen 5000 series CPUs and, almost as importantly, Ryzen 4000 series APUs. Combine a Zen 3 CPU with a motherboard such as this ASRock A520M ITX/ac, and you’ll be able to build an affordable and compact system that can beat any Intel chip in any workload.

The ASRock A520M ITX/ac is one of the most expensive A520 boards at $105. In fact, in many markets, it might be the most expensive. That would be a little unusual for ASRock which is normally known for its highly competitive bang for buck offerings. It’s one of few A520 boards to include WiFi though, so that alone adds a great deal of usefulness. It supports a speed of 433 Mbps, not exactly the Usain Bolt of WiFi speeds when Wi-Fi 6 is the norm, but it’s enough for high-speed internet.

The A520M ITX/ac includes an 8-phase DRMOS VRM with 60a chokes. Spec-wise this is surprisingly good for an A520 board. The only real concern is the very small heatsink. We wouldn’t try overclocking a Ryzen 9 3950X with liquid nitrogen on this board, but a smart pairing of a 65W CPU with a bit of PBO for good measure won’t present any issue, as long as you have good case airflow.

The ASRock A520M's audio is a bit of a letdown, but that’s something that budget boards often compromise on. A gamer listening to compressed audio assets in-game probably won’t be any less immersed. 

The little ASRock A520M ITX/ac has it where it counts and will serve you well at the heart of a budget gaming system. It benefits from the strengths of the Ryzen platform and adds some future-proofing into the mix. ITX fans looking for a capable budget AMD Ryzen option should definitely have this one on their shortlist.

Read our full ASRock A520M ITX/ac review.

(Image credit: Gigabyte)

2. Gigabyte A520 Aorus Elite

The A520 Aorus Elite might be cheap, but it's definitely not nasty

CPU support: AMD 3rd and 4th Gen Ryzen | Socket: AM4 | Size: ATX | Memory support: 4x DIMM, up to 128GB, up to DDR4-4733 (OC) | Expansion slots: 1x PCIe 3.0 x16, 1x PCIe x16 (x2), 3x PCIe 3.0 x1 | Video ports: 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x DVI-D | Storage: 1x M.2, 4x SATA 6Gbps | Networking: Realtek GbE LAN | Rear USB: 1x USB 3.2 Gen2, 3x USB 3.2 Gen1, 4x USB 2.0

Awesome value

Decent VRM and heatsink

Guaranteed next gen Ryzen support

No Wi-Fi

Screen queens

(Image credit: Future)

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AMD's A520 motherboard chipset might not make for the sexiest of PC components, that’s for sure. You probably wouldn’t buy one to take place at the heart of your water-cooled build or Nvidia RTX 3090 gaming system. When you look at the chipset itself, it doesn’t really miss out in terms of real-world essential features. There’s no PCIe 4.0, but no Intel systems have it either, not until Rocket Lake next year.

The Gigabyte A520 Aorus Elite is a high-end A520 board, which might seem oxymoronic, but if you didn’t know what it was, you’d be forgiven for assuming it was more of a mid-range board and not a $90 bargain. It’s even got two RGB headers and a further two ARGB headers. About the only thing it really lacks is Wi-Fi, but then do you really expect to have Wi-Fi at this price? 

It doesn’t have a VRM that you’d use to run a Ryzen 9 3950X at full power for extended periods but it will do the job with a suitable CPU. Something like a Ryzen 3 3300X would be right at home. Our eight core 65W Ryzen 7 3700X purred along without an issue. The heatsinks do a decent job, having no issue keeping things cool when presented with a sustained all-core load. A recorded peak of 73°C VRM temperature is perfectly acceptable. 

There’s a single M.2 slot and four SATA ports. Standard fare, though perfectly adequate for most users. How about memory support? Unlike the ridiculous memory limitations present on Intel B460 motherboards, The Gigabyte A520 supports up to 128GB at DDR4-4733. Realistically no one will run a setup like that but at least you’re given the choice.

Gigabyte deserves credit for including audio built around the ALC1200 codec. Usually, this is reserved for use with more expensive motherboards. It doesn’t feature the premium circuitry you’ll find on higher-end boards, but for an entry-level board, having the choice of a headset, S/PDIF or HDMI audio is superior to the implementations you’ll find on ancient ALC882 or 892 equipped boards. Don’t forget we’re dealing with a board that costs just $90.

Performance is about where we expect it to be. The underlying BIOS code is well and truly mature with Ryzen 3 CPUs having been in the marketplace for well over a year. The differences between boards are small. The Gigabyte was perhaps marginally behind under lightly threaded loads but was towards the front in the gaming tests. Overall, nothing to complain about with regards to how the Aorus Elite performed.

If you’re on a budget, this Gigabyte A520 Aorus Elite is well worth a look. It leaves Intel's budget B460 boards looking weak in comparison, plus you get the benefit of next-generation Ryzen compatibility. Is it for everyone? No, but the Gigabyte A520 Aorus Elite, unlike almost all preceding A320 boards, definitely does not mean cheap and nasty.

Read our full Gigabyte A520 Aorus Elite review.

Gaming motherboard FAQ

What's the most important factor in buying a motherboard?

You need to know which processor you want to build your new rig around. Are you firmly tying yourself to the mast of the good ship Intel, with its impressive Alder Lake CPUs? Or are you going to continue flying the AMD flag proudly? Once you've picked your chip, it's down to features, overclocking intentions, and your budget.

What really matters when buying a motherboard?

Other than knowing which processor you're going to be fitting, size matters when picking up a motherboard. If you're building out a standard ATX scale gaming PC, then pretty much any motherboard is open to your whims, but if you want to go for a smaller chassis, either Micro ATX or Mini ITX, then you'll need a corresponding mobo. 

That doesn't necessarily mean sacrificing performance or key features anymore. A single PCIe slot is more than enough for today's SLI/CrossFire-less GPU world, and even some Mini ITX boards will come with multiple M.2 SSD slots.

The scale will impact pricing, however. Interestingly Micro ATX boards are often the most affordable, while Mini ITX options can be the most expensive. We've picked our top two favorite gaming motherboards for each of the main Intel and AMD chipsets to give you the best options around.

Can I overclock on any motherboard?

No. There are absolutely restrictions in place to stop that, especially on the Intel side. It has opened up memory overclocking across its 500-series chipsets, but still, the Z590 is your only chance of overclocking the latest Rocket Lake K-series CPUs. But don't worry, they don't overclock very well.

AMD is more generous, allowing all its CPUs and most of its motherboard chipsets. Basically, if you make sure not to go for the cheapest Ryzen board, one with an 'A' at the front of its nomenclature, then you're good to tweak. Though again, there really are limited returns.

Jargon buster - motherboard terminology

ATX, Micro-ATX, Mini-ITX

The most common form factors/sizes of a motherboard from largest to smallest, which beyond physical dimensions determines which cases it'll fit into and (broadly) how many expansion slots are available. There are other, less common form factors (XL-ATX, HPTX, etc.), but these three are the most ubiquitous consumer form factors.

USB Header

A connector on the motherboard that allows you to run a cable to the case to add additional USB ports, typically on the front panel (though some cases provide top or rear panel slots as well). 

BIOS/UEFI

Basic Input/Output System/Unified Extensible Firmware Interface connects the hardware and software that lives on the board (the firmware) to the operating system (OS, such as Windows or Linux). They allow you to adjust system-level settings, such as fan speed or RAM frequency. UEFI has largely replaced the older BIOS standard.

Expansion Slots (PCIe Slots)

Peripheral Component Interconnect Express slots on the motherboard are designed to accommodate add-in cards like graphics cards, SSD cards, dedicated sound cards, etc. PCIe slots are measured in both length (x16, x8, x4, x1) as well as by the number of data transmission lanes they provide (x16, x8, x4, x1). It's possible for an x16 slot to only provide 8 lanes of data, for instance, which means the maximum possible data transfer rate is halved (though in many cases, because PCIe provides such a high ceiling for transfer speeds, a lower number of lanes doesn't make a tremendous difference).

DIMM Slots

Dual In-Line Memory Module slots, the slots on a motherboard where your RAM lives. The number of total slots contributes to the maximum amount of RAM your system can handle, paired with the chipset and OS. 

Chipset

The logic allows the various parts of a motherboard to talk to each other. The chipset determines which processor generations a motherboard is compatible with and what add-in cards can be used.

SATA Ports

Serial Advanced Technology Attachment ports, an interface for connecting storage devices/drives to a motherboard (HDDs, SSDs, optical drives, etc.). The number of physical ports on your board, combined with ports for NVMe storage, will determine the total number of storage drives you can have connected to your PC at any time.

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[Street Fighter 6 has a character creator, and of course it has muscle sliders]

The Capcom showcase at Tokyo Games Show was full of surprises, the biggest of which is that Street Fighter 6 is getting a whole-'donkey' character creator for story mode and to use in social hubs.

It looks pretty damn robust, too: It looks like you can tweak just about anything, from the protrusion of your forehead to how much your cheeks or jaw bulge. There are over 100 skin tones with a mixture of natural and colourful options, so you can go for something closer to your own look or run wild with a hot pink, super hairy buff dude. It also looks like there's a really nice variety of hairstyles and textures, with sliders to change the length and even multiple hair colour options that you can blend and move around. 

The muscle sliders are, unsurprisingly, wild. As well as a general body composition slider for both upper and lower body, there are individual options for the various muscle groups. Want narrow shoulders with cracked-out lats? Street Fighter 6 has got you. I'm actually shocked by just how in-depth the character creator is—it feels as though Capcom really has thought of everything for a huge range of customisable options. I don't usually try to make myself in these things since the limitations normally hold me back, but I reckon I have a pretty good shot at recreating my look in this game.

The character you create can be used in World Tour, Street Fighter 6's story mode. It looks as though you can go around and learn the movesets from the regular character roster. I do wonder if you can mix and match moves from different characters, especially since your OC seems to loudly shout every move as they're performing it. You can fit your character out with a whole wardrobe of goodies, each with different attributes that seem to affect things like the strength of punches and kicks, HP and defence. Custom fighters are also used in the Battle Hub, an online social lobby decked out with cabs of old Street Fighters.

It feels like Capcom is really taking Street Fighter 6 to the next level. Especially when compared to how Street Fighter 5 launched, I get the feeling that this entry isn't afraid to let loose and have fun and I'm all here for it. I didn't care much for its initial launch trailer, but every subsequent trailer and presentation have smashed it out of the park. Wes was also impressed when he played a demo back in June.

There's a closed beta test happening for Street Fighter 6 from October 7 through October 10, which you can apply for via the Street Fighter website.

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[Deathloop hits Game Pass alongside big Goldenloop update and crossplay]

As part of a Tokyo Game Show presentation, Xbox has announced that Deathloop will come to Game Pass on September 20th alongside its release on Series X|S. With that debut comes Goldenloop, a free update that adds a new weapon, ability, enemy, and more to the time looping action-murder-puzzle immersive sim.

The Goldenloop update will add crossplay between PSN, Xbox, Steam, Epic and the Microsoft Store. Players will be able to opt-out of cross-platform matchmaking and out of cross-controller matchmaking. 

Xbox console and Microsoft Store PC versions will also have cross-purchase and cross-save, allowing play on both platforms for one purchase and seamless transition between the two. 

The Goldenloop update is also a broader update to Deathloop itself. It brings in some new things that are sure to shake up how people are playing—not just by themselves, but against invader-assassin Julianna. The new Fugue ability lets you make enemies briefly and harmlessly drunk, and upgrades for it allow it to spread on enemy death or make enemies belligerently attack allies. 

The new weapon is a straight-up precision laser beam that can ricochet by refracting off of turrets and security cameras. Meanwhile, Julianna can finally upgrade her Masquerade power. Where before she could only swap appearances with a single target, she can now let it affect three NPCs, regenerate her health while it's active, tag Colt by proxy, and boost her energy when she's damaged.

The new enemy, however, is my favorite part of Goldenloop. It's just a dude covered in bombs and paint cans and he wants to give you a hug.

Free hugs! (Image credit: Bethesda)

You can find full details on the release and on Deathloop's Goldenloop update on Bethesda's website. It'll be available on PC on September 20.

PC Gamer called Deathloop the best action game of 2021. In his Deathloop review, Phil Savage said it removes the immersive sim crutch of quicksaves to create a much more destructive, chaotic, and delightful twist on the genre's stealth emphasis. "Deathloop wants you to be pressured into slipping up; to cause a situation that you're forced to react to," he said. You can read more about that in his Deathloop review.

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[Overwatch 1 dies on October 2]

And now, its over-watch has ended. Don your black cloth, folks, Blizzard has announced that Overwatch 1 goes offline on Sunday, October 2.

Blizzard confirmed the news to Eurogamer in an interview yesterday. The October 2 date was given from the perspective of someone living in the Pacific Time Zone, so depending on the precise hour that the servers go down, it could occur on October 1st or 3rd for people in other areas.

Overwatch 2's servers will then whirr to life on October 4 (again, Pacific Time disclaimer) and run unopposed as the only Overwatch game in town.

"October 2nd really is the last day to go in and play Overwatch 1," Overwatch's commercial lead Jon Spector explained, "And then it's a 27-hour downtime that we're planning in order to get the Overwatch 2 server stood up and running". Players will be given a chance to preload Overwatch 2 ahead of its proper launch, and Blizzard will release a "launch checklist" of things Overwatch 1 players should do to prepare for the second game some time in the near future.

When the game hits, Overwatch 1 players will be presented with a not-so-optional option to  "Update the game to Overwatch 2" when they try to play. As we've said before, the whole thing feels more like Overwatch 2.0 than Overwatch 2, putting Blizzard in an odd position of upsetting both the fans who wanted a full-fledged sequel and the ones who were perfectly happy with the first game, thank you very much.

If you're curious to know more about what changes are in store for the series, you can check out everything we know about Overwatch 2. But we'll find out how everyone takes to the new(ish) game on October 4. I imagine there'll be more Overwatch-related controversy before then: it was only a few days ago that players were up in arms over news that Blizzard planned to lock Overwatch 2 heroes behind battle passes. I doubt the announcement of the date for the first game's death is going to have a tranquilising effect.

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[Arrest warrant issued for 'Lunatic' crypto baron behind this year's $40 billion crash]

Do Kwon is one of the most bullish and energetic crypto advocates out there. As the co-founder and CEO of Terraform Labs, he would in better times take on critics and puff the crypto future to the high heavens: and he was a convincing guy, too, persuading many that the Terra ecosystem was where it's at.

That past may be about to catch up with him. An arrest warrant has been issued in South Korea for Do Kwon and five other individuals associated with Terraform Labs, as reported by Bloomberg, on allegations that they broke capital markets law. The South Korean prosecutor's office said that all six individuals are located in Singapore. Why Singapore? One reason may be that it has no extradition treaty with South Korea, meaning a long and potentially tricky legal process lies ahead if the South Korean authorities push for his extradition.

This year's crypto crash has many elements to it, but TerraUSD is arguably the single most important. TerraUSD (also called UST) was a so-called stablecoin, meaning it had one purpose in the world: each TerraUSD coin had to stay at exactly the value of one US dollar. Which it previously had done before falling in value this May: first by slight amounts, then going into freefall. Let me give you an idea of how much value that's been lost: TerraUSD, now renamed Terra Classic, was supposed to be worth one dollar per one token; it is currently worth $0.000279 a token.

Crypto ecosystems are intertwined, with many new coins pegging themselves to stablecoins like TerraUSD, so this was the domino that made everything else fall. Do Kwon was also behind the Luna token, which collapsed in value alongside TerraUSD. Investors in the former were fond of describing themselves as 'Lunatics', which now feels sadly ironic.

Perhaps the biggest glimpse into Do Kwon's mindset is that, when all this started to happen, he created a new version of Luna. Unbelievably, crypto being crypto, this has found some success, though the news of the arrest warrants has seen the new versions plunge in price.

The South Korean authorities raided the home of Do Kwon's co-founder Daniel Shin in July, though he is not among those who've been issued with arrest warrants. As well as South Korea the collapse has attracted the attention of US regulators.

A spokesperson for the South Korean authorities told the Financial Times that prosecutors were exploring "many ways" to extradite the individuals concerned, and may involve Interpol (issuing a 'red notice' was how this other crypto king got nabbed), and / or nullify his South Korean passport to stop him travelling.

Do Kwon was once a crypto talking head, the kind of evangelist who was always ready with a catchy quote or to fight back against the critics. He has now, however, done the digital equivalent of going underground, though for some reason he tweeted out a 'full moon' emoji yesterday.

He did break cover around a month ago in a soft-scoop interview with Coinage, during which he said "we've never been in touch with [South Korean] investigators" and demurred over whether he'd ever return to South Korea. Even before this warrant that was unlikely: the crash prompted several suicides in South Korea and Do Kwon is now an incredibly unpopular figure in the country.

During its pomp, TerraUSD offered a ridiculously high 20% yield for investors, through a mechanism called the Anchor Protocol. If you're thinking 'ponzi scheme' then you're not alone, with US regulators suggesting similar of the Celsius crash, and this protocol is one of the areas South Korean authorities are investigating.

For his part Do Kwon seems slightly delusional, insisting in the interview with Coinage that the problem was UST not being big enough, and talking of an unnamed "mole" who apparently played a key role in the collapse. 

"This was essentially my life," Do Kwon says. "I bet big, and I think I lost.”

You think? When asked why his account seems inconsistent in some respects, and where the blame will ultimately rest, he demurs.

"Interesting philosophical discussion. I think there's aspects to this where participants are humans, I think there's aspects to this where we're beasts. Interesting discussion."

On the prospect of jail, Do Kwon also gets a little philosophical: "Life is long." It may well be but, when you're behind something that's affected so many people so badly, the sentence might be as well.

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[Kojima has yet another tease for us]

Say what you will but, among his many talents, Hideo Kojima is something of a marketing genius. He's got plenty to market, too, with Death Stranding 2, the unknown game being made in collaboration with Microsoft, a podcast, a VR experience based around the Kojima Productions 'entrance hallway', and... well, that's about it I think.

Now the Kojima Productions website has been updated with a new teaser image: 

https://t.co/YQBW2XGmzV pic.twitter.com/vogfWrO2nISeptember 15, 2022

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So that was a false alarm, but we do know about two other games likely in progress by Kojima Productions. Death Stranding's lead actor Norman Reedus simply blurted out that a sequel existed in May, responding to a question about the game with "We just started the second one." Kojima responded to this by telling Reedus to "go to his private room," an in-joke about his character in the game.

Then there was the recent announcement of a partnership with Xbox, where Kojima talked a lot about cloud technology. 

"Yes, there is a game I've always wanted to make," Kojima said during June's Xbox and Bethesda Showcase. "It's a completely new game, one that no-one has ever experienced or seen. I've waited very long for the day when I could finally start to create it."

Aside from directing games and VR experiences, Kojima's been busy doing a podcast about how great he is with Spotify.

pic.twitter.com/R6I36pr96bSeptember 15, 2022

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Aside from directing games and VR experiences, Kojima's been busy doing a podcast about how great he is with Spotify. 

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[Season 2 of the Halo TV show starts production with a new showrunner and new actors]

Production has kicked off on the second season of Paramount's Halo TV series, and the cast has picked up a couple of new additions, Deadline reports.

The next season of Paramount's Halo adaptation is currently being shot in the frigid expanse of Iceland before moving to Budapest later this year. Joining the cast is Joseph Morgan (who normal people will apparently remember from The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, but who I only know from an appearance in 2003's Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World) and Cristina Rodlo, from last year's No One Gets Out Alive. David Wiener—who served as showrunner on Brave New World—replaces Steven Kane as the series' showrunner.

Morgan will play James Ackerson, a career-minded UNSC intelligence operative, while Rodlo will play Talia Perez, a rookie linguistics specialist. I didn't even know Halo had languages as such. Can I take a course in grunt-speak on Duolingo?

The first season of the Halo TV show left us feeling very underwhelmed: trying to cram vibes and mystery of the Halo games into a structured, watchable narrative ended up producing a staid and predictable sci-fi show. Even Marcus Lehto, former Halo art director, criticised the show on Twitter, saying it wasn't the Halo he "helped make".

I'd be lying if I said I had high hopes for the next season: the short blurbs describing the new characters—"career-minded rank-climber" and "rookie who hasn't seen real combat"—sound like tropes that could fit into pretty much any military narrative. On the other hand, maybe Master Chief will get it on again. That would probably justify another $200 million.

It'll be a while until we find out. The first season aired in March this year, and the second is still being filmed, so it's unlikely we'll see anything of the new season before mid-2023. Who knows—maybe a new showrunner is just what the series needs to pull a new season out the bag, but I'm keeping my expectations tempered until it airs.

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[How to get clay in Disney Dreamlight Valley]

While while you work in Disney Dreamlight Valley

(Image credit: Gameloft)

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Disney Dreamlight Valley clay isn't easy to find, so you might need a hand to locate this resource. You'll need to do quite a bit of crafting and gathering of materials to help put the Valley back into order, and the locals are on hand to set you tasks so you can help restore the town to its original glory.

Clay is one of the resources you need to complete one of Goofy's quests but it's not something you'll find right away. It's also used in a number of crafting recipes so it doesn't hurt to stock up on this useful material so you've got some on hand should you need it later. So without further ado, here's where to find clay in Disney Dreamlight Valley.

Disney Dreamlight Valley: Where to find clay 

This crafting resource is only found in a few areas, so you needn't spend your time searching elsewhere. You'll also need the Royal Tool shovel to gather it. Once you're ready, head to one of the following areas.

Where you can find Disney Dreamlight Valley clay:

• The Glade of Trust
• Sunlit Plateau
• Forgotten Lands

The Glade of Trust is likely to be the first you'll have access to, so it's a good place to start. If you're working on "The Mysterious Wreck" quest for Goofy, you'll find some of the other resources needed here too. Once you're in the area, use your shovel and start digging—just don't forget to bring some meals along with you so you don't run out of energy while you work.

If you're stumped trying to find rope for Goofy's quest, check out our Disney Dreamlight Valley seaweed guide for the details.

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[Playing PC games almost anywhere using 5G]

Online gaming using a smartphone is surely suboptimal for a PC gamer. But streaming games from the cloud on a handset, or even tethered it to a PC, laptop, or even Steam Deck... now that's just a silly idea. Cue catastrophic lag and a miserable experience, right? Actually, no, not with 5G mobile technology.

The reality of 5G cellular is nothing short staggering. For starters, the raw bandwidth on offer very likely blows away your home landline-based internet service. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, first let’s just clarify exactly what we’re talking about here and how you get it all set up.

First off, you're going to need a 5G-enabled smartphone, but you'll also need to have reception in your area. The roll-out is happening, but you will have to check your carrier to see whether it's up and running where you are. Then you'll need a game streaming service, too.

Game streaming, also known as cloud gaming, is of course the notion of playing games on a remote PC or other device like a console or server and streaming that game over the internet instead of running it locally on your own PC or console. The two biggest and best cloud gaming services are Nvidia’s GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming from Microsoft. Nvidia’s service essentially runs on cloud-based PC server hardware, with Nvidia graphics chips doing the rendering work, while the Xbox Cloud Gaming service runs on Xbox consoles re-engineered into blade servers. 

Games-wise, Xbox Cloud Gaming gives access to all Game Pass games via a Game Pass Unlimited subscription, while GeForce Now has a huge library of games that mirror—at least in part—those of Steam, Epic Games Store, and major publishers like Electronic Arts. As for where and on what devices you can play cloud games, the idea is almost anywhere and anything. GeForce Now supports Windows PCs, iPhones, Macs, Android handsets, and Nvidia’s Shield devices, while Xbox Cloud Gaming covers off PC, iOS, Android, the Xbox consoles themselves and Samsung SmartTVs.

And one other thing. Let’s be clear about the experience on offer in terms of resolutions and refresh rates. Cloud gaming is not some dumbed down, second tier experience. GeForce Now can stream games at up to 4K HDR resolution at 60Hz or 1440p at 120Hz. The Xbox Cloud Gaming services tops out at a reasonable 1080p and 60Hz.

Of course, the higher the resolution and refresh rate, the more bandwidth that you need, which is where a 5G cellular connection really scores. In our testing, we hit over 800Mb/s of download speed in Bath city centre. That is a truly colossal number by any measure.

The setup procedure, using GeForce Now as an example, is pretty straightforward. Let’s say you want to play Fortnite on an Android handset. Simply download the GeForce Now app from the Play Store, fire it up, create a new account and you can immediately stream free games, right there on your handset. If you own games in, say, a Steam library, you can access many of them via GeForce Now, too. There’s no need to pay twice.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

The free account is limited to one-hour sessions and 1080p gaming, so if you want the full RTX 3080-level 4K game streaming experience you do have to pay £18 per month for an account. Game Pass Ultimate is cheaper, coming in at around £11 per month, though it is limited to those 1080p streams.

Techier readers might immediately wonder how that can possibly make sense. After all, there must be hideous input latency playing an online shooter using a touchscreen to control a game being streamed from a remote server? There is a tiny bit of noticeable lag. But it’s far, far less than you would imagine possible.

Of course, with any 5G handset you also have the option of tethering a PC or laptop and playing games locally but using the ultra-fast 5G connectivity for internet access. Whether you can tether, and at what speeds, might be down to your service provider, so that's worth checking. It can also depend on the speed of your Wi-Fi connection with your PC or laptop. On a Wi-Fi 6 capable Blade Stealth, running on a 5GHz hotspot, we were seeing speeds up to 500Mb/s.

5G has also been built from the ground up to reduce latency as well as deliver high speeds. So, while it isn’t quite as quick as a wired landline connection, we found it only added roughly 60ms to overall latency. While that wouldn’t be acceptable for competitive online shooters, for most gamers, most of the time, it’s a surprisingly good experience. 

Turns out 5G for gaming isn’t such a silly idea at all.

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[No more Deltarune this year, but here's a look at what's coming]

Today marks the seven-year anniversary of Undertale, a one-person project that was not only a love letter to the JRPGs of old but took their best ideas, twisted them around, and wrought something new and vital from them. As the much-missed Richard Cobbett wrote on his way to awarding it a stonking 91%, Undertale "may or may not be the best RPG you play this year, but it’s certainly going to be one of the most worthwhile—as memorable as anything in, say, The Witcher 3, and every bit as worthy."

Undertale's not-a-sequel Deltarune (an anagram of Undertale) first broke cover in 2018, with a vibe very much in-line with what had gone before but a new episodic structure. Thanks to Undertale creator Toby Fox making a gajillion dollars from his wonderful game, he also decided to make Deltarune free until it's more substantial: the first two chapters can be downloaded here, and are excellent.

Chapter 2 came out around a year ago, but since then there's been little news. Now Fox has posted a status update on the game, confirming as he'd previously said that chapter 3 won't be released this year, but offering a sneak peek on what the devs have been working on and general progress.   

"Hard to believe it, but it's already been around 1 year since Deltarune Chapter 2 was released," writes Fox. "Even now there still seems to be a passionate fan base for what we put out, thanks in no small part to a disgusting man whose dialogue is probably closest to the way I talk in real life."

The team is working on chapters 3, 4 and 5 simultaneously, though Fox says they've mainly made progress on 3 and 4. "Between 3, 4, and 5, we've already exceeded a chapter's worth of bullets, cutscenes, and gimmicks. Not only that, but the next chapters had certain aspects that took a while to set up, and now that those things are in place, the development of the game is only going to get smoother and smoother!

"As always, I want this thing to come out the most out of anyone on the planet, so we'll be doing our best to get it done."

The post goes on to show some screens of the new features, as well as a lovely new BGM in the light world. There's a glimpse of some new character rooms, a secret place called the Green Room, and what appears to be a dancing elf.

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(Image credit: Toby Fox)

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(Image credit: Toby Fox)

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(Image credit: Toby Fox)

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(Image credit: Toby Fox)

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(Image credit: Toby Fox)

On release of Chapter 2, Fox said the next three chapters would release simultaneously, and come with a price for the whole package. It's unclear whether that's still the plan, because given this update it looks like 3 and 4 will be ready before 5. Fox does write that "you can't spend any money yet", so the next release may be the point where you finally have to fork over a few bucks for this (well worth it).

The "something special" that was previously teased is the Spamtom Sweepstakes, a charity auction that starts this Saturday at 12PM pacific time and runs for 24 hours over at Deltarune.com. "Don't worry," writes Fox, "it will have content for Spamton Lovers and Haters alike!" The money raised will be split between the charity Child's Play and Pakistan Children's Relief, the latter of which is currently working to bring aid to those affected by the terrible flooding over there.

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