Desktop Reviews | The Verge

The Framework Desktop and Linux have shown me the path to PC gaming in the living room

2025-08-22T18:17:34-04:00

It’s small, it’s relatively quiet, it has a handy sleep mode with remote wake-up, and the front tiles are even rotatable. The Framework Desktop is a great fit for a living room.

I've long dreamed of doing all my gaming on PC - a single platform that's easily upgradeable and lets me play my overstuffed Steam library wherever and however I like. The Steam Deck is a fantastic handheld, but for my living room, I want something more powerful that works as well on my TV as it does at a desk. Believe me, I've tried. Gaming laptops are noisy and awkward, desktops are too chunky, and Windows is annoying to navigate without a keyboard and mouse. I had hoped that Valve's Steam Machine experiment was my ticket, but it crashed and burned long ago. Nothing's ever been as easy as a PlayStation 5.

But I'm newly optimistic. I've sp …

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The Framework Desktop made me fall for small form factor PCs

2025-08-07T14:00:15-04:00

The Framework easily fits on any desk.

Framework has built a name for itself by taking the locked down world of laptops and making them modular, upgradable, and repairable. So it's surprising - and maybe even controversial - the way that Framework has approached its first desktop: it's made a PC that's actually less modular than most.

Don't worry; this isn't a Mac Mini situation, where mere mortals are not meant to touch the innards of such a brilliant little computer. But it's not a traditional small form factor PC, either.

The Framework Desktop is impressively small for what it offers. It's around the size of a couple hardcover novels standing on your desk. Its black-and-silv …

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The iMac M4 wasn’t built for this world

2024-11-23T10:15:00-05:00

We are beautiful, we are doomed.

The M4 iMac is a beautiful computer that feels more and more like it fell out of a universe where laptops never took off.

You can see it, can't you? In a world without laptops, the iMac would be the ultimate computer. Instead of a box and a screen with a tangle of wires leading everywhere, everything you need is right there, jammed into an impossibly thin aluminum chassis. Monitor, processor, speakers, webcam, microphones, and all the ports: all built in. It's elegant. It's restrained. It's lovely. It's plenty fast enough for most people. The iMac would be in every library, in dorm rooms, in cubicles, in computer labs and living rooms. Peo …

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AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D: the best gaming CPU

2024-11-06T09:00:00-05:00

AMD has dominated PC gaming CPU performance for more than two years. Its X3D chips have provided a boost that Intel has been unable to match, and its new $479 Ryzen 7 9800X3D goes a step further to not only improve gaming performance but also day-to-day tasks and creative workloads.

The first desktop Zen 5 CPUs were disappointing in gaming, but the 9800X3D, which arrives on November 7th, makes some big improvements over the already-great Ryzen 7 7800X3D. I've been testing it over the past week, and I've found big improvements to productivity workloads, alongside around an 8 percent jump in gaming performance.

Just like the $449 7800X3D, if …

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The iMac has become a computer in search of a purpose

2023-11-08T10:00:00-05:00

Few computers look as nice on a desk as the 24-inch iMac.

Of all of Apple's Mac news this fall, the updated 24-inch iMac is perhaps the most minor. The only difference between this model and the one from spring 2021 is an upgrade from the M1 chip to the new M3. Along with that upgrade comes improved Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios and a higher maximum RAM option. Nothing else has changed in terms of design, features, use cases, or price.

That isn't too surprising considering the previous model was a complete redesign that replaced the older 21- and 27-inch Intel iMacs. The fact that Apple is updating it at all is a nice acknowledgment that it hasn't totally forgotten about the iMac, which has gotten fa …

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The first PCIe Gen 5 drives are here and fast, but do you have a need for speed?

2023-08-08T10:32:16-04:00

The latest PCIe 5.0 drives.

The first PCIe Gen 5 solid state drives (SSDs) are starting to hit the market with big promises of speed boosts. I've been testing Crucial's T700 PCIe Gen 5.0 NVMe solid state drive over the past few weeks alongside Seagate's latest FireCuda 540 in an effort to discover if this latest generation of storage will change PC gaming or how it could improve workflows for those who work with large files daily.

PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSDs are at the very early stages of life, with Crucial and Seagate part of a handful of manufacturers to actually sell this storage in stores right now. PCIe Gen 5 is expected to deliver theoretical read speeds of 14,000MBps …

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The Mac Pro’s biggest problem is the MacBook

2023-06-27T09:00:00-04:00

Apple's latest Mac Pro was finally revealed at this year's Worldwide Developers Conference as a machine for the most power user of power users. The video discussed audio engineering, color grading, and video transcoding. Apple's product page mentions code compiling, animation, compositing 8K scenes, 3D rendering, and "analyzing enormous datasets." This isn't just for pros, Apple seems to claim; it's for capital-P Pros.

Exactly who these pros are and why the Mac Pro is the perfect device for them remains somewhat unclear to me, even after testing the new machine for a few days and speaking to various professionals that Apple is ostensibly ta …

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Apple Mac Studio (2023) review: the M2 Ultra rips

2023-06-16T12:44:59-04:00

We meet again, Mac Studio.

There is a new Mac Studio. It looks almost exactly like last year's Mac Studio - so similar, in fact, that I have had to put Post-it notes on the two units we have in our office in order to tell them apart.

It remains a remarkably compact, very Apple-looking pro-level workstation. It also remains effectively not upgradable at all, which means you need to be very careful about what you select at purchase. It has basically the same ports that the last one had: a pair of USB-C ports (Thunderbolt 4 on the Ultra) and an SDXC reader in the front, and four Thunderbolt 4, two USB-A, one HDMI, a 10GB Ethernet, a 3.5mm audio jack, and the big Mickey …

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AMD’s and Nvidia’s latest sub-$400 GPUs fail to push the bar on 1440p gaming

2023-05-24T09:00:00-04:00

I'm disappointed. I've been waiting for AMD and Nvidia to offer up more affordable options for this generation of GPUs that could really push 1440p into the mainstream, but what I've been reviewing over the past week hasn't lived up to my expectations.

Nvidia and AMD are both releasing new GPUs this week that are aimed at the budget PC gaming market. After seven years of 1080p dominating the mainstream, I was hopeful this generation would deliver 1440p value cards. Instead, Nvidia has started shipping a $399 RTX 4060 Ti today that the company is positioning as a 1080p card and not the 1440p sweet spot it really should be at this price point …

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Apple Mac Mini (2023) review: Mac Studio junior

2023-01-23T09:00:00-05:00

The Mac Mini’s overall design hasn’t changed.

Before the Mac's resurgence a few years ago, the idea that Apple might produce a machine like the new Mac Mini was a distant dream. The company's compact desktop was rarely updated and mostly ignored - we often waited many years between major refreshes. But things eventually started clicking for the entire Mac portfolio. The disastrous butterfly keyboard was retired. Real buttons replaced the MacBook Pro's underused touch bar. And it all hit a fever pitch when Apple introduced its own processors - first in speedy laptops that also established new highs for battery life and then in desktops like the redesigned iMac and wicked-fast Mac Studio. …

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