Computer Systems

GMKtec has revealed the EVO-X3, the follow-up to its well-received EVO-X2 Mini PC, and the company has also confirmed that a more powerful variant with AMD's upcoming Ryzen AI MAX+ PRO 495 processor is coming later this year.

The EVO-X3 launches with the same AMD Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 chip as the EVO-X2, targeting users with similar performance needs. GMKtec is already preparing a more advanced variant featuring the Ryzen AI MAX+ PRO 495 version, which includes 192GB of LPDDR5X memory. That expanded memory pool would enable up to 160GB of configurable VRAM, allowing it to run significantly larger AI models locally.

Beyond the chip, the EVO-X3's most important IO upgrade over its predecessor is a native OCuLink port for external graphics card support. This port provides far greater bandwidth than the USB4 ports on the previous model.

ASUS is celebrating its 20th anniversary with an entirely new line of 20th anniversary-themed hardware, and among the selection of new products unveiled at Computex 2026 is the ROG NUC 16 Edition 20, the world's first NUC (mini-PC) to feature a GeForce RTX 5090 laptop GPU.

ASUS ROG is no stranger to pushing boundaries of what is possible when it comes to gaming hardware, and Computex 2026 is no different for the company as it has unveiled the ROG NUC 16 Edition 20, a mini-PC that has been specifically designed to be capable of playing AAA titles with ease, breeze through video editing, and all within a sleek 3-liter chassis. The ROG NUC 16 was incredibly impressive in person, and to give an idea of its size, I could easily fit the entire system into my backpack.

Additionally, the ROG NUC 16 Edition 20 form factor enables the system to be placed upright using its provided stand, or lying flat in a horizontal orientation by removing the stand entirely. One can imagine this system in its horizontal orientation and then placed underneath a TV, similar to a traditional gaming console. Unlike gaming consoles, the ROG NUC 16 can be upgraded without tools, as users can access the chassis via the thumbscrews on the front panel, enabling quick access to memory and storage.

Mini or compact Mini-ITX builds are becoming increasingly popular as gaming options, not only because CPU and GPU performance has improved but also because they require less desk real estate. In addition, these compact builds also make great options for a lounge room, placed underneath a big-screen TV to deliver that comfortable couch or console gaming experience in PC form.

As part of COLORFUL's impressive showcase at Computex 2026, we got to see the company's new iGame MINI PC set up in exactly that style, in front of a TV, with large beanbags so you can chill with a controller in hand while playing games. First off, the all-white look of the iGame MINI PC is stylish, with a mesh front panel for cooling and a minimal design that definitely feels modern.

The top of the case also features a tempered glass panel that lets you see the PC's single-fan, tiny COLORFUL iGAME GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Mini 8GB graphics card. In fact, all of the main internal components are on-brand, including the B850I GAMING Mini-ITX motherboard, 1TB of COLORFUL CN700 PRO SSD storage, and even 32GB of iGame Ultra II DDR5-6000 memory.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Elite has been making its way into laptops for a while now, but the mini PC space has been largely absent from that story. That changes with the ASUS Ascent QN10, announced at Computex 2026 and Microsoft Build in partnership with Qualcomm, making it the first mini PC to run the Snapdragon X2 Elite platform.

The Ascent QN10 is built around the Snapdragon X2 Elite, which brings 18 Oryon CPU cores clocked up to 4.7GHz, Adreno X2-90 integrated graphics, 53MB of cache, and a dedicated Hexagon NPU rated at 80 TOPS for on-device AI workloads. The system supports up to 32GB of LPDDR5X memory running at 9,600 MHz and up to 4 TB of SSD storage across two M.2 2280 slots.

The Ascent QN10 is aimed at developers, professionals, and small businesses who want to run AI tools and workflows locally rather than relying on the cloud. During Microsoft Build, Qualcomm demonstrated the system running tools like Visual Studio Code, GitHub Copilot, LLMWare, and AnythingLLM, highlighting fully on-device AI-assisted development workflows. Developers also get access to the Qualcomm AI Hub, a repository of select AI models and sample applications for building and fine-tuning custom tools, with support for running frameworks like OpenClaw natively on the CPU.

ZOTAC's new MAGNUS One Ultra (EU275080C), which was also on display with a special 20th anniversary finish at Computex 2026, immediately caught our attention. Not because it was a mini PC smaller than a PlayStation 5 console, but because the compact, sturdy build housed a desktop GeForce RTX 5080.

Yes, while other compact PCs opt for more efficient, smaller desktop GPUs like the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti or laptop variants of enthusiast-class cards, ZOTAC chose one of the most powerful 4K gaming GPUs currently available. As you can see, the GeForce RTX 5080 powering this new MAGNUS One Ultra is one of ZOTAC's impressive Solid models, and when paired with the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 20-core, 20-thread processor, it's a formidable combination.

Small, compact mini-PCs built for gaming and local AI workloads are becoming increasingly popular because they take up less physical space and are small enough to slot under a big-screen TV for a more immersive gaming experience. And it was the latter that hit our "we want one" switch, as this is a mini PC that could easily run Resident Evil Requiem and Forza Horizon 6 in 4L at 100+ FPS with full ray tracing and DLSS 4.5 rendering.

Ahead of Computex 2026, NVIDIA teased that a "new era of PC" was coming, and with the formal announcement of RTX Spark, the company's first superchip built for Windows PCs and laptops, it's certainly a game-changer. The RTX Spark is NVIDIA's long-rumored Windows on Arm CPU and GPU combo, featuring a high-performance Arm-based 20-core Grace CPU paired with an NVIDIA Blackwell RTX GPU with up to 6,144 CUDA Cores and fifth-generation Tensor Cores.

NVIDIA collaborated with MediaTek to develop the chip, built on TSMC's 3nm process node, which the company says delivers "best-in-class power efficiency, performance, and connectivity." RTX Spark delivers NVIDIA's full AI and graphics technology stack to ultra-thin laptops and portable mini PCs, including all of the GeForce RTX technologies that Windows users have had access to for years, including powerful ray-tracing and the latest DLSS 4.5 neural rendering technologies.

RTX Spark laptops are coming from companies like ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, MSI, and even Microsoft - with a special Microsoft Surface Ultra on the way. With powerful performance, these RTX Spark laptops can render 90GB 3D scenes with OptiX and DLSS, edit 12K 4:2:2 video with the NVIDIA Blackwell decoder, and run 120-billion-parameter large language models with 1-million-token context. And, yes, as Windows on Arm devices, you're also looking at impressive gaming performance for an integrated GPU.

Gaming desktops have been getting faster, cooler, and more RGB-laden every year. MSI is now taking things a step further by bringing AI out of chat and image generation and into PCs themselves. The MEG Vision X2 AI+ is MSI's new flagship gaming desktop, and its most talked-about feature has nothing to do with its processor or GPU.

The desktop's headline feature is the AI Holostage, a cylindrical display built directly into the chassis that gives digital companions, desktop pets, and custom third-party AI avatars a visible physical presence on your desk. Out of the box, the system includes MSI's own AI companion, LuckyClaw.

According to MSI, LuckyClaw will respond to natural voice commands, allowing users to control performance profiles, display settings, and RGB lighting hands-free. MSI also says more features will be added through future software updates. In simple terms, LuckyClaw is designed to make system tweaking and tuning easier, with an AI agent ready to assist whenever needed.

COLORFUL, the gaming PC brand known for its various GPUs, motherboards, laptops, audio, and other hardware, is set to hit Computex 2026 next week in style. The company is prepping an off-site showroom at the Marriott Hotel in Taipei, which will feature four "uniquely themed zones" designed to showcase its ecosystem of gaming, lifestyle, and creator-focused hardware.

Naturally, this will be the place where it debuts its latest COLORFIRE MEOW gear, COLORFUL laptops, mechanical keyboards, custom PC concepts, and the latest in its iGame and Battle-Ax series hardware. COLORFUL always goes above and beyond at the show when it comes to its PC concepts and general booth design, so we're pretty keen to check out this custom showroom when we're in Taipei next week.

For PC gamers, COLORFUL will unveil its new Ultra Zero PC hardware set, as shown above. This is all about delivering a full "Zero Cable" look for a compact gaming PC, and in all-white, it definitely looks impressive. And for enthusiasts, there's the new iGame Ultra Series PC designed for the latest high-end GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards, in a sleek design that offers panoramic views.

We all love a good GIF, but one person has taken their love for GIFs to the extreme by building a gaming PC with nothing but GIFs displayed all over the PC's side panel. Several-Bar-6512 on the PCMR subreddit, posted a video of their creation displaying dozens of GIFs inside of an O11 Dynamic Evo XL across nine screens facing the chassis' tempered glass panels.

The system is quite literally a work of art and chaos at the same time. The hardware displaying the GIFs consists of nine separate displays featuring various sizes and resolutions, powered by three Raspberry Pis. The inclusion of the Raspberry Pis keeps all of the GIF rendering separate from the main machine. 3D printed mounts are responsible for holding all of the monitors in place inside the PC. The PC itself is equipped with top-of-the-line components featuring a Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU, MSI X870E Carbon WiFi motherboard, MSI Ventus 3X RTX 5090 OC Edition graphics card, 96GB of DDR5 RAM, a 9100 Pro 4TB NVMe SSD, and the aforementioned O11 Dynamic Evo XL case paired with a mixture of 15 Noctua 120mm/140mm fans.

The Redditor revealed they worked "over many weekends and evenings" getting the "GIF PC" created and spent an exorbitant amount of time finding and downloading all the GIFs necessary for the project. The total amount of GIFs displayed on the system amounts to over a whopping 15,000 after filtering through over 17,000 GIFs online. It was not just a matter of getting the right GIFs downloaded; the Redditor wanted every single tile to have a purpose, so they also spent "roughly 200 hours" categorizing, trimming, looping, adjusting the aspect ratio, and setting the right animation speed for each GIF.

AMD unveiled its in-house AI development platform, the "Halo Box," at AI Dev Day yesterday, rivaling NVIDIA's DGX Spark. AMD initially presented the platform at CES and plans to release it in June. The system features the powerful Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 chip and an extensive 128GB of soldered RAM.

While the Strix Halo family debuted at CES 2025 to much fanfare, the following year, third-party systems saw higher prices due to rising memory costs. Likewise, NVIDIA launched its first-party DGX Spark mini-PC to deploy local AI models. In response, AMD introduced the Halo Box reference system at CES this year.

The first-party nature of the Halo Box should offer seamless operation on both Windows and Linux, preloaded models, quality control, and possibly subsidized pricing. The Halo Box can be portable enough to be carried by hand, as evidenced by the executives holding it on stage with little effort. It features an LED strip that can be controlled via software (even on Linux, according to some early patches).

The Alienware Area-51 Gaming Desktop is Dell's flagship all-in-one desktop gaming PC, and based on the updated product page, it looks to be one of the first pre-built machines to offer AMD's new Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 CPU. This new "Dual Edition Processor" is for developers, creators, and gamers and is the first to include dual AMD 3D V-Cache technology, providing 208MB of total cache.

With a TDP rating of 800W and a price tag of $899 USD, it's definitely up there as a premium option for those looking for the very best. And even though it's an expensive CPU, adding it to the Alienware Area-51 Gaming Desktop also requires choosing the 360mm AIO cooler option. And when you pair it with GeForce RTX 5090 and 64GB of memory, this top-tier configuration is available for $6,149.99 USD.

Naturally, this configuration is good news for those who have been eyeing the Alienware Area-51 Gaming Desktop, and the company's claims that it delivers its best and most effective thermal solution to date. With a 200W CPU and 600W GPU, you'd definitely need exactly that - effective cooling.

Apple is about to put a bow on its transition to in-house Apple Silicon by dropping support for Intel-based Macs in the next macOS release. MacRumors reports that the company is about to stop supporting Macs with Intel CPUs starting with next year's macOS 27. This means that macOS 26, codenamed "Tahoe," will be the last macOS version to support Intel-based Macs.

Currently, several Intel-based products in Apple's Mac lineup support macOS 26 Tahoe. These include the 16-inch MacBook Pro 2019, the 12-inch MacBook Pro 2020, the 27-inch iMac 2020, and the 2019 Mac Pro. These products are not expected to get support for the upcoming macOS 27 update, but they will get this year's latest macOS 26 "Tahoe" versions. They will also continue to get security updates for the next 3 years, which is crucial.

This move signals the end of an era, as Intel is no longer a partner in Apple's Mac hardware products. Apple has moved to an in-house Silicon program since late 2020, starting with the M1 SoC. Apple's M-series SoCs have since evolved through 5 iterations, with the M5 Pro and M5 Max leading the current lineup. The M-series SoCs house the CPU, GPU, memory, and interconnected I/O on the same package, differentiating them from traditional x86 chips.

ASUS has announced a new line-up of all-in-one PC, which are those machines that include the PC hardware and chassis as part of the display or monitor, and one particular model stands out from the pack. And would be the new ASUS V400 AiO (VM441QA), which is powered by Qualcomm's first-generation Snapdragon X chip, which debuted with the first wave of Windows on Arm laptops, known as Copilot+ PCs.

ASUS calls this new sleek PC the "first all-in-one desktop built on the Snapdragon X platform," which includes a Qualcomm Adreno GPU and Hexagon NPU. Looking at the hardware specs, which also include 16 or 32GB of LPDDR5X memory, and up to 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen4 storage, it's an interesting use of the Snapdragon X APU in what looks to be a sleek, power-efficient, productivity PC for those looking for a machine that can handle the basics.

Naturally, as a desktop PC, it offers advantages over Copilot+ PC laptops, namely a larger display and more ports for secondary devices and expansion. The ASUS V400 AiO includes multiple USB and audio ports as well as an HDMI 2.1b port for connecting a second display.

This is one of those "get the salt ready" rumors, as even though it comes from a reputable source, it would be an absolute game-changer if true. According to a report over at SemiAccurate, NVIDIA has been in negotiations for over a year to "buy a large company" that will "reshape the PC landscape."

SemiAccurate notes that this story arrives after a year of research and is fairly light on details, as it doesn't mention or list any of the potential "large" companies NVIDIA is potentially negotiating to buy. However, in the "PC landscape," some of the biggest players in the consumer PC market are Lenovo, Dell, HP, ASUS, and Acer.

These are all companies that sell tens of millions of PC hardware every year and already have deep ties to NVIDIA, covering everything from GeForce RTX hardware for consumer-facing products to data center gear for the AI market. Again, this would be a game-changer if true, and, according to Bloomberg, this rumor alone has led to increases in Dell and HP share prices.

Framework Computing, a hardware maker focused on releasing modular and upgradeable gear, has issued a statement saying the current memory crisis driven by the AI industry could have a devastating effect on the consumer PC market. Interestingly, this warning arrived with an announcement and blog post about the Framework Next Gen Event, scheduled for April 21.

"We've spent the last six years in Framework proving that it's possible to build high-performance, thin, light computers that last longer and respect your rights through repairability, upgradeability, and customization," Framework CEO Nirav Patel writes in the post. "We're happy to see repair rapidly becoming the norm rather than the exception, with even Apple of all companies embracing it on their latest notebook. I built this company specifically to reset and fix a broken industry. So, mission accomplished? Not quite. There is a very real scenario in which personal computing as we know it is dead."

Saying that personal computing, as we know it, could die is definitely alarming, since Framework sources all the memory, storage, and other components for its devices. So this comment is based on the current situation, which Nirav Patel describes as an AI arms race with the ultimate goal of metering access to compute "by the token."

According to the latest report from the International Data Corporation (IDC), global PC shipments grew year-over-year for the first three months of 2026. Although it was only 2.5%, the PC market delivered positive numbers "despite deteriorating macroeconomic conditions and memory shortage issues."

The report attributes the growth to people buying hardware in anticipation of impending price increases, people finally migrating from Windows 10, and the arrival of new products like Intel's new Panther Lake laptops. The top five PC makers by shipments for Q1 2026 remain largely unchanged from a year ago, with Lenovo leading at 25.2% market share, followed by HP, Dell, Apple, and ASUS.

Interestingly, when you break down global PC shipments by region for the quarter, the Americas saw a 3.3% decline compared to the same time last year, while EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) saw a sharp 7.4% increase. However, even though the year has started on a positive note, so to speak, the expectation is that supply chain challenges for components such as memory will affect the rest of the year.

Corsair released its AI-focused AI Workstation 300 Desktop PC line last year, with the compact devices sporting powerful Ryzen AI MAX hardware with integrated Radeon graphics, and up to 128GB of unified LPDDR5X memory. The 128GB is for the 'Strix Halo' Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 variant, AMD's most powerful AI-ready APU that also includes an integrated Radeon 8060S GPU.

However, with memory prices increasing exponentially since Corsair introduced its AI Workstation 300 Desktop PC lineup, it appears this is now reflected in the total cost to consumers. And with that, the flagship Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 model with 128GB of memory has seen its price increase to $3,399.99 USD on Corsair's official store, a massive $1,100 increase over its $2,299 launch price.

This model also features 4TB of internal storage, which is another sector, like memory, that has seen a seismic shift in pricing in recent months. The good news is that the lower-tier model with the Ryzen AI MAX 385 chip, Radeon 850S graphics, and 64GB of unified LPDDR5X memory has only seen a $100 increase, bringing its price to $1,699.99.

A big part of what makes Raspberry Pi's computers so appealing is that they are tiny and affordable, making them perfect for students, educators, hobbyists, and anyone looking to take on a weekend project without spending a fortune. Unfortunately, the ongoing memory shortage is undermining this very image, as the company has announced significant price hikes across several of its products.

The move, shared by Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton in a blog post, comes as the insatiable memory demand from AI data centers continues to push companies into a corner. Upton clarified that the increases are not permanent and that prices will come back down once DRAM costs go down. Until then, here's what getting a Raspberry Pi will cost you:

For the Raspberry Pi 5, prices are even more eye-watering.

Apple has pulled the plug on its long-running tower workstation line, discontinuing the Mac Pro. The tech giant confirmed to 9to5Mac that there are no plans for future Mac Pro hardware. The Mac Studio will now sit at the top of Apple's desktop lineup, powered by the M5 Ultra, which is due for release in the first half of this year.

Apple has since removed the Mac Pro from its website, with the buy page now redirecting users to Mac's homepage. For professional users, the Mac Studio is available in M4 Max and M3 Ultra configurations, offering up to a 32-core CPU, up to an 80-core GPU, Thunderbolt 5, and support for up to 512GB of unified memory.

The decision is not a surprise. The Mac Pro last received an update in June 2023, when Apple moved the system to M2 Ultra while keeping the aging 2019 chassis. Even then, it sat in an awkward spot. The Mac Studio, equipped with the same chip and offering similar performance, was available for $3,000 less.

According to a new report from the Taiwanese publication UDN (translated), ASUS plans to raise prices on PCs, including the new Qualcomm-powered Zenbook A16, by 25 to 30% in Taiwan next quarter. Naturally, if you've been following the current memory crisis affecting the industry, this news won't be unsurprising, but it's still alarming.

This news comes from a recent press conference that ASUS held in the region with Qualcomm, and is from Liao Yi-hsiang, General Manager of ASUS United Technology Systems Business. The price increases will reportedly vary by model; however, the report is clear that ASUS is referring only to Taiwan, as it didn't disclose whether these price increases will make their way to other global markets and regions.

Although steep, the price increases are a direct response to the dramatic increases in memory costs. For example, 32GB of memory cost around 3,000 Yuan last year, and it's now around 20,000 Yuan as we head into the second quarter.