Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC Review: A ‘Marvellous’ but Pricey Port

Posted on November 24, 2022 by Gadgets 360

It’s no secret that Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ arrival on PC was simply a question of “when” and not “if.” In just over two years, co-developers Insomniac Games and Nixxes Software have established a firm footing in the PC market, freeing not just one — Spider-Man Remastered — but both web-crawling odysseys from PlayStation’s exclusivity. Following in the footsteps of his mentor Peter Parker, this spin-off sequel is a natural extension, building on the legacy through Miles Morales’ suave but energetic personality, whilst retaining the same core framework. Its shorter playtime does give the impression of a glorified DLC, but this PC port packs quite a punch, with technical upgrades unfamiliar to the PS4 and PS5.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC review – Gameplay and controls

Left to defend New York City by himself, our titular hero grapples with new responsibilities and insecurities, as he tries earning the trust of Harlem locals. His lack of experience occasionally seeps through in clumsy web swings, failed landings, and amateur mistakes. But Spider-Man: Miles Morales balances things on the combat front, by arming you with explosive jolts of bio-electricity, as you stack up combos and unleash snappy, acrobatic finishers. Stealth segments are also improved, with the covert Camouflage ability turning you invisible for brief periods and opening room for creative takedowns. These can be gradually refined by dumping points into the skill tree, further distancing Miles from the original Spider-Man. This upgrade system fits perfectly with the tightly woven story, which on a thematic level, explores a teenager’s struggle with self-discovery.

Content-wise, you’re getting the same action-fuelled experience with as the 2020 console version of Spider-Man: Miles Morales — the main campaign, a wintry New York to explore, and uninspired side quests. It’s a basic copy-paste PC port that doesn’t include any extra cosmetics or new DLC tailored to the fresh platform. In my Spider-Man Remastered PC review, I mentioned how booting up the title opened a launcher window, where one could configure graphics settings before heading into the actual game. This continues in Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC, but there’s an improvement. Once you’ve found the ideal settings, you can disable the launcher window entirely and skip the extra step. Previously, hitting play in Steam or Epic Games triggered the launcher every time.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales Review: Hanging by a Thread

The new Venom strike ability separates Miles Morales from his mentor Peter Parker
Photo Credit: Insomniac Games

That said, the initial setup of Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC was a hindrance for me, crashing several times during the opening credits and loading screens. It was a mundane cycle of restarting the game over and over to trigger the next animation and eventually, progress to the main menu. Post that, it was smooth sailing across the board. The control scheme is quite like that of Spider-Man Remastered, save for Miles’ new shock ability, which by default, is bound to the right-click button. This moves the ‘Aim’ action to the middle mouse button, which, while jarring at first, isn’t a big deal since it can be customised to your liking.

Sure, there are a few combinations that are awkward for keyboard and mouse players, but accessibility features exist to simplify this. For instance, executing an airborne trick while swinging requires you to hold ‘T’ and press a directional button, which can be difficult to pull off with a single hand. However, these options allow you to map the control to a toggle action instead, so you can easily whiz past skyscrapers in style. Similarly, one could have entire QTE sequences play out automatically or even reposition the camera to a waypoint. Visual aids are also included, ranging from icon size changes to shader and contrast settings, aimed at people with low vision or challenges such as colour blindness.

Contrast and shader settings add a new filter that helps differentiate between characters
Photo Credit: Screenshot/ Rahul Chettiyar

Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC review – Graphics

Insomniac Games has come in clutch yet again with a new PS–PC port that’s nothing short of a visual feast. Spider-Man: Miles Morales on PC looks marvellous even at the lowest settings, prioritising character models above all else. Much like the recent Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, loss in visual quality is mainly noticeable in the surrounding open world, though it’s a bit more distracting here. The game carries over the Manhattan map from its prequel, adding a winter coat of paint and a few structural changes. So, when favouring performance over fidelity, it’s no longer a matter of simply blurring textures. The higher the graphics preset you choose, the denser snow gets, even settling between tiny cracks on wall surfaces.

These effects can be seen in real-time, thanks to the menu’s placement which only covers half the screen. Technical jargon is neatly described beside each setting, and there’s no need to restart the game to apply changes either. In addition to textural clarity, cranking the settings to Medium and beyond adds skin texture, increased hair density, and overall depth in images, thanks to areas in black getting darker. Even without ray tracing, shadows behave realistically, for the most part, getting cast in long or short forms depending on lighting, and that doesn’t exclude pedestrians or cars. There were a few moments during combat though, when I noticed some inconsistencies. When shooting webs to plaster foes onto structures that aren’t buildings, I sometimes found the latter behaving like transparent objects. So, instead of forming suitable, geometric shadows, all I could see were enemy shadows floating in the air.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC graphics settings
Photo Credit: Screenshot/ Rahul Chettiyar

While the graphics settings between Spider-Man Remastered and Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC are pretty much the same, I found reflections to be far superior here. Swinging around town through crowds of cheery bystanders feels immersive when you see the reflections of tall skyscrapers passing by. However, they are pre-rendered/ hard-coded into the windows. Similar to lighting effects in interior segments, these remain constant and are unaffected by what presets you choose. With Screen Space Reflections (SSR) enabled, however, material world objects cast real-time reflections, provided they’re close to a reflective surface.

Crawling on glossy windowpanes as Spider-Man throws up a spitting image of our hero, with accurate depictions of what suit you’re wearing. This is a massive upgrade compared to the previous game, where reflections could only be seen from specific, narrow angles and even then resembled a greyish, translucent shadow. That said, SSR is restricted to the ‘Medium’ preset and above. Toggling it on at ‘Very Low’ or ‘Low’ settings will not create these immediate reflections, causing some areas to appear bland even if well-lit. But that’s the trade-off.

Notice the change in reflection going from Very Low (L) to Very High (R)
Photo Credit: Screenshot/ Rahul Chettiyar

Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ visual splendour extends to finer details such as real-time footprints and tire tracks in the snow. Christmas vibes are in full force here, with apt decorations and warm lighting that serve to soothe your eyes after intense action sequences. My only gripe with visual presentation would be the erratic snowfall during cutscenes, which I know sounds odd, because cinematics is something these first-party PlayStation games usually have a knack for. At times, when the footage cuts to a different shot, snowflakes would take a few seconds to load, and it was jarring enough to break immersion.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC review – Performance

For being a new-gen PS5 launch title, Spider-Man: Miles Morales performed surprisingly better than I anticipated, on my medium-end rig. I tested this game on an AMD Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6GHz processor, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super GPU with 6GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM, and a 500GB SSD. Playing at Medium–High settings, I was able to achieve eye-catching visuals with near-smooth frames that seamlessly transitioned into cutscenes and back. Even as I stumbled into the occasional split second-stutter — due to new assets loading — the heroic background score never cut out, which I appreciate since music is a key component to Miles’ character.

At these settings, Spider-Man: Miles Morales averaged 63fps, with frequent dips as low as 52fps when cycling between moments of calm and interior combat, respectively. When performing at its best with SSR enabled and barely any action on-screen, the game was able to hit highs of 78fps, though it would fall back to 62fps during cutscenes. Some screen tearing managed to stick out during these cinematics, though I caught none of it during gameplay, thanks to motion blur being enabled. While the setting is deemed counterintuitive for most titles out there, as I mentioned in my Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves PC review, Sony never goes overboard with the effect.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC System Requirements Detailed

Our first encounter with Rhino is heavy on the hardware
Photo Credit: Insomniac Games

A good chunk of world interaction involves swinging around the city at a blistering pace, which understandably caused performance to drop a little. With traffic, crowd density and weather effects set to medium, Spider-Man: Miles Morales averaged 46fps on my PC, before settling at 51fps when coming back to earth and mingling with citizens. During an explosive boss fight against the beastly Rhino, involving a handful of thugs, performance averaged at 59fps, with lows of 49fps, depending on how populated my screen was with artefacts and elemental effects.

Pushing the game to its limits, the opening chase sequence has you tear through New York City’s Christmas-themed malls and establishments, cycling between spurts of combat and cinematics in haste. At the aforementioned Medium–High settings, Spider-Man: Miles Morales managed to chug out 53fps on average, peaking at 63fps. Thankfully, the developers reduced snowfall during the swinging action, or else my framerate could have dropped way below 30fps. That said, these erratic figures are not representatives of lag spikes. Nowhere in my playthrough did I experience a heavy enough dip to cause me to lose immersion. But still, this game could benefit from a VRAM usage indicator to help you figure out the right settings, so you don’t end up maxing out your graphics memory.

If you’re running a system that’s similarly specced as mine, please refer to the table below to understand how Spider-Man: Miles Morales performs at different presets. Bear in mind, these numbers are the worst-case scenarios based on the aforesaid chase sequence, which is full of epic-scale destruction effects that occupy a lot of screen space. As for general gameplay, at the lowest possible settings, I was able to max out at 116fps. Visually, I also didn’t notice any major disparity between the High and Very High presets — because they’re heavily geared toward ray tracing.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC (all values are in fps)
VERY LOW			LOW			MEDIUM			HIGH			VERY HIGH
LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH
46	65	105	46	60	80	35	53	63	35	46	55	30	42	50

Spider-Man: Miles Morales PC review – Verdict

Spider-Man Miles Morales might be a shorter experience than its predecessor, but it offers a ton of improvements on the gameplay end, fitting comfortably as an introductory tale in the larger Insomniac universe. With impressive PC performance and the ability to adapt to hardware dating back to the GTX 950 days, this game is an absolute banger to play through. It’s also crazy to think how in recent years, the PC has become the definitive platform to best experience these first-party PlayStation games.

At the same time, the publisher continues to baffle me with its exorbitant, yet inconsistent prices. For a title that launched two years ago and isn’t as long, Rs. 3,299/ $49.99 is clearly on the higher end. In comparison, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection on PC was priced the same, offering one-and-a-half games versus the “half” that is Spider-Man: Miles Morales. I would suggest waiting for a sale — but please, do not bail on this one.

Pros:

Well optimised
Superb visuals
Intuitive keyboard and mouse…

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Logitech MX Master 3S Review: Like No Other

Posted on November 14, 2022 by Gadgets 360

Logitech’s MX Master series of computer mice has had only a few upgrades over the years. Logitech usually adds one new feature every now and then that we never knew we wanted (or needed), and this ends up becoming the norm in future iterations. Most recent was the MagSpeed electromagnetic scroll wheel which made an appearance on the MX Master 3 and is also present in the MX Master Anywhere 3.

With the latest MX Master 3S, Logitech has added a new Quiet Click feature, which promises to reduce the clicking sound of the mouse buttons to a bare minimum. It’s something I never knew I would want from a productivity mouse, but now that I have been using it for a few weeks, I’ve realised that it’s hard to get accustomed to anything else, and here’s why.

Logitech MX Master 3S price and box contents

In the box, the Logitech MX Master 3S comes with a USB Type-A to Type-C charging cable, user documentation, and the Logi Bolt USB receiver. Priced at Rs. 10,995, the Master 3S is definitely expensive and I am happy to see that the receiver is included in the package. However, it still costs more than what it’s sold for in the US, which is $99.99 (roughly Rs. 7,900). What I also would have liked to see is a carry case bundled with the Indian unit, which is included with units sold in the US.

Logitech MX Master 3S design

The Logitech MX Master 3S’ design has not changed by much. Placed next to the MX Master 3, it’s very hard to tell the difference between the two, especially if you’ve used the previous model. The texture of the left and right click buttons is new, but it also has a plasticky feel versus the rubber-like texture on the Master 3. The rest of the upper surface of the Master 3S gets the similar rubberised material as the old one.

The Logitech MX Master 3S has an ergonomic design that suits medium and large-sized hands well

Another change is a new colour option called Pale Grey, which is very different from the Mid Grey finish available on the MX Master 3.

In terms of ergonomics, the new MX Master 3S is still as good as the MX Master 3, with the same level of grip thanks to the silicon upper layer. The mouse is quite large for small hands, but fits medium-sized and large hands comfortably. The placement and feel of the customisable side buttons is the same as before. Yes, it still takes some effort to press down on the gesture key which rests below the thumb.

The main MagSpeed electromagnetic scroll wheel on the Logitech MX Master 3S is also the same as before. It is a delight to use and is super silent. There were times where I forgetfully left the scroll-wheel spinning while scrolling through long web pages, only to realise until I rested my finger on it. It stops quickly too thanks to the magnets biting on the well-crafted aluminium roller, like the callipers of a disk brake on a motorcycle. The scrolling works great on Windows computers but on macOS, I’d still prefer Apple’s Magic Mouse as the scrolling is a lot more accurate.

The Logitech MX Master 3S offers two scroll wheels and seven buttons in all

The thumb scroll wheel is still available and is quite useful for those who scroll horizontally through large excel sheets. Logitech should have implemented the same scrolling mechanism from the main scroll wheel as it still feels quite tight and rigid and lacks any momentum whatsoever. Since it is a lot smaller compared to the main scroll wheel, you have to repeatedly flick it to get to where you want and this can get really tiring if you have a massive data sheet or timeline to side-scroll through.

Since the design of the Logitech MX Master 3S is clearly made for right-handed users, there’s really no option for left-handed users. The MX Anywhere 3 should be a good alternative, which is a lot smaller and has an ambidextrous design.

Logitech MX Master 3S software

The Logitech MX Master 3S now works with the Logi Options+ app that is available for Mac and Windows systems. It’s a robust piece of software and has been improved in terms of reliability over the previous Logi Options app. The software is at the heart of the whole MX Master experience as it is the control centre for all the customisations that you can perform with the mouse.

In terms of operation, the software mostly remains the same as the Logi Options app, so the level of customisation is also the same as before. However, the possibilities are immense and almost feel infinite to an extent. When customising the functions of the mouse buttons, there’s an option to go with global settings which are basically the functions that work across apps, or you can customise the button’s functions for individual apps. You can pick an application from the list and set the mouse buttons to behave differently when the app is in use.

The buttons on the Logitech MX Master 3S are highly customisable

There are predefined customisations which are basically preselected options made by Logitech, or you can simply customise things to your liking. For example, the side buttons can be used to switch between desktops on macOS, but when Safari is open, the same buttons can be used to move back and forth between pages. The thumb scroll wheel which is normally used for side-scrolling in apps, will allow you to switch between tabs when Safari is open and will go back to its default setting when you use it anywhere else. It all works seamlessly and flawlessly no matter how many layers or customisations you add.

The Logi Options+ app, like before, also enables the Flow feature that allows the Logitech MX Master 3S to work with two to three devices simultaneously. All that is needed is for the software to be installed on all the devices and for all of them to be connected to the same Wi-Fi network. From there on, you can simply move your mouse pointer to the edge of your main display to start controlling the system sitting next to it. It all works naturally, similar to what’s now possible when using macOS’s Universal Control feature, just that instead of being limited to one platform, Logitech’s solution works across operating systems. You can also copy and paste files (transfer time varies by file size) between two devices (and platforms), but you cannot drag and drop.

If you don’t want to control different devices, there’s also an Easy-Switch feature which basically lets you switch between controlling an iPad, a MacBook or Windows laptop by pressing the Easy-Switch button at the bottom of the mouse. These devices can be connected via Bluetooth or via the Bolt receiver. You can also pair the same mouse via Bluetooth and Bolt, and it will show up as two different mice in the Logi Options+ app.

Logitech MX Master 3S performance

While the Logi Options+ app worked beautifully with the MX Master 3S, especially when it came to managing customisations, I would not say the same for Bluetooth connectivity, which seemed to mar the whole MX experience from time to time. Using the mouse via Bluetooth seemed to work fine for a few weeks until it randomly started getting disconnected from my 2018 MacBook Pro.

The mouse also has many reported issues with Apple’s M1 SoC when using Bluetooth, so if you still want or need customisations but are heavily invested into the Apple ecosystem, using the Logitech Unifying or Bolt receiver seems to fix most of the issues. The only problem with this solution is that you end up losing a port on your machine which is not a big deal if it’s a desktop or a laptop with many ports. However, if you’re using a thin and light such as a MacBook Air, then you’ll need to remember to bring your USB hub along for a Type-A port.

There’s an Easy-Switch button for switching between devices at the bottom just like on the older MX Master 3

These connectivity issues with Mac computers were also present on the old MX Master 3 so it is a known problem that seems to have no solution, yet. On Windows, I faced no problems whatsoever when connected to an old Dell Inspiron laptop.

As for the highlight feature of this year’s MX Master mouse, it’s something that I never really thought I needed… until I used it. Logitech has somehow managed to quieten the click sound of its left and right click buttons. When enabled, it’s hard to hear the sound of the silent click, even in a quiet room. It feels more like a quiet tap instead of a click and you can only hear it if you hold the mouse up to your ear.

It’s not just about the sound though (or the lack of it), but the clicking experience as well. After using the Logitech MX Master 3S for a few weeks, I switched to my go-to mouse which is the (new) Apple Magic Mouse and I realised how much actuation force is actually needed to press down on a mouse button. I even tried out a regular Logitech M170 mouse and never realised how much pressure is actually needed to press down on the left and right click buttons.

Switching back to the MX Master 3S and this clickless wonder now feels even more premium as it’s silent with no audible clicks and requires minimal force. It is a very satisfying experience in all, and kind of what you experience when you find that right mechanical keyboard with the right amount of thock.

The gesture button which sits under the thumb and below the side buttons still feels quite stiff

All seven buttons of the mouse have good tactile feedback but I do wish that the Gesture button and the middle-click (available on the main scroll wheel) get softer with the next version of the MX series.

Logitech has also cranked up the DPI from 4,000 on the MX Master 3 to 8,000 on the MX Master 3S. I ended up using the mouse at 1,000 DPI which felt sufficiently accurate for regular work tasks and while editing images. The higher DPI does come in use when using multi-monitor setups. This is something I did not get to test, but it should work better in theory provided you find the right sweet spot as per your setup. I had no problems using the mouse on a polished wooden table or even a glass surface as the tracking was quite accurate.

Battery life was quite solid during the testing period. The Logitech MX Master 3S has a 500mAh battery which Logitech seems to have optimised really well. I ended up using the mouse for a work day (about nine hours), five days a week and it has been a month and 22 days since the last full charge, with the battery level still at 50 percent as I write this review. In short, the mouse should easily last about two months or so on a single charge, which is close to Logitech’s claim of up to 70 days. When the battery does die, Logitech claims that the MX Master 3S can work for about three hours with just a minute of charging.

Verdict

The Logitech MX Master 3S is in an odd spot as it isn’t a big upgrade over its predecessor, the MX Master 3 which is now available for about Rs. 8,000. The 3S is mainly for those who need the 8,000 DPI tracking or desire the Quiet Click experience.

Apple’s new Magic Mouse (Rs. 7,500 onwards) is not exactly an alternative to the MX Master 3S, but will be the go-to mouse for many on macOS as it works really well when it comes to gestures. Logitech’s MX Anywhere 3 (Rs. 7,495) gets you the Flow feature, software customisations, and also includes the same MagSpeed electromagnetic scrolling experience, minus a few buttons and the thumb-scroll wheel. It’s also ambidextrous, so it works well for left-handed users.

The Razer Pro Click is another productivity mouse with customisable buttons but works well only with Windows, and is priced at Rs. 6,699. There’s also Logitech’s G502 (Rs. 10,234) which seems well-equipped for some productive work even though it’s primarily a gaming mouse. There’s plenty of customisation in terms of lead weights for getting the feel just right, but the software is geared more towards gaming.

Once you take a look at the competition, the MX Master 3S does not feel abnormally expensive for what it offers. But the price bump is huge when compared to the previous MX Master 3. If you don’t care much for the new features in the Master 3S, there’s always the MX Master 3 which pretty-much gets the job done at a more reasonable asking price.

Pros:

Ergonomic design
Long battery life
Highly customisable buttons
Accurate tracking
Quiet Click is unique
Good companion app

Cons:

Bluetooth connectivity issues with macOS
Gesture button is a bit hard to press
Thumb-scroll wheel could be better

Ratings (Out of 10)

Design: 10
Performance: 8
Value for Money: 7
Overall: 9

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Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC Review: A Breathtaking Sight, With a Few Rough Patches

Posted on October 29, 2022 by Gadgets 360

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection — out Wednesday on PC — is no doubt a potent brew of blockbuster storytelling and epic-scale thrills. Its arrival marks the first time PC players get to experience this globe-trotting adventure franchise since its founding nearly 15 years ago, as it has been PlayStation exclusive starting with the PS3. This version expectedly comes with added enhancements, which are foreign to even the recent PS5 remaster. Seeing Iron Galaxy Studios at the helm of Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, I had been erring on the side of caution, as these are the same folks behind Batman: Arkham Knight’s terrible PC port. Now, to be fair, that was outsourced to a small team of 12, under heavy time constraints — grounds for all kinds of technical issues. Even so, I kept my fingers crossed and dove into Uncharted PC with a sliver of hope. Here’s my full review.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC review — Prep work

As was the case with the PS5 remaster, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is essentially a refined version of Naughty Dog’s latest treasure-hunting games. It’s a charming crate that holds together 2016’s Uncharted 4 and its subsequent spin-off title, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, letting a new generation of players experience Nathan Drake and Chloe Frazer’s adventures in the wild.

Let’s talk about distribution first — my primary point of concern. Iron Galaxy took the literal definition of “collection,” and bundled both games into a single application. This amounts to an 89.6GB download for Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, which after extraction and installation, takes up 124GB of drive space. Even if you lack interest in one of the titles, you’d still be forced to dedicate that massive space to both of them.

The Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection homescreen lets you switch between Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy at will. However, it’s a bizarre process. Attempting to do so triggers a forced restart, making you sit through a loading screen before you can get into the actual game. As evidenced by the install folder, it’s clearly jumping between two different .exe files. This begs the question, why aren’t they offered separately? “Convenience” isn’t the answer, as it takes the same amount of time to manually launch a different game anyway.

First-time setup for Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection can feel like a chore, especially on lower-end PC builds, owing to a “shader building” process (according to a message on screen). This could take anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes for each game, depending on your specs — in turn, affecting Steam’s two-hour refund policy. Sure, you can still play the game while this happens in the background, but it would be far from an optimal experience, with flickering screens, lag, and maybe even a hard crash. So, it’s recommended that you wait it out.

Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection PS5 Review

Uncharted 4 is clearly the more optimised out of the two
Photo Credit: Naughty Dog

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC review — Gameplay

I wouldn’t be the first to suggest that the Uncharted series has lost its lustre over time, with predictable plot beats, corny dialogue, and dated mechanics. Don’t let that distract you from the bigger picture though, which still manages to be an absolute blast to play through. Be it parkouring along wet scaffoldings, disassembling a clock tower, or gunning down foes in that cinematic chase sequence in Madagascar, the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection screams unbridled mayhem.

The keyboard and mouse control scheme, which is super responsive, benefits mildly from the game’s accessibility features. While not as intricate as the PS4 and PS5’s The Last of Us Part II, you get basic aids such as lock-on aim, a persistent centre dot, and mono audio, aimed at those suffering from unilateral hearing loss. Hand-to-hand combat segments in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection require some button-mashing — my sworn enemy — building up tendon pain in my wrist and palm. Luckily, I could just configure the ‘Hold’ action, making the ordeal near effortless.

Core gameplay remains the same, with grappling hooks to swing around, puzzles to solve, and driving segments, all of which are slightly expanded in The Lost Legacy. Tiptoeing along narrow beams requires some precision, but you can continue making far-off, physics-defying leaps with ease. I was hoping for some minor conveniences such as ammo auto-pickup, which would streamline the run-and-gun experience, but unfortunately, all changes are limited to the technical side.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC System Requirements Announced

The action set pieces in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection screams unbridled mayhem
Photo Credit: Naughty Dog

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection review — Graphics

In keeping with past PlayStation-to-PC ports, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection prioritises character models above all else, and what better setting than the snow-capped vistas of Scotland, bursting with vibrant vegetation and ancient pirate ruins. Heading into Chapter 8, I was worried about how the ‘Low’ graphics preset would affect inscriptions, a vital type of clue in the quest for Henry Avery’s gravestone. As it turns out, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection makes an exception for objects that characters interact with, akin to 2D animation, adding an extra level of detailing that sets these apart from other assets.

For example, angular objects such as doors and vehicles have blurry decals, and text is prone to jagged edges. However, humans remain pristine, with sweat-glossed foreheads, realistic skin texture, and attire that collects dust and grime over time. When thrown into the same cutscenes in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, there’s a jarring effect, as the subject and background textures do not match. And honestly, that might be the only blatantly obvious downside to playing at the lowest settings. Unlike Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered on PC, there isn’t much to fiddle around with in the graphics menu. Fine-tuning shadows, reflections, and ambient occlusion do add that oomph, but it’s not significant to gameplay — at least not at full-HD 1080p.

Spider-Man Remastered PC Review: A Tad Overpriced, but Worth the Wait

On higher presets, foliage gets denser with added shadows
Photo Credit: Screenshot/ Rahul Chettiyar

Compared to their original PS4 builds, both Uncharted games look breathtaking. Hightailing across the sandy terrains of Madagascar feels hypnotic, as the scorching heat drenches you in growing streaks of sweat. That allure is amplified by the rugged, real-time dirt tracks you leave behind, packs of lemurs scurrying about, and locals cowering in fear as you steamroll past them. The Lost Legacy’s PC port ups the ante for visuals, populating the screen with denizens bartering in the bazaar, exotic flora, and gigantic moss-covered idols and shrines to scale. It’s insane how good Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection looks — it made me want to invest in an ultra-wide monitor.

The ‘Medium’ quality preset in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection adds lighting effects, making streams and puddles shimmer when trudging along. Human reflections were fairly solid on the marble floor of the Italian Rossi Estate, but those on water bodies were inconsistent.

At the ‘High’ preset, minute details such as ridges and cracks are defined, adding undeniable stress to your GPU. This helps distract from the blurry, pixelated mess that plagues rocky surfaces you latch onto, in addition to separating foliage and flower beds, for even more realism. I didn’t bother much with the ‘Ultra’ preset on Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, as my graphics card was maxing out on memory.

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection review — Performance

While not fully on par with past PlayStation–PC ports, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is decently optimised. My test rig consisted of an AMD Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6GHz processor, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super GPU with 6GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM, and a 500GB SSD. With this configuration, I was able to hit a sweet spot at Medium–High settings, resulting in stunning graphics. The experience was nearly smooth, but frame rates in this game can be quite erratic — at times, situational, depending on what chapter you’re on.

At these settings, Uncharted 4 ran at 65fps on average, with frequent dips to 51, depending on scenery changes and camera movement. This remained true for both gunplay and exploration segments, with highs of 73fps reserved for select cinematics and closed-room events. When jostling through the Madagascar market or the auction setting earlier in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, the frame rate plummeted to 32fps, before settling somewhere in the 40s. That drop was very noticeable, even at the Low preset, sometimes even causing the audio to cut out for a split second.

The adrenaline-fueled Madagascar chase sequence is undeniably the finest zone to push Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection to its limits. It’s not enough that you’re thrown onto a large-scale playing field, with a tank right behind you. But then you’ve also got mercenaries, explosions, gunfire, mud flying off tires, destruction, and ongoing environmental changes to account for. At the aforementioned settings, the game managed to chug out 44fps on average, with the highest peak being 55fps. Bursting down a stairway filled with stalls, vendors, and brightly coloured umbrellas, triggered massive stutters, dropping the frame rate to 28fps at one point. The camera shaking does help with immersion, but some lag spikes are unavoidable.

A Plague Tale Requiem Review: Gripping Narrative and Memorable Characters

The adrenaline-fueled Madagascar chase sequence pushes your GPU to its limit
Photo Credit: Naughty Dog

At the time of writing, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy feels slightly rough in comparison, though that is somewhat justifiable. A decent chunk of the gameplay here involves traversing through wilderness. This generated an average of 50fps, with sharp declines to 32fps during intense sequences. On the other hand, puzzle sequences, wall climbing, and cutscenes saw numbers maxing out at 63fps.

The Lost Legacy’s Chapter 2 pits Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross in a high-stakes platforming run, as they’re shot at by mercenaries in heavy rainfall. In addition to strong reflections on wet surfaces, you’re faced with sparking bullet streams and environmental destruction. This sequence pushed out 46fps on average, and a quick brawl against enemies ran at 28fps. Having motion blur on helped avoid screen tearing, which I would recommend since Sony never goes overboard with it — there’s no nauseating effect.

Bear in mind that both aforementioned chase sequences will cause significant lag spikes at certain intervals, if your hardware is in the same ballpark as mine, no matter which quality preset you choose.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (all values are in fps)
LOW			MEDIUM			HIGH			ULTRA
LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH
55	68	83	51	65	73	47	55	63	39	48	57
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
LOW			MEDIUM			HIGH			ULTRA
LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH
35	51	66	32	50	63	30	42	55	30	40	50

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection review — Verdict

Through gorgeous imagery and robust level design, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection promises a delectable adventure for newcomers to the franchise. Sure, the launch timing makes it seem like compensation — a playful jab — for PC gamers not being able to play God of War Ragnarök at launch, but Sony is not interested in matching Microsoft’s day-and-date release strategy. For the Rs. 3,299/ $50 price tag, you practically receive one and a half games here — a splendid offer, if you can overlook its original last-gen release window.

Its shortcomings are exposed in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, which lacks a bit of polish. And while support for ultra-wide displays and native 4K 60fps appear mouthwatering, I’m not sure that will be enough to draw in those who have already experienced these games on PS4 or PS5 for a second helping.

Pros:

Decent accessibility features

Motion blur is not obnoxious

Cons:

Packaged as a single, large application

The Lost Legacy is not as polished

No ammo auto-pickup or gameplay improvements

First-time setup can take time

Rating (out of 10): 7

Gadgets 360 played Uncharted:…

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Gotham Knights PC Review: A Technical Disaster, to Say the Least

Posted on October 28, 2022 by Gadgets 360

Gotham Knights — out now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S/X — attracted all kinds of negative attention in the run-up to its release. Starting life as a series of cryptic tweets, heralding the inclusion of the enigmatic Court of Owls was an excellent way to build hype for the next chapter in the Batman: Arkham saga, or so we thought. Later, it was revealed to be a separate arc, focused on the Dark Knight’s motley crew of sidekicks, much to the dismay of avid fans. Initial impressions were cold, as the new co-op component drew parallels to the bloated mess that was Marvel’s Avengers in 2020. With pre-release footage rolling out, that fear grew into contempt, as displays of laggy gameplay and clunky mechanics threw a wet blanket over any prior excitement. Add to that WB Games Montréal cancelling the previously announced PS4 and Xbox One versions five months before launch, and we’ve got a launch overshadowed by complaints.

Gotham Knights PC review: gameplay and controls

The aftermath of Batman and Commissioner Jim Gordon’s tragic deaths has left Gotham City in shambles, begging for a new saviour as an assortment of volatile criminals take over. Restoring order becomes the utmost priority, with the remaining Bat-Family suiting up and operating from the Belfry, hoping to see a new dawn. One of my concerns with Gotham Knights was its open-world system, which seemed to borrow its design philosophy from mundane Ubisoft titles. While this remains true with respect to quests, on-screen icons, and world traversal, there is still a hint of classic Arkham DNA in there.

You’re presented with a near-freeflow combat technique that demands extra attention for timed dodges, and a ton of erratic camera movement as you leap from one opponent to another. The Gotham Knights settings menu recommends that you leave motion blur off for better performance, but I’d say otherwise since a few extra frames won’t solve the issue. To put it bluntly, Gotham Knights is poorly optimised on PC, causing minor stutters, even in cutscenes. Leaving motion blur on, however, helps smoothen movement, avoiding screen tearing.

Gotham Knights Review: Batman Arkham Meets Marvel’s Spider-Man, Minus the Ingenuity

Combat feels a bit similar to the Batman: Arkham games
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

The Gotham Knights PC control scheme is super RPG-like, with a medley of skills, status effects, and combat options that might seem daunting to newcomers to the genre. However, the biggest hurdle in regard to gameplay stems from general movement, which is super sensitive, and at times unresponsive, causing heroes to bump into objects frequently. This is worsened by the fact that you occasionally get stuck to corners or edges, so instead of simply turning the camera and manoeuvring out of that site, you’re forced to take two steps back and reposition yourself.

For ranged attacks, you can mindlessly spam a button to inflict small doses of damage, as you regain composure. Meanwhile, the auto-aim/ tracking feature from the Arkham games — when manually hurling batarangs — has been removed in Gotham Knights. This can be simplified by visiting the accessibility settings, where you’ll find plenty of options to make gameplay feel like a breeze.

For instance, configuring Precision Aiming to a button tap lets you focus on cursor alignment, instead of holding and dragging your mouse into foes. Likewise, you can take advantage of the colourblind mode, a voice reader that narrates menus, and subtitle backgrounds for those hard of vision. Lodged within the pile is a ‘Movement Smoothing’ option, which does help a bit with the aforesaid sensitive navigation issues. However, when travelling through vents in Gotham Knights, I found characters to be moving in slow motion, requiring me to toggle it on and off, throughout the playthrough.

Gotham Knights PC review: graphics

The graphics are possibly the highlight of Gotham Knights on PC, partly carried by the moody lighting which adds to the helpless tone of the city. But what’s holding me back from fully enjoying this game is the character art design, which is in sheer contrast to its surroundings. It’s clear WB Games Montréal has invested a decent chunk of its time in working on the vigilantes’ suits. In fact, part of Gotham Knights’ marketing campaign involved showcasing unlockable outfits, and the inspiration behind each of them. However, the developer seems to have overlooked how shadows will affect these costumes, and the characters wearing them — for the most part.

Everything You Need to Know About Gotham Knights

Vigilantes’ suits have a weird glow effect to them
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

Halogen lights throw proper reflections and tint effects, which are extended onto the tall, menacing shadows behind you. But, when facing away from light in Gotham Knights on PC, or just roaming through some dark alleyway, the suits have a weird glow, which merely exists so you can appreciate their finer details. This is prevalent even during combat, creating some disparity between you and oncoming goons, with flat colours that would be more appropriate in a mobile game.

In my time with Gotham Knights on PC, I only found illumination to be consistent in two places — cutscenes and time spent within the Belfry. That tower of operations is the only place you see daylight, as you link clues and chart the next steps in your course of action. Even on the ‘Low’ graphical preset, you’re greeted with visible dust particles, long shadows from the clock’s mechanisms, and a blinding sun-kissed effect that looks beautiful.

Like most modern AAA titles, upon first launch, Gotham Knights on PC configures graphics settings for you. The results looked disappointing for me, playing on a medium-spec build. The game automatically adjusts the maximum render resolution to the 60s on its sliding scale, creating jagged edges on our vigilantes and a scrambly effect on hair and shadows, which is hard to miss. I would recommend raising this to at least 125, and also tweaking the sharpening level, depending on what GPU you own — AMD’s Fidelity FX sharpening, or Nvidia Image Scaling — to reach an acceptable level of detail. Sadly, visual flair is minimised once you head outdoors, as you’re slapped with lifeless, dated architectural assets such as brick walls and foggy windows, whose textures see nary an improvement even on the Highest preset.

Cruising through the lanes of Gotham City, I noticed several artefacts, streetlights, and entire backgrounds popping in and out of the frame. To the developers’ credit, it was (unintentionally?) clever of them to set the game at night, making it difficult to identify such hindrances — albeit the jarring changes in lighting effects were always a dead giveaway. Switching from the lowest presets to beyond, the most significant change in Gotham Knights on PC has to be reflection quality and quantity. What appeared as a blurry smudge at Medium or lower settings forms a complete mirror image of its parent object at higher presets, with rippled edges that emulate the sense of a downpour.

Gotham Knights to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the Biggest Games in October

Notice the difference in reflection quality, going from Low (L) to High (R)
Photo Credit: Screenshot/ Rahul Chettiyar

The effects of rainfall are also seen in character outfits, as water droplets calmly trickle down your suit or dry off when under shelter. It’s such minor details that demonstrate a level of passion behind Gotham Knights on PC. But in the larger scheme of things — the narrative, combat, open world, and overarching shadow of the Batman: Arkham games — a lot of it can go unnoticed, and rightfully so.

Gotham Knights PC review: performance

Even as WB Games Montréal threw a near-endless barrage of unpolished gameplay demos at us in the runup to this game’s launch, I held a positive outlook, for two main reasons. A: It’s rare to see AAA developers being fully honest about their games, giving you a clear idea of exactly what you’re spending money on. Because let’s be real, nobody wants another Cyberpunk 2077 situation. And B: I was hoping that this game’s glaring issues would be fixed by launch time. Having spent about a week playing Gotham Knights on PC, I can now confirm that I was wrong about the second part. This title plays exactly as advertised, featuring wonky gameplay and constant dips in performance, no matter what graphics configuration you set.

My test rig consisted of an AMD Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6GHz processor, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super GPU with 6GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM, and a 500GB SSD — a build that’s usually sufficient to smoothly run modern titles at Medium–High settings, at 1080p. Gotham Knights, however, demands a lot more horsepower, setting the baseline at a GTX 1660Ti GPU for 60fps gameplay at the lowest settings. What the developers never say outright is that those numbers are best-case scenarios. In simple terms, Gotham Knights has two main graphics options: Indoors and outdoors. With the former, my PC delivered a solid 50fps average at Medium settings, as I tackled the main campaign missions and interior segments.

Uncharted PC Review: A Breathtaking Sight, With a Few Rough Patches

Gotham Knights is prone to heavy stuttering issues when in the open world
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

But the story is wildly different on the streets of Gotham City, where riding around on the Batcycle tanked my frames to an average of 30fps, with frequent drops to the 22fps region. This trend continued across all graphical presets, resulting in a sluggish traversal experience that was also heavily impacted by the slightest camera movement. The world of Gotham Knights is far denser than the studio’s previous outing, Batman: Arkham Origins, teeming with lifeless civilians, vehicles in motion, smoke effects, neon lighting, and a lot of rainfall — all of which are responsible for pronounced performance fluctuations in the open world. Even by reducing the environment density and setting everything to low, I could not achieve a stable 60fps on my PC. Combat segments would usually max out at 34fps, while cutscenes with rain were capped at 40fps.

The optimisation here is bafflingly inconsistent. What better way to convey this than take you through one of my personal experiences? Early on in Gotham Knights, you’re tasked with breaking into the Blackgate Penitentiary and meeting with Harley Quinn to follow up on a lead. As you might expect, she sends you on a wild goose chase. This involves a mix of stealth segments and an all-out prison brawl. What’s interesting here is that throughout this whole sequence, at Medium settings, Gotham Knights on PC never dropped below 59fps — it even hit 70fps once (yay?) — but then I got my hands on the quest item.

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Harley Quinn in Gotham Knights
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

Presumably, the next course of action would be to simply retrace your steps through the same hallways, and deliver the document to Quinn. But the very second I turned around, Gotham Knights plummeted to 35fps on my PC, even in the following cutscene, up until I made my way back to the Belfry. In fact, as I rode into the subway tunnel leading to the hub area, I noticed a massive lag spike. Performance dropped to 12fps, and completely disoriented my camera positioning. With such abysmal optimisation, it’s not surprising that the console — PS5 and Xbox Series S/X — versions of this game have been locked to 30fps.

Clearly, this isn’t a good look for Gotham Knights on PC. But, if you’re still interested to know how a mid-range system might run this game at higher settings, please refer to the table below:

Gotham Knights PC Performance (all values are in fps ranges)
LOW		MEDIUM		HIGH		HIGHEST
INDOORS	OUTDOORS	INDOORS	OUTDOORS	INDOORS	OUTDOORS	INDOORS	OUTDOORS
51–61	25–37	46–50	18–35	37–48	17–26	31–43	12–25

Gotham Knights PC review: verdict

WB Games Montréal clearly bit off more than it could chew here, resulting in a bloated mess that fails on a technical level. Running on Unreal Engine 4, Gotham Knights on PC can look visually appealing at times, but constant frame drops and high-end PC requirements essentially doom it. At the end of the day, the game itself is tedious to play, and because of that, it’s hard to see players waiting around for months for the performance issues to be resolved. Remember Batman: Arkham Knight…

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Gotham Knights PC Review: A Technical Disaster, to Say the Least

Posted on October 21, 2022 by Gadgets 360

Gotham Knights PC review: gameplay and controls

Gotham Knights Review: Batman Arkham Meets Marvel’s Spider-Man, Minus the Ingenuity

Combat feels a bit similar to the Batman: Arkham games
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

Gotham Knights PC review: graphics

Everything You Need to Know About Gotham Knights

Vigilantes’ suits have a weird glow effect to them
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

Gotham Knights to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the Biggest Games in October

Notice the difference in reflection quality, going from Low (L) to High (R)
Photo Credit: Screenshot/ Rahul Chettiyar

Gotham Knights PC review: performance

Uncharted PC Review: A Breathtaking Sight, With a Few Rough Patches

Gotham Knights is prone to heavy stuttering issues when in the open world
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

A Plague Tale Requiem Review: Gripping Narrative and Memorable Characters

Harley Quinn in Gotham Knights
Photo Credit: WB Games Montréal

Clearly, this isn’t a good look for Gotham Knights on PC. But, if you’re still interested to know how a mid-range system might run this game at higher settings, please refer to the table below:

Gotham Knights PC Performance (all values are in fps ranges)
LOW		MEDIUM		HIGH		HIGHEST
INDOORS	OUTDOORS	INDOORS	OUTDOORS	INDOORS	OUTDOORS	INDOORS	OUTDOORS
51–61	25–37	46–50	18–35	37–48	17–26	31–43	12–25

Gotham Knights PC review: verdict

Gadgets 360

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Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC Review: A Breathtaking Sight, With a Few Rough Patches

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Gadgets 360

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC review — Prep work

Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection PS5 Review

Uncharted 4 is clearly the more optimised out of the two
Photo Credit: Naughty Dog

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC review — Gameplay

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection PC System Requirements Announced

The action set pieces in Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection screams unbridled mayhem
Photo Credit: Naughty Dog

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection review — Graphics

Spider-Man Remastered PC Review: A Tad Overpriced, but Worth the Wait

On higher presets, foliage gets denser with added shadows
Photo Credit: Screenshot/ Rahul Chettiyar

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection review — Performance

A Plague Tale Requiem Review: Gripping Narrative and Memorable Characters

The adrenaline-fueled Madagascar chase sequence pushes your GPU to its limit
Photo Credit: Naughty Dog

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (all values are in fps)
LOW			MEDIUM			HIGH			ULTRA
LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH
55	68	83	51	65	73	47	55	63	39	48	57
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
LOW			MEDIUM			HIGH			ULTRA
LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH	LOW	AVG	HIGH
35	51	66	32	50	63	30	42	55	30	40	50

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection review — Verdict

Pros:

Decent accessibility features

Motion blur is not obnoxious

Cons:

Packaged as a single, large application

The Lost Legacy is not as polished

No ammo auto-pickup or gameplay improvements

First-time setup can take time

Rating (out of 10): 7

Gadgets 360 played Uncharted:…

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Logitech MX Master 3S Review: Like No Other

Posted on August 25, 2022 by Gadgets 360

Logitech MX Master 3S price and box contents

Logitech MX Master 3S design

The Logitech MX Master 3S has an ergonomic design that suits medium and large-sized hands well

Another change is a new colour option called Pale Grey, which is very different from the Mid Grey finish available on the MX Master 3.

The Logitech MX Master 3S offers two scroll wheels and seven buttons in all

Logitech MX Master 3S software

The buttons on the Logitech MX Master 3S are highly customisable

Logitech MX Master 3S performance

There’s an Easy-Switch button for switching between devices at the bottom just like on the older MX Master 3

The gesture button which sits under the thumb and below the side buttons still feels quite stiff

Verdict

Pros:

Ergonomic design
Long battery life
Highly customisable buttons
Accurate tracking
Quiet Click is unique
Good companion app

Cons:

Bluetooth connectivity issues with macOS
Gesture button is a bit hard to press
Thumb-scroll wheel could be better

Ratings (Out of 10)

Design: 10
Performance: 8
Value for Money: 7
Overall: 9

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AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X, Ryzen Threadripper 3960X and MSI Creator TRX40 Review

Posted on August 17, 2022 by Gadgets 360

AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper CPUs are not for your average home or office PC. The first Threadrippers were developed as the result of a side project that some AMD engineers took up just to see how far the original Zen architecture could be pushed. Now three generations in a lot has changed, but AMD is fully committed to keeping the line going. With up to 32 cores (and up to 64 soon), these processors are designed to brute-force their way through heavy workloads. They aren’t just successful in the professional high-end desktop market, they’ve also got huge fan followings around the world just because of how audacious and over-the-top they are.

Three years ago, the first eight-core desktop Ryzens were just starting to disrupt Intel’s long-held status quo of four cores for mainstream desktops and a maximum of ten if you were willing to pay through your nose for an Extreme Edition model. Not stopping there, AMD happily threw down a 16-core Threadripper for far less money, and we’ve since seen both companies up their games considerably. With the mainstream Ryzen lineup now including a 16-core model, the Ryzen 9 3950X, the Threadripper series has had to evolve as well.

The lowest-end model announced so far, the Ryzen Threadripper 3960X has 24 cores, while its sibling the Ryzen Threadripper 3970X has a whopping 32 cores. AMD has also just teased the truly outrageous Ryzen Threadripper 3990X with 64 cores. That leaves room for a hypothetical 48-core Ryzen Threadripper 3980X. AMD is boasting that it can bring an incredible amount of power to previously unthinkable price points.

With Intel’s 10th Gen ‘Cascade Lake’ X-series lineup already announced and scheduled to ship very soon, competition between the two rivals is intense. Intel might not win the core count race, but it promises to be competitive in terms of overall performance and power efficiency. Let’s see what exactly AMD has done differently with this new Threadripper lineup, and who exactly can benefit from such an outrageous CPU.

The orange plastic caddy around the chip itself lets you insert it gently into the very delicate sTRX4 socket

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X and Ryzen Threadripper 3960X architecture and specifications

Just like its mainstream desktop Ryzen counterparts, the third-gen Ryzen Threadrippers are based on AMD’s Zen 2 architecture. The company has created a modular design that allows for multiple small building blocks, called Core Chiplet Dies (CCDs) to be arranged within each processor. You can read our complete guide to the Zen 2 architecture and the generational performance improvements AMD has achieved with it, and also check out our review of the 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X and 8-core Ryzen 7 3700X based on the same fundamental design.

Each CCD consists of eight CPU cores plus caches, and there are four CCDs in the Ryzen Threadripper 3970X which gives it its 32 cores. The Ryzen Threadripper 3960X also has four but with one core per die disabled, for a total of 24. The architectural improvements plus sheer number of cores are what give these CPUs their power.

The chiplets are manufactured using a 7nm process. The modularity allows for significant cost savings and manufacturing flexibility compared to a monolithic die, according to AMD. The CCDs all interface directly with a common IO die within each processor. This controls PCIe connectivity to the rest of the computer, the DDR4 memory, data storage, USB, and overall management of the chip itself. This die uses 12nm lithography which is better suited and more economical for this kind of logic. The modules communicate with each other using AMD’s Infinity Fabric interconnect.

The previous-gen Threadripper 2990WX used a non-unified memory architecture (NUMA), which meant that not all cores were connected to system RAM the same way, leading to a latency imbalance between different cores trying to access memory. This was a necessary tradeoff for being able to implement 32 cores in a pre-existing package and socket, and led to a bit of complexity in terms of software having to account for it and potential performance tradeoffs in certain use cases. The third-gen Threadripper family dispenses with this, and all CCDs are connected to the IO die symmetrically.

The Ryzen Threadripper 3970X features 32 cores with multi-threading for a total of 64 logical threads. It has a base speed of 3.7GHz and boost speed of 4.5GHz. There’s a total of 144MB of L2 and L3 cache. As for the Ryzen Threadripper 3960X, you trade core count for some thermal headroom, so the base speed is 3.8GHz while the boost speed remains 4.5GHz. This model has 140MB of cache in total.

The retail box contains some accessories and is designed to be kept on display

Both models feature 280W TDP ratings. There is no update to the massive Wraithripper air cooler that AMD developed with Cooler Master for the previous generation, so liquid cooling seems to be the way to go. RAM support officially goes up to an astounding 256GB of DDR4-3200 across four channels. You get 64 PCIe 4.0 lanes arising from each CPU for a huge bandwidth increase over the previous generation.

Unfortunately, there’s no backward compatibility with existing motherboards. The new Zen 2 architecture and scalable design have necessitated a new routing design and CPU socket, which AMD is calling sTRX4. Some enthusiasts might be disappointed that the mainstream Ryzen philosophy of maintaining compatibility isn’t carried over, but you’d probably want a new motherboard anyway to take advantage of PCIe 4.0. We’ll talk more about this later in the review.

AMD has priced the 32-core Ryzen Threadripper 3970X at Rs. 1,40,990 plus taxes in India ($1,999 in the US) while the 24-core Ryzen Threadripper 3960X will sell for Rs. 99,990 plus taxes ($1,399). These prices are slightly higher than what the previous-gen equivalents cost. AMD says the second-gen Threadripper family will continue to be available and we’re hoping to see price reductions which will open them up to new markets.

Intel has recently announced massive price reductions with its upcoming Cascade Lake-X generation, going on sale very soon with up to 18 cores, which should make things even more interesting. Most of AMD’s promotional claims are based on comparisons with the current Skylake-X refresh generation, but the company maintains that it will still be competitive with Cascade Lake-X.

On a somewhat less technical note, AMD has greatly simplified the retail packaging for third-gen Threadripper CPUs. You still get a display-worthy box that will look great on store shelves, but it’s a lot smaller. The chip itself still ships inside a bright orange caddy that slides into a track on the sTRX4 socket for safety. Inside, there’s a Torx screwdriver designed to exert just the right amount of torque on the retention mechanism, plus a ring adapter for coolers to be mounted to, and finally a giant sticker to show the world what you’re running.

The retail box contains some accessories and is designed to be kept on display

AMD TRX40 platform specifications and features

There’s a new chipset and a raft of new motherboards from Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock to go along with this new generation of CPUs. Thankfully, AMD has ditched its Intel clone-like naming scheme which caused massive amounts of confusion in the market. The TRX40 chipset gets its name from the sTRX4 socket, which makes sense. AMD says it’s pretty much the same as the X570 chipset used by mainstream third-gen Ryzen CPUs, which isn’t much of a surprise considering that the new Threadrippers are just scaled up versions of those chips.

Just like with X570 motherboards, you’ll find thin fans on all TRX40 models. This isn’t ideal because it’s another point of potential noise, dust accumulation, and physical failure in a PC over the long term. The big difference is that you get twice the bandwidth between the CPU and chipset (4X compared to second-gen Ryzens and Ryzen Threadrippers), in the form of eight PCIe 4.0 lanes. That should have a positive impact on PCIe SSDs, network controllers, and anything else connected downstream of the chipset.

Sixteen PCIe 4.0 lanes emerge from the TRX40. Motherboard manufacturers will have quite a bit of flexibility when it comes to allocating lanes between PCIe and M.2 slots, and adding all sorts of onboard IO including Wi-Fi. Four USB 3.2 Gen2 ports (10Gbps) are fed directly off the CPU and four more can be routed through the TRX40. In addition you can have up to four USB 2.0 ports and up to 20 total SATA 3.0 ports.

The sTRX4 socket uses a land grid array with pins in the socket and pads on the CPU, unlike desktop Ryzen models. It has the same 4,094 pin count as the previous generation, but the two are physically and electronically incompatible. Installation requires a lot of care.

Of course you can expect motherboards based on the TRX40 chipset to be rather expensive, given that they will be jam packed with high-end components and will require serious power management circuitry. Most of these boards will also be targeted at the workstation audience where stability and reliability are paramount. It’s a pity that there’s no backwards compatibility, given AMD’s track record so far, but that’s the cost of progress. Also, if you’re thinking that you might be able to pop in a 64-core Threadripper CPU down the line, you might want to hold on – there are rumours of a separate, beefier TRX80 chipset derived from the Epyc server ecosystem, coming later for the to-be-launched chips.

The MSI Creator TRX40 is packed with features but not at the cost of usability

MSI Creator TRX40 features and specifications

We received an MSI Creator TRX40 motherboard for our review, and it will one of several models available in India at launch time. It comes in a stark white box; a far cry from the bold graphics of most high-end gaming and enthusiast motherboards. Don’t be fooled though, it’s still loaded with features including onboard 10-Gigabit Ethernet and Wi-Fi 6; three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots plus four more using an included riser card; a USB 3.2×2 (20Gbps) Type-C port plus six USB 3.2 (10Gbps) ports; and an elaborate cooling system for the chipset and power regulators.

This is an E-ATX size board but all that space is completely occupied. There are eight DDR4 DIMM slots flanking the huge CPU socket, and four full-sized PCIe x16 slots (two of which are only wired for PCIe x8). The M.2 slots aren’t covered by other components and all have heatsinks as well as thermal pads on the bottom. MSI supports ECC memory and speeds of up to 4666MHz depending on the configuration of modules you use.

You also get the high-end Realtek ALC1220 codec for onboard audio, a second Gigabit Ethernet port, Bluetooth 5, onboard power and reset buttons, and of course support for loads of fans as well as liquid cooler pumps.

Although this is a motherboard aimed at workstations, there are some RGB LEDs on the shroud around the VRMs and rear port cluster. If you’re looking for gamer-level bling, you won’t find it here. The PCIe and DIMM slots are all reinforced with dark grey metal. Overall, this board looks pretty stealthy and serious, which we like.

Setting up was fairly easy and the only trouble we faced was mounting our CPU waterblock so that there was enough space for the coolant tubes and power cables that need to be connected. This took a bit of trial and error but that’s more due to the cooler’s mounting mechanism than anything else. The motherboard’s Pump Fan header is a bit too far from the CPU socket, though. A big air cooler like the Wraithripper might be even more awkward to work with.

MSI’s UEFI BIOS is easy to get around, and has simple as well as advanced modes. We liked the USB thumb drive included in the box which has all the drivers you’ll need to get started, and the actively cooled four-way M.2 riser card. We also liked that the chipset fan spins down completely when not required. When it is spinning, it’s virtually inaudible.

The highlight of the rear port cluster is a 20Gbps USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C port

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X and Ryzen Threadripper 3960X performance

As per usual, AMD sent us the brand new third-gen Ryzen Threadripper 3970X along with a full kit of hardware to test it with, including the MSI Creator TRX40 motherboard, a 64GB quad-channel Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR4-3600 RAM kit, a 1TB Corsair Force MP600 PCIe 4.0 SSD, and an NZXT Kraken X62 280mm all-in-one liquid cooler. All these components were…

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Intel Core i9-10980XE and Asus ROG Strix X299-E Gaming II Review

Posted on August 7, 2022 by Gadgets 360

Intel has faced a number of major issues this year in the consumer space, most notably its ongoing struggles to ship 10nm CPUs and a massive shortfall of 14nm production as well, leading to low supplies and price spikes. On top of that, rival AMD has had a banner year across nearly every product category, putting additional heat on Intel. As a company that was considered for nearly a decade to be without competition, things have not been easy. While plans for 2020 make it look like there is a good chance of a recovery on the horizon, we aren’t quite there yet.

Right now, Intel’s consumer CPU portfolio is heavily fractured, and many people will be wondering how and why there are 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th Gen options in the market simultaneously. As most enthusiasts will know, these generation numbers now have very little to do with which architecture is actually being used, and the 10^th generation is especially confusing – if you’re looking for a laptop, the 10^th Gen badge might lead you to a 14nm Comet Lake CPU or a vastly different 10nm Ice Lake one, and you might never know the difference.

At the very opposite end of the market, the high-end desktop space, Intel has also launched new X-series CPUs with 10xxx numbering, and though they aren’t technically marketed as “10^th Gen”, they exist within the same timeline. These new CPUs are meant for heavy content creation and multitasking, primarily in professional workstation environments, and are based on the 14nm ‘Cascade Lake-X’ architecture which is a refresh of the familiar Skylake-X which underpinned the Core X-series 9xxx and 7xxx lineups.

The huge news here is pricing – with AMD’s very competent Ryzen Threadripper family to contend with, Intel has dropped the cost of the new X-series by over half. The new flagship 18-core Core i9-10980XE is officially priced at $979 (approximately Rs. 70,000 plus taxes) as opposed to $1,979 (approximately Rs. 1,40,000 plus taxes) at launch time for its predecessor, the 18-core Core i9-9980XE.

It’s inevitable that this CPU will be compared with the recently launched third-generation AMD Ryzen Threadripper family. We’re going to see whether Intel’s latest high-end CPU with 18 cores can compete with the equivalently priced 24-core Threadripper 3960X in our full review.

The Intel Core i9-10980XE is pin-compatible with existing X299 motherboards

Intel Core i9-10980XE architecture and specifications

The 2019 refresh of the Core X-series, known as the Cascade Lake-X family, is comprised of four models. There’s the 10-core Core i9-10900X, the 12-core Core i9-10920X, the 14-core Core i9-10940X, and the flagship 18-core Core i9-10980XE which we’re reviewing today. Notably, there’s no 16-core model, at least not yet, which prevents a direct comparison to AMD’s Ryzen 9 3950X or previous-gen Threadripper 2950X.

Cascade Lake succeeds Skylake for some of Intel’s Xeon W and Xeon Scalable processors for workstations and servers, in addition to the high-end desktop (HEDT) market. All these chips use a 14nm manufacturing process. The X-series won’t be competing with AMD’s absolute top-end, the upcoming 64-core Threadripper 3990X.

The Core i9-10980XE has a base speed of 3GHz with a Turbo Boost speed of 4.6GHz. Notably, Intel’s X-series CPUs also support Turbo Boost Max 3.0, which can now take the four highest performing cores up to 4.8GHz for as long as there’s power and thermal headroom. There’s Hyper-Threading so each core can run two threads simultaneously. The TDP rating is 165W, and there’s 24.75MB of L3 cache memory. RAM support goes up to 256GB of DDR4-2933 across four channels. Intel’s Optane Memory accelerators are supported as well. There’s no integrated GPU and no cooler included in the box, as is typical of high-end CPUs.

Unlike AMD’s current-gen offerings, Intel still uses the PCIe 3.0 interconnect standard, not PCIe 4.0. There are a total of 48 PCIe lanes which is four more than Skylake-X offered. You’ll need a motherboard with Intel’s X299 controller, and though this means there is backward compatibility with the previous generation of motherboards, you can find newer refreshed models in the market. If you’re buying now, be aware that there probably won’t be a further generation that can use the same platform.

Importantly, the Cascade Lake-X family introduces hardware-level mitigations against speculative execution exploits. The well-known Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities affected Intel’s CPUs particularly badly, and its most recent launches have introduced fixes that go beyond what software patches can do. Another interesting new capability is Intel’s Deep Learning Boost instruction set, which claims to improve AI inference calculations by up to 2X.

The Asus ROG Strix X299-E Gaming II is a refreshed model, optimised for Cascade Lake-X

Asus ROG Strix X299-E Gaming II features and specifications

As its name suggests, the ROG Strix X299-E Gaming II is a refresh of the ROG Strix X299-E Gaming model, which we reviewed when the first-gen Core X-series debuted. It’s odd that Asus releases gaming-branded motherboards for this workstation-class CPU, but there is a slight overlap and the name is less important than the features. Asus has taken advantage of the four extra PCIe lanes that a Cascade Lake-X CPU has to offer with three full-length PCIe slots that can be run as x16/x16/x8 and three M.2 slots for NVMe SSDs.

You also get eight SATA ports, integrated Intel Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5, 12-phase voltage regulators, and a small OLED panel next to the CPU socket that can show diagnostic information or your own graphics.

The rear panel features Gigabit as well as 2.5Gigabit Ethernet ports, three USB 3.2 Gen2 (10Gbps) Type-A ports and one Type-C port, two more USB 3.2 Gen1 (5Gbps) ports, and four USB 2.0 ports, plus optical S/PDIF and analogue audio outputs. Front panel headers give you even more connectivity.

In terms of design and usability, we’re not fans of Asus’ recent “cyber text” aesthetic with “geeky” words and phrases printed all over. We think this is cheesy, but some people do like it a lot. There is some RGB accent lighting over the rear IO port cluster but if you want anything beyond this, you’ll have to get your own accessories or light strips and plug them into motherboard headers. The board itself is plain black all over, so if you disable the few lights there are, you can achieve quite a sober look.

You’ll notice a tiny fan within an enclosure covering the VRMs. There are also plenty of headers sprinkled around the board for case fans and radiators. If you’re planning to overclock your CPU there are two auxiliary 8-pin power connectors in addition to the 24-pin ATX connector for stability.

We had no trouble setting up and using this motherboard. We did notice that the RAM slots are awfully close to the first PCIe slot, and the retention clips touched the backplate of our graphics card. You’ll want to use a liquid cooler primarily so you don’t have to have a huge CPU fan in the way. The third M.2 slot is vertical, so you’ll need to screw in a metal retention plate to make sure your SSD doesn’t get accidentally knocked out of place or snapped.

If does feel a little as though this motherboard is caught between trying to be a consumer model and fitting in workstation-level components. We think that Asus could have gone with EATX dimensions rather than trying to cram everything into the ATX form factor, given the target market.

A prompt to install Asus’ Armory Crate software pops up in Windows 10 as soon as you boot up for the first time. Controversially, Asus decided a while ago to embed this software into its motherboard BIOSes so there’s no way to avoid it running. At least the software is relatively unobtrusive and well designed. It let us update all necessary drivers, and this is also where you’ll control your RGB LEDs and Asus ROG peripherals.

The Asus ROG Strix X299-E Gaming II sells for roughly Rs. 42,000 which makes it pretty good value for a HEDT motherboard. You can still use pre-refresh X299 boards (with a BIOS update) to save some money, but you’ll probably want the most up-to-date features you can get if you’re spending so much anyway.

The Asus ROG Strix X299-E Gaming II offers plenty of connectivity and features for an ATX sized board

Intel Core i9-10980XE performance

Our test bench consisted of the Intel Core i9-10980XE CPU and Asus ROG Strix X299-E Gaming II motherboard as well as 32GB (4x8GB) of DDR4-3200 Corsair Dominator RAM, a 1TB WD Black NVMe (2018) SSD as the boot drive, a 1TB Samsung SSD 860 Evo, a Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 590 graphics card, Corsair H115i Platinum 280mm AIO liquid cooler, Corsair RM650 power supply, and Asus PB287Q 4K monitor. We used Windows 10 v1909 with all the latest updates, plus the latest BIOS and drivers installed.

Testing was fairly straightforward. We ran all our usual synthetic benchmarks and real-world performance scenarios. You can see the scores obtained by the Core i9-10980XE compared to those of the Core i9-9900K, AMD’s Ryzen 9 3900X and Threadripper 3960X. In many cases, it’s worth checking exactly how much of a difference you can get with a mainstream Core i9 or Ryzen 9 CPU, as opposed to the HEDT Core X-series and Ryzen Threadripper CPUs.

	Intel Core i9-10980XE	AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X	AMD Ryzen 9 3900X	Intel Core i9-9900K
Cinebench R20 CPU single-threaded	452	504	495	NA
Cinebench R20 CPU multi-threaded	8,729	13,265	6,785	NA
POVRay*	35 seconds	23 seconds	41 seconds	57 seconds
VRAY CPU*	37 seconds	25 seconds	48 seconds	1 minute, 2 seconds
Corona Renderer Benchmark*	57 seconds	38 seconds	1 minute, 19 seconds	1 minute, 42 seconds
Blender Benchmark*	8 minutes, 55 seconds	5 minutes, 54 seconds	10 minutes, 59 seconds	15 minutes, 21 seconds
Basemark Web 3.0	444.89	453.29	549.99	394.61
WebXprt	237	247	260	272
PCMark 10	6,914	6,693	6,597	4,957
PCMark 10 Extended	7,967	7,743	6,807	3,435
3DMark Fire Strike Ultra (Physics)	28,111	25,437	27,471	21,550
SiSoft SANDRA CPU arithmetic	496GOPS	697GOPS	366GOPS	282.45GOPS
SiSoft SANDRA CPU multimedia	2.13GPix/s	2.4GPix/s	1.26GPix/s	918.22MPix/s
SiSoft SANDRA CPU encryption	25.65GBps	41.3GBps	18.09GBps	12.12GBps
SiSoft SANDRA cache bandwidth	701.53GBps	1.43TBps	589.9GBps	307.32GBps
SiSoft SANDRA memory bandwidth	52.19GBps	63.52GBps	26.62GBps	21.85GBps
7Zip file compression*	1 minute, 8 seconds	56 seconds	1 minute, 33 seconds	2 minutes, 12 seconds
Handbrake video encoding*	37 seconds	31 seconds	35 seconds	39 seconds
*lower is better

Intel is clearly pushing its older architecture and manufacturing process here. We see that AMD’s 24-core Ryzen Threadripper 3960X pretty much obliterates the Core i9-10980X in most content creation tests, though it is also more expensive and has a much higher TDP rating. Compared to the still-impressive Core i9-9900K, we see how the Core i9-10980XE benefits from increased memory bandwidth, illustrating the whole point of the HEDT segment.

We don’t have a 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X to compare against, but extrapolating from our 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X results, we can see that things would be pretty close, if not evenly matched, a lot of the time. AMD seems to have the upper hand in most cases, thanks to the Zen 2 architecture and potentially also PCIe 4.0 support. While the mainstream Ryzen 9 series won’t have as much grunt to offer in many situations, the overall platform cost would be much lower.

Keep in mind that our tests aren’t geared towards exploiting Intel’s DL Boost features, or AI processing in general, so there’s additional scope for specific workloads to benefit. We also tried a bit of gaming, though we didn’t focus on it for the purpose of this review. Unless you’re encoding and streaming video while gaming all on the same PC, the mainstream Core i9-9900K or even something less powerful would be more than enough.

Intel will find it hard to compete with AMD’s current mainstream and Threadripper CPUs

Verdict

Intel has done the only thing it could have done. By ceding the high end and launching the Core i9-10980XE at half the price of its predecessor, it can get away with an incremental improvement over the previous release. Framed in terms of performance-per-dollar, not just performance, this is a fairly big leap – though not one that buyers of the Core i9-9980XE will be happy about.

This CPU is sandwiched between two solid options. One one side, there’s the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X which has 16 cores but could be constrained by having only 24…

Gadgets 360

We bring you important tech news, tell you which devices to buy (and which to skip), what to stream online, and much more.