The FPS Review Weekender: NVIDIA’s RTX Spark Laptops Are Here, and Reviewers Like the GPU More Than the Price, Plus 10 More Hardware Reviews

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By David Schroth

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The review embargo for NVIDIA’s RTX Spark laptops lifted this week, and the verdict is more interesting than “fast” or “slow.” The Blackwell GPU impresses, the Arm CPU is merely fine, and the price tags are the real story. Elsewhere, a $699 RGB-stripe OLED from Alienware won over nearly everyone, and the ROG Xbox Ally X20 picked up a gorgeous screen and a price that made reviewers wince. We also put AMD’s 8-core X3D chips through a 2026 retest.

NVIDIA RTX Spark (N1X) Laptops

Written reviews:

Video reviews:

Consensus summary: The Blackwell GPU is the star of the platform, landing roughly in RTX 4070 to RTX 5070 territory in a package far smaller and more efficient than any discrete laptop setup. The Arm CPU is the weaker half: multi-threaded results are competitive, but single-thread performance and efficiency are only middling. App and game compatibility on Windows on Arm is much better than the early Snapdragon days, though not fully solved. The broader verdict is that RTX Spark makes sense for local AI and creative work, while gamers and general users get better value from a conventional Intel or AMD laptop with a discrete GeForce. Thermals also vary by design: HP’s OmniBook Ultra 16 held up best under sustained load, while some Surface units shut down during all-core testing.

FPS Review take: This is the most interesting Windows laptop platform in years, wrapped in first-gen pricing and Windows-on-Arm caveats. If you followed our coverage when NVIDIA confirmed the RTX Spark N1X laptop specifications, the GPU delivered and the price tags didn’t.

Radeon RX 9070 XT vs GeForce RTX 5090: The Driver Overhead Question

Written reviews:

Consensus summary: TechSpot tested the “9070 XT beats the 5090” claim on a Ryzen 7 9800X3D. In the most GPU-demanding conditions, the RTX 5090 was 105% faster on average. The Radeon only matched or beat it at 1440p with Balanced upscaling, or at Low to Medium settings, and only in a handful of games. The 5090 stayed comfortably ahead in seven of the 11 games even at 1440p Balanced with higher settings. TechSpot’s practical advice is that 5090 owners gain more from enabling DLAA than from upscaling at 1440p.

FPS Review take: NVIDIA’s driver overhead is real, but it only bites in esports-style, CPU-bound scenarios that nobody buys a 5090 for. For how the flagship behaves when the GPU is the bottleneck, see our GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 5090 GAMING OC review.

AMD Ryzen 7 X3D: Zen 4 vs Zen 5 (2026 Retest)

Written reviews:

Consensus summary: Our retest of all four 8-core X3D chips shows Zen 5 pulling well ahead in synthetic workloads, but the gaming story is more about consistency than raw frame rates. Average FPS gains for the 9800X3D over the 7800X3D are often in single digits, with a few standouts like Hogwarts Legacy. The 1% lows are where Zen 5 meaningfully separates itself in games like Alan Wake 2 and Stalker 2. The 9850X3D still offers only marginal gains over the 9800X3D, while the spread from top to bottom of the stack is far wider than shared core counts and cache sizes would suggest.

FPS Review take: The same 8 cores and the same 96MB of V-Cache don’t mean the same experience; Zen 5 X3D buys you smoothness more than headline FPS. This builds on our Ryzen 7 Zen 4 vs Zen 5 8-core comparison and our Ryzen 7 7700X3D vs Ryzen 7 9800X3D review.

Alienware AW3226Q

Written reviews:

Video reviews:

Consensus summary: This is about as close to a unanimous recommendation as monitors get. At $699, the 32-inch 4K 165 Hz tandem WOLED with RGB-stripe subpixels delivers sharp, fringe-free text, rich color, and roughly 1,000 nits of HDR highlight brightness. That combination used to cost considerably more. The compromises are familiar OLED ones: SDR brightness tops out in the 250 to 275 nit range, and reviewers noted limited gamma controls and some edge-brightness falloff.

FPS Review take: RGB-stripe OLED at $699 is the kind of price move that makes last year’s premium 4K OLEDs look awkward. We covered it when Alienware debuted the AW3226Q at IFA, and the reviews say it was worth the wait.

ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X20

Written reviews:

Video reviews:

Consensus summary: Everyone loves the new OLED screen and the refined ergonomics, and it makes the X20 the nicest Ally ASUS has built. Performance barely moves, though, and new AAA games still lean heavily on upscaling. At $1,299, reviewers struggle to recommend it over cheaper handhelds or Intel-based rivals with more muscle and better endurance. It’s a premium upgrade for screen enthusiasts more than a huge performance leap.

FPS Review take: It’s a better Ally, not a faster one. If the screen is what you’ve been waiting for, here it is; otherwise the original Ally X still makes more sense for the money.

Kioxia Exceria G3 4TB

Written reviews:

Consensus summary: Igor’s Lab measured reads of 10,500 MB/s and a roughly 815 GB pSLC cache when the drive is nearly empty. Writes told a different story: the best write test reached about 7,435 MB/s, short of the rated 9,600 MB/s, and sustained writes fell to around 279 MB/s past the cache. The conclusion is a QLC drive built for read-heavy game libraries, one that needs a price that reflects its compromises.

FPS Review take: It’s a PCIe 5.0 sticker on a capacity drive. That’s fine for a Steam library, and painful if you shuffle huge video projects around.

SilverStone ALTA T1

Written reviews:

Consensus summary: The ALTA T1 revives SilverStone’s Temjin-era aluminum unibody design as a 40-pound super tower built for extreme hardware. It handles triple 420mm radiators, dual power supplies, up to four blower-style workstation GPUs, and a pre-installed distro block bracket. Its size, front I/O placement, narrow casters, and lack of a glass panel make it a poor fit for typical gaming builds. As a centerpiece for boutique AI workstations and no-compromise watercooled systems, though, it earns a recommendation.

FPS Review take: SilverStone finally put aluminum back on a case, and the Temjin faithful will notice. We covered it at the ALTA T1’s announcement. It’s a money-is-no-object chassis, and it knows it.

be quiet! Dark Power Pro 14 IO 1600W

Written reviews:

Consensus summary: Reviewers agree this is one of the best high-wattage units around, pairing Titanium-class efficiency with excellent electrical performance and very low noise. The new IO Center software is the headline change, replacing the old overclocking key with switchable rail modes and live monitoring. The main reservations are the roughly $500 price, the fact that few systems need 1600W, and some concern that the GPU power connectors lack extra protection.

FPS Review take: It’s superb, but it’s 1600W, and almost no gaming PC needs that. Buy it for a dual-GPU workstation, not for bragging rights.

Scythe MAGOROKU

Written reviews:

Consensus summary: FunkyKit scored the $30.50 dual-tower cooler 7.2 out of 10, with price earning a perfect 10. It praised the performance, the fans, and an accessory kit that includes a screwdriver. The downsides were compatibility issues, a front fan that must sit higher over most gaming RAM, performance that lags what its size suggests, and a short warranty.

FPS Review take: Thirty bucks for a dual tower is hard to argue with. Just measure your RAM height first.

XPG NOVAKEY RGB ECO DDR5-6000 32GB

Written reviews:

Consensus summary: TweakTown expected a run-of-the-mill 6000 MT/s CL30-40-40 kit and found performance well above spec, plus impressive overclocking flexibility. The one oddity: peeling the protective film lifted the plastic-coated mirrored finish off the heat spreaders. TweakTown thinks plenty of buyers will rip it right off.

FPS Review take: Solid DDR5-6000 is still the AM5 sweet spot. Peel that film slowly. (Ed: Or don’t, and enjoy the matte look.)

Razer Viper V4 Pro

Written reviews:

Consensus summary: FunkyKit praised the 49g weight and the Focus Pro 50K Gen-3 sensor’s tracking. It also liked the optical switches, battery life, and up to 8,000 Hz polling. Its take is that Razer focused on fundamentals rather than gimmicks, and that the price is the main hurdle.

FPS Review take: It’s the safe pick for anyone who wants a featherweight symmetrical mouse and doesn’t mind paying for it.

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David Schroth
David is a computer hardware enthusiast that has been tinkering with computer hardware for the past 25 years and writing reviews for more than ten years. He's the Founder and Editor in Chief of The FPS Review.

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