Feed aggregator

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has paused new data center connections to the state’s grid pending audits on the requirements for new and proposed constructions. The audits will cover the revenue lost from data center tax exemptions, power usage and generation, infrastructure upgrades, water usage, and the impact on the local communities and environment.

Texans have seen their electricity and water bills increase significantly over the past five years. Data from Electric Choice shows the average residential electricity price has risen by over 25%, and data from the Texas Municipal League demonstrates the average residential water bill has risen by over 26%.

But the prices in Texas sit below the national average. So why then are they rising so fast, and what does it mean for other states in the US?

Prices rapidly rising

As new industries and houses are constructed, new connections need to be added. These connections are constructed by power grid operators, with the cost of upgrades generally passed on to consumers through utility transmission fees.

Infrastructural upgrades are also paid for by grid operators, with the costs of construction again passed back down to consumers through their bills.

The rapid increase in data center construction projects has been a particular issue in this regard. As data centers require enormous amounts of electricity, they require far more complex and expensive connections than are required of a typical residential connection.

But alongside the moratorium on new data center construction, Gov. Abbott has required data center projects that pass the states’ audit will be required to pay for their own connections and infrastructure. In a letter to the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Abbot highlighted that 90% of new grid connections are data centers.

(Image credit: Electric Choice)

Electricity prices are also rising due to an increasingly unpredictable climate. Soaring temperatures place increased demand on electricity grids, especially as cooling systems for homes and businesses are switched on during peak times. The heat also causes electricity infrastructure to fail at a higher rate, causing additional costs as grids are repaired and replaced.

As for water prices, Texas has been subject to a four year drought. Per Washington Post reporting, Texas has been seeking alternative sources of water to extend supply. The downside is that in one such project, the state ended up paying the contractor responsible for a new groundwater collection project an extra 40% on top of the originally proposed $500 million.

The increasingly unpredictable weather is also wreaking havoc on existing infrastructure, especially when there are short periods of torrential rainfall. Sudden downpours can quickly overwhelm water infrastructure, damaging it or washing it away. Water treatment plants can also become overwhelmed and damaged. The cost of repairing and replacing infrastructure, as well as funding the much needed projects to create new water sources, once again gets passed down to consumers.

Couple this with the rapid increase in data center projects, which requires water usage during construction and for cooling, and prices will further increase. Texas currently sits in the number two spot for active data centers, slightly behind Virginia, but the number of planned and approved projects for Texas means the Lone Star state could soon become the number one state for active data centers.

Lessons for the rest of the US

As with all new technology, the pace of regulation falls a few thousand steps behind.

Numerous states have already begun issuing moratoriums on tax exemptions for data centers as the actual loss of revenue far exceeds earlier predictions. In Ohio, the loss of revenue has been $1.6 billion - far higher than the projected $136 million.

The new regulations introduced in Texas requiring data centers to pass the state audit before being hooked up to the grid have presented a second problem. Data centers providing their own on-site power are not subject to new grid connections, and can therefore bypass the audit.

One of the most cost effective means for producing on-site power are gas burning turbine generators. The downside for local residents in the vicinity of these sites is that noise levels have been compared to living near an international airport, and there are under-studied phenomena surrounding the infra-sound produced by these power projects.

There are also the climate implications of these sites. Despite the name, natural gas is a highly polluting fuel source that distributes pollutants both into the local area and the atmosphere, causing damage to local livestock, fauna, and the rest of the world.

As soon as I heard that Gemini Spark was now part of the Chrome browser I had to try it for myself.

Gemini Spark is an AI agent designed to take on longer-running tasks that continue in the background. It's much smoother now thanks to an update that incorporates the platform directly into Google's Chrome browser. So now the AI can actually browse the web alongside you, doing its own tasks, instead of simply talking about it, even if you close your browser.

Before you can try Spark, you need the right ingredients. You will need the latest version of Google Chrome on Windows or macOS, a personal Google account, and either a Google AI Pro or Google AI Ultra subscription. With the right subscriptions, you just need to set Safe Browsing to either Standard Protection or Enhanced Protection before Spark becomes available.

With those requirements out of the way, click the three dots in the upper right corner of Chrome and choose Settings, then AI Innovations or Gemini in the Chrome menu, where you can navigate to the Permissions section and switch on the Let Gemini browse for you option.

Now you can open the Ask Gemini panel at the top of Chrome and give it a task that benefits from browser access. Spark will show you its proposed plan before doing anything, and the first time you use it, Chrome will ask whether you want to connect your browser to Spark. Click Allow or Connect, and from then on you can start handing Spark more ambitious jobs.

If something involves making a purchase, entering sensitive information, or confirming an important action, Spark pauses and asks for your approval before continuing.

The video below shows you exactly how Spark works:

Comparison shopping

(Image credit: Future)

I first decided to see how the AI did at the often time-consuming but important chore of comparison shopping. I asked Gemini using Spark to find a good deal for a TV.

Instead of asking which television I should buy, I gave Spark a proper assignment. I told it to compare prices for a 65-inch model at Amazon, Best Buy, Costco and Walmart, look for promo codes, and calculate the final price after discounts then prepare for checkout.

Spark didn’t just provide a summary. I could watch the AI navigate to different websites, try out different options, and work out which I might prefer.

When it found what it believed was the best option, it added the television to the cart and stopped, waiting for me to approve the purchase before doing anything involving payment.

Spark is happy to do the repetitive work, but it won’t spend your money without asking first. It feels like exactly the right balance between useful automation and common sense.

Planning a family day out

(Image credit: Future)

My second experiment was slightly more ambitious because it combined several different tasks into one. I asked Spark to plan a family day out for two adults and two toddlers.

Normally that would have meant switching constantly between Google Maps, museum websites, restaurant reviews and booking pages. Spark simply got on with it. It compared opening hours, checked travel times, built a schedule that actually flowed logically through the day, found a restaurant with online reservations and reserved it, then prepared the museum ticket purchase and before asking me to approve the bookings.

AI for tedious tasks

Spark takes the tedium out of a library card application. (Image credit: Future)

Google claims Spark is great at filling out paperwork, especially using information from your own Google accounts. As my kid is getting to the right age for it, I asked Spark to fill out his library card application.

After checking that it had the right information about my address and other details, Spark opened up my library's website and went to work. It filled in my contact information, mailing address and other saved details. When it reached the final submission page, it stopped and waited for my approval instead of clicking the button itself.

It’s not an incredibly long form, but it’s easy to see how Spark could save quite a lot of time on the more complex medical or insurance papers. It’s a lot faster to review and make sure the AI got it right than to write it all out yourself.

Using Spark highlighted how different it feels from regular Gemini. Spark shifts the workload because it can actually interact with the browser instead of simply describing what I should do next.

Gemini Spark is one of the more compelling AI features Google has introduced in quite some time. It won’t replace every online task, but it can quietly eliminate a surprising amount of clicking, tab juggling and repetitive typing.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said Jeanine John Taele, 38, was taking photos and video and had a 16-round magazine with ammunition in his pocket.

(Image credit: John Antczak)

• Intel shared rare x86 chip design access with a brand-new startup
• RosaicLabs can now build custom processors using licensed Atom architecture
• Intel shifted its low-power strategy from Atom towards newer E-Core designs

Intel has given RosaicLabs access to part of its Atom processor technology in a rare move involving the company's x86 intellectual property.

Reports from Reuters claim the agreement involves register-transfer level, or RTL, code that describes processor functions before they are converted into physical silicon during manufacturing.

Atom was designed for low-power computing, making the technology suitable for systems requiring efficient performance without high energy consumption or excessive heat generation.

Why Atom technology fits the reported agreement

Intel's Atom processors have historically powered entry-level systems, networking equipment, embedded devices, and other products where power efficiency matters more than maximum performance.

The processor family runs on the x86 architecture and was developed to provide Intel-based computing for smaller and lower-power devices.

RosaicLabs is expected to receive RTL code for Atom technology, which could allow it to create custom processor designs using Intel's existing architecture.

A veteran semiconductor executive said such access provides "comprehensive exposure" to Intel's intellectual property, giving customers the ability to develop their own silicon based on licensed designs.

Providing Rosaic access to Atom technology is unusual because Intel has traditionally kept key parts of its x86 intellectual property under tighter control rather than widely licensing processor designs.

However, Intel's Atom portfolio has become smaller as the company shifted its low-power processor strategy toward E-Cores, which succeeded Atom-based designs in newer products.

E-Cores use newer microarchitectures such as Gracemont, meaning Intel may view selected Atom technology as suitable for external licensing while keeping its latest processor designs within its own roadmap.

The exact Atom technology Rosaic will receive remains unclear, although the startup could potentially gain access to Tremont, one of Intel's final Atom microarchitectures.

Tremont was used in products such as Elkhart Lake and Jasper Lake, which supported embedded systems, low-power laptops, and Chromebooks.

Rosaic has some connections with Intel

Rosaic is a startup incorporated in Delaware in May 2026, but details about the company remain limited beyond its reported agreement with Intel over Atom processor technology.

An amended corporate filing dated July 24 shows the company can pursue a $10 million seed funding round while approving capital expenditures below $5 million without investor or board approval.

The startup's founding team reportedly includes former Rivos employees, linking Rosaic with a semiconductor company that Meta acquired for roughly $2 billion last year.

Rosaic's connection with Intel also extends to its leadership because chief executive Amarjit Gill previously helped assemble Rivos' founding team alongside Intel chief executive Lip-Bu Tan, who chaired that company.

Gill and Tan also shared an investment history, making early bets on Nuvia before Qualcomm acquired the startup, adding another link between Rosaic's leadership and Intel's current chief executive.

These professional relationships have drawn attention to Rosaic, although neither company has publicly explained whether they influenced Intel's decision to share Atom processor technology.

After the announcement, Intel shares rose 12%, although no evidence directly linked those market gains with the reported licensing arrangement.

This agreement suggests Intel may see continued value in Atom's low-power x86 design, but its broader intentions remain uncertain until Rosaic reveals its future processor plans.

Apple is also considering an all-glass look for the front display.

• Phishing campaign used fake Teams notifications to route victims to a genuine Microsoft sign-in page
• Rather than stealing passwords, attackers asked victims to approve permissions for an attacker-controlled app, gaining access to mail, files, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive and calendars without defeating MFA
• Check Point says the technique has been commoditized in 2026 into a rentable service; the practical defense is restricting app consent rather than relying on users to spot a fake

A phishing campaign that ran from late June into July 2026 did something that breaks most of the advice organizations have spent a decade teaching their staff: it sent victims to a real Microsoft login page.

Check Point's email research team, which disclosed the campaign, identified more than 200 phishing emails targeting users across roughly 120 organizations worldwide.

The lure was a fake Microsoft Teams notification with a genuine destination; what actually compromised accounts was not a stolen password but a permissions prompt that the victim clicked through voluntarily.

A sophisticated attack that relied on tricking users into granting permissions

Check Point noted in its brief that what actually compromised the accounts was not a stolen password but a permissions prompt that the victim clicked through voluntarily. This is a reminder of a stark change in attackers' tactics: they have stopped forging Microsoft's front door and started walking through it.

The email appeared to be a Microsoft Planner task-assignment notification. The sender name read "There's New Activity On Team," the subject line claimed that HR had sent three messages via Teams chat, and the body referenced a payroll and benefits update, along with a counter showing four overdue employee tasks.

To someone who works in security, the message had its own telltale signs of being a typical phishing attempt: every link in the email, including both call-to-action buttons, routed through the same redirect. And the visible sender address belonged to the recipient's own organization, meaning the email appeared to have been sent to the same person it came from.

The link opened a real OAuth authorization URL on login.microsoftonline.com, not a look-alike domain. Signing in displayed a permissions prompt asking the user to approve the permissions or accept them on behalf of their organization.

If they did, Microsoft redirected the browser to the redirect address specified in the original request, which in this particular campaign was an AWS API Gateway endpoint under the attackers' control. The authorization code was delivered there, and the attackers exchanged it for access. No password was stolen at any point, and there was no fake page to spot.

This is not unlike how the phishing-as-a-service Kali365 platform compromises Microsoft accounts, but instead of stealing session cookies or OAuth tokens, it opts for a more permanent illicit grant of consent.

This runs counter to the usual security training checklist, which emphasizes adhering to norms rather than going against the grain; users are told to check the URL, look for the padlock, and watch for misspelled domains. None of those measures matter because there is nothing forged to catch. The domain and certificate are Microsoft's, while the sign-in page is the one the user sees every morning, offering a false sense of security to a user not looking for this particular attack vector.

Multi-factor authentication does not help either; it protects the login sequence but not access to the user's data post-login. The attacker never needs the password or the second factor because they walk away with a token granted by the user's valid session, a technique called 'consent phishing'.

There are many ways to prevent this, but the simplest two are asking users to check every single permission/consent screen they click (the phishing attempt still requires users to allow it) and limiting access to permissions for user accounts that applications can request via Microsoft Entra at the system administrator level.

It would be prudent to do the latter at a minimum, even as Check Point notes that the campaign is no longer active because the underlying technique it used is not going anywhere.

• New study puts average cybercrime victim losses at $9,468, making a global annual toll at just over $1.24 trillion across 130.9 million victims
• Cybercrime is still massively underreported by both victims and authorities, so official numbers might be 'softer' than the underlying problem
• Some of the countries published limited, if any, financial data regarding cybercrime, making losses an estimate at best

New figures have claimed cybercrime victims lose $9,468 in the average incident, showing the scale of an increasingly global problem.

The report from Comparitech claims 130.9 million people are hit each year, and that the annual global toll comes to just over $1.24 trillion.

A December 2023 study from the company put those figures at $8,069 per victim, 88.5 million people and $714 billion in total losses respectively, highlighting a growing trend that sees a mix of illegal activity moving the needle further.

A growing problem with regional caveats

The United States remains a favorite for cybercriminals, topping the charts with 6.7 million victims losing $138.9 billion, a per-victim loss amount of ~$20,731, more than twice that of the global average.

This is in stark contrast with the next four countries on the list (Spain, France, Sweden and Turkey), all of which offered an average of approximately $10,000 per victim.

Russia, coming in 6th, reports a much larger number of victims than the four countries ahead of it, but offers a much lower per-victim loss estimate of $3,659. Interestingly, the total number of cybercrimes committed in 2025 dropped to 663,000 from 775,000 in 2024, despite an ongoing conflict with Ukraine, which often sees cyberattacks at both the industrial and localized levels by both parties.

However, a weakening economic situation, as well as Russia localizing many of its communication applications and restricting banking, might also mean that Russia's figures also remain inadvertently capped by policy decisions the country has taken.

With 18.8 million victims, India has the highest number of scam victims worldwide, even though its pro-rata number is considerably lower than the mean at ~$835 per victim, which may be attributable to the country's lower GDP per capita.

Interestingly, China, with 1.2 million victims, a fraction of its neighbor, managed to lose approximately $11.5 billion, a pro-rata number of approximately $9583, in line with global estimates by Comparitech and possibly fueled by the country's heavy-handed approach to cybercriminals, which saw it apply increasing amounts of pressure on neighboring Myanmar that culminated in it convicting and executing scammers arrested across the border.

Comparitech's $1.24 trillion figure is conservative, and the study acknowledges this, noting that it covers only victim losses. It notes that experts anticipated the global cost reaching $10.5 trillion in 2025 and calls its own $1.24 trillion a drop in the ocean by comparison.

That $10.5 trillion comes from Cybersecurity Ventures' 2016 report, which estimated $3 trillion for 2015 and projected it forward at an assumed 15 percent compound annual growth rate, describing the result as the greatest transfer of economic wealth in history.

At a time when AI automation offers better security, often allowing users to screen calls or leverage security applications that adapt on a case-by-case basis, the inverse is also true with hackers and cybercriminals considerably upping their game when it comes to bypassing security altogether; Comparitech's figures provide a sobering reality: if the industry estimates it has hold and are compared to the GDP of entire countries, the firm says it would rank 20th in the world in those terms alone.

On their first earnings call since SpaceX's June public offering, executives said the company is pouring funds into rocket development, Starlink satellites and AI.

(Image credit: TIMOTHY A. CLARY)

With AI advancing in capability and availability, many scientists and experts have begun highlighting the risks of deploying this emerging technology. There's an overriding desire to deploy AI ethically, or to instill models with human-based values, but it remains to be seen how to standardize such an approach or even whether to regulate the industry. That's where organizations like the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI) come in.

Computer says no

When interviewed for the journal Issues in Science and Technology, the so-called 'Godmother of AI' Fei-Fei Li tried to explain how scientists and engineers can build AI that truly adheres to our values.

Quote of the day

This article is part of TechRadar Pro's QOTD project to provide an insight into the minds of the brightest and most recognized figures in the technology industry today and in years gone by. Read the full series here.

Her thesis around the responsible use of AI centers not on anthropomorphizing AI or considering it an intelligence capable of navigating the world and arriving at its own independent conclusions. Rather, it will reflect the values that we instill into it, whether that's through training or continued use of these tools.

She added in this interview that it's also about recognizing that AI, as any tool, can both empower and harm humans.

Values-driven AI

The organization that the American computer scientist leads, HAI, is an interdisciplinary research center that focuses on how best to guide AI development so that it benefits humanity and doesn't incur or lead to harm.

In recent years, there's also been an increased emphasis on whether to regulate AI nationally (or even globally) and what shape that might take. Doing so, however, is far easier said than done, with progress occurring at different paces, in different guises, and inconsistently across oceans.

There are, for example, different values that different nations or groups of people may wish to instill into the AI models they build that clash with the values of others.

• The latest Steam survey shows GPUs with 16GB are the most popular
• They're on 25.9% and have overtaken 8GB GPUs which are just behind on 25.32%
• There's been quite a shift towards 16GB boards over the past year, but with news of more price hikes incoming, upgrading to this loadout could be a painful process for gamers

Graphics cards with 16GB of memory are the most popular GPU among Steam gamers now, although the way GPU prices are going means that people aiming for a board packing plenty of video RAM (VRAM) are looking at a rather depressing future.

TweakTown spotted that the latest Steam hardware survey for July shows that 16GB of VRAM is the most prevalent memory configuration at 25.9%, up 1.4% over last month. That means it just dethrones the previous top of the VRAM table, which was 8GB, a loadout that slipped slightly from last month down to 25.32%.

There's not much in it, of course, but nonetheless, it's a telling stat (bearing in mind the usual caveats about variance in Valve's hardware report based on how the survey is distributed).

Of course, the majority of Steam gamers are still running with less than 16GB, and only 36% have a GPU with 16GB or more. So, almost two-thirds are running less than 16GB, and just under half (47%) have a graphics card with 8GB or less.

But it's a hefty rise in the count of 16GB GPUs when you consider that less than a year ago, in August 2025, just 6.8% of Steam gamers had boards with that VRAM loadout (based on a Notebookcheck report from the time). Compared to July 2026, that's nearly quadruple the number of 16GB-equipped rigs, with a close to 20% increase — pretty eye-opening.

Analysis: 16GB ambitions and the ever-worsening RAM crisis

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

It seems that, at least based on Steam's stats, RTX 5060 Ti 16GB and RX 9060 XT 16GB graphics cards (and 9070 models) must have been selling well — and of course higher-end Nvidia cards. The RTX 5070 is doing well for itself, too, and is now in third position in Steam's GPU ranking (although that's a 12GB offering and it should really be 16GB).

The ranks of the 16GB GPUs on Steam will also be bolstered by older models, of course, from past generations. Also, the visibility of AMD Radeon graphics cards with 16GB of VRAM was improved by Valve earlier this year, when an issue was fixed whereby these cards were misreported (not detected and lumped in a generic Radeon category), so that will have boosted numbers too.

At any rate, the fact that more gamers are looking at future-proofing their GPU purchases only makes sense, as 8GB in particular is looking too lean at this point. But there's a problem with GPUs that have heavier VRAM configurations, and this is, of course, that the memory crisis hits these models hardest.

We've already seen that GPU price hikes are making themselves felt, and just a couple of weeks back, Nvidia seemingly told its card-making partners that the price it charges for memory supplied with its graphics chips is going up (for both GDDR6 and GDDR7). A fresh report from Tom's Hardware also talks about price hikes for RTX 5000 models in South Korea beginning this month, driven not just by the increased cost of video RAM, but also the GPU chips themselves.

We're told the upshot is that Nvidia's Blackwell GPUs could see price increases of up to 30% in the country, and similar hikes may happen elsewhere. AMD price hikes are expected for its Radeon line-up, too, and Team Red has already warned us that the second half of 2026 is going to be a tough one for PC gamers.

With those gamers craving 16GB of video RAM more often, and prices heading inexorably upwards — and the memory crisis expected to worsen as this year rolls on, with the misery to continue into 2027 by all accounts — it's a gloomy picture for beefier graphics card upgrades.

Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake: 30-second review

The Beelink EQi is essentially an ideal office machine. There’s nothing fancy about the design; in fact, it feels a little lightweight and plasticy; however, the balance of features is far greater than the specifications would initially have you believe.

As ever, this Mini PC is compact with its 126mm-square footprint that enables easy positioning around the desk; however, while the looks may not highlight anything special, it packs in an unusual amount of connectivity for a Mini PC at this price and with this level of CPU.

The major surprise here is that on the back, alongside the usual 2.5GbE LAN port, is a second, ultra-fast 10GbE port, which is the sort of specification you normally find on hardware costing far more, but also ideal if you’re connecting into a UGREEN IDX6011 NAS over a 10GbE network for archiving. Next to this network port are two Thunderbolt 4 ports at 40 Gbps, HDMI 2.0, and triple-display support, meaning that for integration into an office or studio this machine is highly tuned.

It’s also very neat with the dark grey ABS enclosure feeling cheap compared to aluminium rivals. Still, the 85W power supply is built into the chassis, so the only cable at the back is a mains lead, and those going to monitors and accessories, there’s no power brick to get in the way.

Open the base and the interior is exceptionally well organised, with both M.2 slots covered by a substantial metal heatsink that lifts off with two screws. The rear port layout is the odd decision, with the two Type-A ports placed on either side of the HDMI output rather than together, which is awkward if you use a wired keyboard and mouse.

Performance is well balanced by Intel's Core 3 304, though it has its limitations. It’s quick where it counts when browsing the internet, using office software, or playing media, and I've even found myself using it to offload image and video files to the server quickly and to book equipment and locations. Where it does fall is in graphics performance, as highlighted by the benchmarks: great for the office but really a no-go for gaming unless optimised for lower-specification systems.

Storage is also interesting with two M.2 slots. However, they support different lane counts, and a Crucial T710 Gen 5 drive returned 3510.25 MB/s read in slot one but only 1750.42 MB/s in slot two, which is slower than the UFS drive Beelink already fits, but then does enable you to boost the overall internal storage neatly.

Everything else is again well-balanced for office use. This is a nice, quiet machine with Windows 11 Pro pre-installed. The design is nothing flashy, but for dedicated office use with serious network potential it’s one of the best mini PCs I've tested.

Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake: Price and availability

• How much does it cost? From $509
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? Directly from Beelink and retailers such as Amazon

The EQi costs $509 for the 16GB LPDDR5 and 512GB configuration that I’ve looked at in this review. It's available direct from Beelink here in three configurations - 16GB LPDDR5, 24GB DDR5, and 32GB DDR5 RAM, all with 512GB SSD.

I'm also seeing several models on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk for around the same price.

• Value: 5 / 5

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake: Specs

CPU: Intel Core 3 304, 5 cores/5 threads, up to 4.3GHz, 6MB cache, 15W TDP
Graphics: Intel Xe3-LPG integrated graphics
RAM: 16GB LPDDR5, or 24GB/32GB DDR5 at 5600MT/s; DDR5 version upgradeable to 64GB
Storage: 512GB UFS 3.1; two M.2 2280 slots (slot 1 PCIe 4.0 x2, slot 2 PCIe 4.0 x1), up to 4TB each
Left Ports: USB 3.2 Type-A, USB 3.2 Type-C, 3.5mm audio jack
Right Ports: 2x Thunderbolt 4, 2x USB 2.0, HDMI 2.0, 10GbE, 2.5GbE, AC input
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, 10GbE Ethernet, 2.5GbE Ethernet
Audio: 3.5mm combined audio connection
Camera: None
Size: 126 x 126 x 44.2mm,
Weight: 500g
OS Installed: Windows 11 Pro
Accessories: HDMI cable, regional AC lead/power adapter and user manual

Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake: Design

If you’re looking for a machine that blends into the office background, then the Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake is a perfect option. The dark grey finish, rounded corners, and a lightly textured top panel are neat and strike a note that really highlights the machine's price point and specifications.

The size is also in line with what you’d expect from a standard Office Mini PC, with a relatively small form factor and a compact 126mm x 126mm footprint, at just 500g.

While the design might not be the most inspiring, it is generally well thought out and, surprisingly, has a built-in 85W power supply, so just a single power cable runs to the AC mains, with no need for a power brick.

On the front and back are a good range of ports, highly specified for a machine at this price. There’s also good air ventilation through the base, with airflow entering over the processor and passing through the storage.

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)

Beelink quotes 32dB as the noise in normal use, and this seemed about right, with the ambient noise in the office slightly higher when ideal. This is also one of the neatest laid-out Mini PCs internally that I’ve seen, accessible through the base, which is held in place by four small cross-head screws. A small attention to detail is the small label that just helps to lift the base free, enabling easy access.

Once inside the interior, both M.2 slots are slightly hidden under a single large metal heatsink that lifts off with two screw. Once removed, your choice of M. 2 2280 SSD can be installed. This heatsink shows real consideration as a thermal solution for the installed drives, with the installation process taking no more than a couple of minutes.

The port selection and specification are where things really get interesting. Starting at the back, there are two USB 2.0 Type-A ports on either side of the HDMI Max 4.0 60Hz output rather than together, so a wired keyboard and mouse end up separated by a display cable.

Then there are two LAN ports, a 2.5GbE and a 10GbE, which is very unusual for a machine at this level; also unusual are the two Thunderbolt 4 ports. The front is a little more standard, with a USB 3.2 Type-A, a USB-C 10 Gbps, a 3.5mm audio jack, and finally the power button.

• Design: 4.5 / 5

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake: Features

A quick check through the features highlights the intended audience for this PC. At the heart of the machine is the very respectable Intel Core 3 304; it’s nothing flashy, but this is a new-generation CPU so offers far more than entry-level CPUs in the past, and while not an AI powerhouse, does feature an integrated NPU as well as GPU, handy if you use Copilot on a day-to-day basis for work.

The CPU offers a five-core, five-thread processor with one performance core and four efficiency cores, 6MB of cache and a 15W TDP, turboing to 4.3GHz. Beelink quotes AI performance at 24 TOPS across the CPU, GPU and NPU for local AI processing.

While it’s great to see this entry-level office machine has AI potential, connectivity is what has surprised me about the EQi through this test. On the back are those two Thunderbolt 4 ports that run at 40 Gbps with DisplayPort 1.4, and if you need to connect more monitors, then there’s the more traditional HDMI 2.0, which I used to connect to my monitor for this review.

The two network ports, one 10GbE and one 2.5GbE, are a headline feature and enabled me to connect directly into the 10GbE LAN in the office. This meant that I could quickly offload video and image files through the machine's Thunderbolt 4 to the network. While this is an office-focused machine, I use an old Intel NUC 9 in the office for this exact task, and its speed over 1GbE and USB3.2 Gen 1 is unmatched by this.

Inside there’s a fixed 16GB LPDDR5 or upgradeable DDR5 at 24GB or 32GB, both at 5600 MT/s, with the DDR5 version supporting up to 64GB. Storage is 512GB of UFS 3.1, again fixed, but there is the option to install two M.2 2280 SSDs, both enabling up to 4TB. One point about these two slots is that they don’t support the same number of PCIe lanes, with one half as fast as the other.

Wireless runs over a MediaTek MT7922 module, with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2.

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)

• Features: 4.5 / 5

Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake: PerformanceBenchmark scores

CrystalDiskMark Read: 1977.4
CrystalDiskMark Write: 806.79
Geekbench CPU Multi: 6303
Geekbench CPU Single: 2337
Geekbench GPU: 6182
PCMark Overall: 4733
Cinebench CPU Multi: 4785 (R23)
Cinebench CPU Single: 1696 (R23)
Fire Strike Overall: 1918
Fire Strike Graphics: 1971
Fire Strike Physics: 12379
Fire Strike Combined: 778
Time Spy Overall: 879
Time Spy Graphics: 773
Time Spy CPU: 3963
Wildlife Overall: 5133
Steel Nomad Overall: 127
Windows Experience Overall: 8.1
Procyon AI Computer Vision 2.0: 635

Additional tests

Crucial T710 Gen 5 NVMe, slot 1: Read 3510.25 MB/s, Write 3530.98 MB/s
Crucial T710 Gen 5 NVMe, slot 2: Read 1750.42 MB/s, Write 1766.17 MB/s
Lexar PCIe 3.0 SSD: Read 1631.56 MB/s, Write 1499.14 MB/s

Getting started with the Beelink EQi was extremely straightforward, with a single power cord that plugs in, eliminating the need for the usual power brick. While this may seem small, it actually makes quite a difference, reducing cables and bulk to deal with.

Once the initial setup with the mouse, keyboard, and 4K monitor was complete and Windows 11 Pro was set up, the machine was installed with the usual array of applications. Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite and a few games for good measure.

Starting with the main office applications, performance proved solid, running PowerPoint, Word, and Excel without issue, with Copilot there to support me as I put together a presentation for September. The speed is good, and despite the CPU's entry-level position, it handled everything impressively.

Checking out the results of the Geekbench 2,337 single-core and 6,303 multi-core results and, more importantly, the PCMark 10 came in at 4,733, showing that while this machine doesn’t excel, it’s where you would want it for a competent everyday computer that won’t get bogged down under heavy processing.

During the test, I edited a few images in Lightroom and Photoshop, and both ran surprisingly well, even with the images stored on the internal UFS 3.1 drive. While this drive isn’t the fastest compared with the latest SSDs, it is fast enough for most office-based work, with CrystalDiskMark results of 1977.4 MB/s read and 806.79 MB/s write.

What’s interesting is that inside there are two PCIe 4.0 slots, one listed as PCIe 4.0 x2 and the other as PCIe 4.0 x1, so I fitted a Micron Crucial T710 Gen 5 NVMe to each in turn to check out the speeds of each, just as a note you can add up to 4TB in each, giving a total of 8.5TB of storage which is impressive.

The first slot recorded 3510.25 MB/s read and 3530.98 MB/s write. The same drive in slot two returned 1750.42 MB/s read and 1766.17 MB/s write. That's roughly twice the speed in the first compared with the second and still very acceptable for the intended end user. While I used a PCIe 5.0 SSD, a respectable PCIe 4.0 SSD which is far cheaper should gain a similar result.

Switching to the Xe3-LPG graphics, things start to fall slightly. The integrated graphics are ideal for everyday work, watching back multimedia and light photo and video editing.

However, when it comes to gaming, the potential is limited. Hogwarts Legacy ran slowly, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was a no-go. Other games ran, but due to the lack of space on the internal storage, I ran all from the faster Crucial in the first of the two spare SSD slots.

After running the Mini PC in the office for a week, using it mainly for Word and research work with some light photo editing, a few features became apparent that set this Mini PC and test apart from most others. The speed of those connections just enabled the EQi to integrate perfectly with the studio; it’s nothing flashy, but it turned out to be the fastest machine for transferring image and video data to the NAS.

After a shoot, I plugged the CFExpress Type-B card reader into the Thunderbolt 4 port and transferred the files at speed over to the Ugreen IDX6011 NAS. The connection speed over the network, due to that 10GbE port, made the transfer speed far exceed that of any other machine I know.

I usually use an old Intel Nuc 9 Ghost Canyon that I can leave for a few hours before network editing on the MacBook Pro; however, here, with this small, inexpensive machine, it handled everything at speed.

While the 24-core TOPS, as quoted by Beelink, is marginal on the AI processing front, and while I was able to use Co-Pilot, running a local LLM was limited to a 3-4B model, I opted for Qwen3. The main issue here was that the RAM is only single-channel, which limits the speed; however, for checking through documents and basic summary tasks, it actually worked surprisingly well.

• Performance: 4 / 5

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake: Final verdict

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)

The Beelink EQi is an impressive office-focused machine that underwhelms with its design but outperforms in performance. It packs in the usual office-based Mini PC features such as being able to support three displays, 2.5GbE networking, a base level of storage and RAM, but then it surprises by offering more.

The 10GbE networking and Thunderbolt 4 ports are surprising and completely change what’s possible with this machine, and for something with such a small footprint, those two specifications instantly make it interesting.

When you then add in the fact that you can expand the internal storage with two 4TB SSDs, it then becomes even more interesting.

For me, the 10GbE and Thunderbolt ports are what make this Mini PC go from something that would blend into the background to something that’s actually very useful. The speed of those two ports enables me to hook this directly into an existing 10GbE network and to take advantage of the speeds that it offers. The issue, of course, is that you need the network infrastructure in place to make the most of this speed.

That brings me round to who the Beelink EQi is best for? Straight down the line, it would be for Office work. It has excellent single-core performance, runs pretty much silently, supports up to three displays, lets you upgrade the internal storage, and has an ultra-fast network connection that is beyond what most desktops offer. It’s also not really usable for playing games, and, on the surface, if you work in the creative sector, it’s not going to make an impact there either.

However, as I found with a cheapish mini PC that offers solid performance, the Thunderbolt 4 and 10GbE network make it great for offloading large video and image files to the NAS. Realistically, however, this is a Mini PC perfectly suited to anyone whose work involves documents, spreadsheets, browsers, and moving large files across a network; it is one of the more capable small machines I have tested this year.

Should I buy the Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake?

Value

Decent connection options for the money, if you have a 10GbE network to use it

4

Design

Compact, quiet and well laid out inside, let down by plasticy casing

4

Features

Outstanding port selection for a machine this size, focused for the office but with potential

5

Performance

Fast in everyday work, weak in graphics, excellent storage in the right slot

4

Overall

An excellent quiet office machine with workstation connectivity

4

Buy it if...

You store a lot of files in different places

Whether that is a NAS, a media library, or a shared project drive, the dual 10GbE and 2.5GbE ports move large files at a rate most full-sized desktops can’t match.

You want a silent machine.

Single-core performance is excellent, and in the office I couldn’t hear the machine over the ambient noise in most situations.

Don't buy it if...

You want to play modern games.

A Time Spy graphics score of 773, compared to 3,963 for the CPU, shows exactly where the limitations are. The single Xe3 core is built for displays, video playback and light graphical work, not gaming.

You need heavy multicore performance.

While light video and image editing is possible, it’s certainly not where the machine's strength lies.

For more professional-grade desktops, we've tested the best business computers.

Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake: 30-second review

The Beelink EQi is essentially an ideal office machine. There’s nothing fancy about the design; in fact, it feels a little lightweight and plasticy; however, the balance of features is far greater than the specifications would initially have you believe.

As ever, this Mini PC is compact with its 126mm-square footprint that enables easy positioning around the desk; however, while the looks may not highlight anything special, it packs in an unusual amount of connectivity for a Mini PC at this price and with this level of CPU.

The major surprise here is that on the back, alongside the usual 2.5GbE LAN port, is a second, ultra-fast 10GbE port, which is the sort of specification you normally find on hardware costing far more, but also ideal if you’re connecting into a UGREEN IDX6011 NAS over a 10GbE network for archiving. Next to this network port are two Thunderbolt 4 ports at 40 Gbps, HDMI 2.0, and triple-display support, meaning that for integration into an office or studio this machine is highly tuned.

It’s also very neat with the dark grey ABS enclosure feeling cheap compared to aluminium rivals. Still, the 85W power supply is built into the chassis, so the only cable at the back is a mains lead, and those going to monitors and accessories, there’s no power brick to get in the way.

Open the base and the interior is exceptionally well organised, with both M.2 slots covered by a substantial metal heatsink that lifts off with two screws. The rear port layout is the odd decision, with the two Type-A ports placed on either side of the HDMI output rather than together, which is awkward if you use a wired keyboard and mouse.

Performance is well balanced by Intel's Core 3 304, though it has its limitations. It’s quick where it counts when browsing the internet, using office software, or playing media, and I've even found myself using it to offload image and video files to the server quickly and to book equipment and locations. Where it does fall is in graphics performance, as highlighted by the benchmarks: great for the office but really a no-go for gaming unless optimised for lower-specification systems.

Storage is also interesting with two M.2 slots. However, they support different lane counts, and a Crucial T710 Gen 5 drive returned 3510.25 MB/s read in slot one but only 1750.42 MB/s in slot two, which is slower than the UFS drive Beelink already fits, but then does enable you to boost the overall internal storage neatly.

Everything else is again well-balanced for office use. This is a nice, quiet machine with Windows 11 Pro pre-installed. The design is nothing flashy, but for dedicated office use with serious network potential it’s one of the best mini PCs I've tested.

Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake: Price and availability

• How much does it cost? From $509
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? Directly from Beelink and retailers such as Amazon

The EQi costs $509 for the 16GB LPDDR5 and 512GB configuration that I’ve looked at in this review. It's available direct from Beelink here in three configurations - 16GB LPDDR5, 24GB DDR5, and 32GB DDR5 RAM, all with 512GB SSD.

I'm also seeing several models on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk for around the same price.

• Value: 5 / 5

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake: Specs

CPU: Intel Core 3 304, 5 cores/5 threads, up to 4.3GHz, 6MB cache, 15W TDP
Graphics: Intel Xe3-LPG integrated graphics
RAM: 16GB LPDDR5, or 24GB/32GB DDR5 at 5600MT/s; DDR5 version upgradeable to 64GB
Storage: 512GB UFS 3.1; two M.2 2280 slots (slot 1 PCIe 4.0 x2, slot 2 PCIe 4.0 x1), up to 4TB each
Left Ports: USB 3.2 Type-A, USB 3.2 Type-C, 3.5mm audio jack
Right Ports: 2x Thunderbolt 4, 2x USB 2.0, HDMI 2.0, 10GbE, 2.5GbE, AC input
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, 10GbE Ethernet, 2.5GbE Ethernet
Audio: 3.5mm combined audio connection
Camera: None
Size: 126 x 126 x 44.2mm,
Weight: 500g
OS Installed: Windows 11 Pro
Accessories: HDMI cable, regional AC lead/power adapter and user manual

Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake: Design

If you’re looking for a machine that blends into the office background, then the Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake is a perfect option. The dark grey finish, rounded corners, and a lightly textured top panel are neat and strike a note that really highlights the machine's price point and specifications.

The size is also in line with what you’d expect from a standard Office Mini PC, with a relatively small form factor and a compact 126mm x 126mm footprint, at just 500g.

While the design might not be the most inspiring, it is generally well thought out and, surprisingly, has a built-in 85W power supply, so just a single power cable runs to the AC mains, with no need for a power brick.

On the front and back are a good range of ports, highly specified for a machine at this price. There’s also good air ventilation through the base, with airflow entering over the processor and passing through the storage.

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)

Beelink quotes 32dB as the noise in normal use, and this seemed about right, with the ambient noise in the office slightly higher when ideal. This is also one of the neatest laid-out Mini PCs internally that I’ve seen, accessible through the base, which is held in place by four small cross-head screws. A small attention to detail is the small label that just helps to lift the base free, enabling easy access.

Once inside the interior, both M.2 slots are slightly hidden under a single large metal heatsink that lifts off with two screw. Once removed, your choice of M. 2 2280 SSD can be installed. This heatsink shows real consideration as a thermal solution for the installed drives, with the installation process taking no more than a couple of minutes.

The port selection and specification are where things really get interesting. Starting at the back, there are two USB 2.0 Type-A ports on either side of the HDMI Max 4.0 60Hz output rather than together, so a wired keyboard and mouse end up separated by a display cable.

Then there are two LAN ports, a 2.5GbE and a 10GbE, which is very unusual for a machine at this level; also unusual are the two Thunderbolt 4 ports. The front is a little more standard, with a USB 3.2 Type-A, a USB-C 10 Gbps, a 3.5mm audio jack, and finally the power button.

• Design: 4.5 / 5

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake: Features

A quick check through the features highlights the intended audience for this PC. At the heart of the machine is the very respectable Intel Core 3 304; it’s nothing flashy, but this is a new-generation CPU so offers far more than entry-level CPUs in the past, and while not an AI powerhouse, does feature an integrated NPU as well as GPU, handy if you use Copilot on a day-to-day basis for work.

The CPU offers a five-core, five-thread processor with one performance core and four efficiency cores, 6MB of cache and a 15W TDP, turboing to 4.3GHz. Beelink quotes AI performance at 24 TOPS across the CPU, GPU and NPU for local AI processing.

While it’s great to see this entry-level office machine has AI potential, connectivity is what has surprised me about the EQi through this test. On the back are those two Thunderbolt 4 ports that run at 40 Gbps with DisplayPort 1.4, and if you need to connect more monitors, then there’s the more traditional HDMI 2.0, which I used to connect to my monitor for this review.

The two network ports, one 10GbE and one 2.5GbE, are a headline feature and enabled me to connect directly into the 10GbE LAN in the office. This meant that I could quickly offload video and image files through the machine's Thunderbolt 4 to the network. While this is an office-focused machine, I use an old Intel NUC 9 in the office for this exact task, and its speed over 1GbE and USB3.2 Gen 1 is unmatched by this.

Inside there’s a fixed 16GB LPDDR5 or upgradeable DDR5 at 24GB or 32GB, both at 5600 MT/s, with the DDR5 version supporting up to 64GB. Storage is 512GB of UFS 3.1, again fixed, but there is the option to install two M.2 2280 SSDs, both enabling up to 4TB. One point about these two slots is that they don’t support the same number of PCIe lanes, with one half as fast as the other.

Wireless runs over a MediaTek MT7922 module, with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2.

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)

• Features: 4.5 / 5

Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake: PerformanceBenchmark scores

CrystalDiskMark Read: 1977.4
CrystalDiskMark Write: 806.79
Geekbench CPU Multi: 6303
Geekbench CPU Single: 2337
Geekbench GPU: 6182
PCMark Overall: 4733
Cinebench CPU Multi: 4785 (R23)
Cinebench CPU Single: 1696 (R23)
Fire Strike Overall: 1918
Fire Strike Graphics: 1971
Fire Strike Physics: 12379
Fire Strike Combined: 778
Time Spy Overall: 879
Time Spy Graphics: 773
Time Spy CPU: 3963
Wildlife Overall: 5133
Steel Nomad Overall: 127
Windows Experience Overall: 8.1
Procyon AI Computer Vision 2.0: 635

Additional tests

Crucial T710 Gen 5 NVMe, slot 1: Read 3510.25 MB/s, Write 3530.98 MB/s
Crucial T710 Gen 5 NVMe, slot 2: Read 1750.42 MB/s, Write 1766.17 MB/s
Lexar PCIe 3.0 SSD: Read 1631.56 MB/s, Write 1499.14 MB/s

Getting started with the Beelink EQi was extremely straightforward, with a single power cord that plugs in, eliminating the need for the usual power brick. While this may seem small, it actually makes quite a difference, reducing cables and bulk to deal with.

Once the initial setup with the mouse, keyboard, and 4K monitor was complete and Windows 11 Pro was set up, the machine was installed with the usual array of applications. Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite and a few games for good measure.

Starting with the main office applications, performance proved solid, running PowerPoint, Word, and Excel without issue, with Copilot there to support me as I put together a presentation for September. The speed is good, and despite the CPU's entry-level position, it handled everything impressively.

Checking out the results of the Geekbench 2,337 single-core and 6,303 multi-core results and, more importantly, the PCMark 10 came in at 4,733, showing that while this machine doesn’t excel, it’s where you would want it for a competent everyday computer that won’t get bogged down under heavy processing.

During the test, I edited a few images in Lightroom and Photoshop, and both ran surprisingly well, even with the images stored on the internal UFS 3.1 drive. While this drive isn’t the fastest compared with the latest SSDs, it is fast enough for most office-based work, with CrystalDiskMark results of 1977.4 MB/s read and 806.79 MB/s write.

What’s interesting is that inside there are two PCIe 4.0 slots, one listed as PCIe 4.0 x2 and the other as PCIe 4.0 x1, so I fitted a Micron Crucial T710 Gen 5 NVMe to each in turn to check out the speeds of each, just as a note you can add up to 4TB in each, giving a total of 8.5TB of storage which is impressive.

The first slot recorded 3510.25 MB/s read and 3530.98 MB/s write. The same drive in slot two returned 1750.42 MB/s read and 1766.17 MB/s write. That's roughly twice the speed in the first compared with the second and still very acceptable for the intended end user. While I used a PCIe 5.0 SSD, a respectable PCIe 4.0 SSD which is far cheaper should gain a similar result.

Switching to the Xe3-LPG graphics, things start to fall slightly. The integrated graphics are ideal for everyday work, watching back multimedia and light photo and video editing.

However, when it comes to gaming, the potential is limited. Hogwarts Legacy ran slowly, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was a no-go. Other games ran, but due to the lack of space on the internal storage, I ran all from the faster Crucial in the first of the two spare SSD slots.

After running the Mini PC in the office for a week, using it mainly for Word and research work with some light photo editing, a few features became apparent that set this Mini PC and test apart from most others. The speed of those connections just enabled the EQi to integrate perfectly with the studio; it’s nothing flashy, but it turned out to be the fastest machine for transferring image and video data to the NAS.

After a shoot, I plugged the CFExpress Type-B card reader into the Thunderbolt 4 port and transferred the files at speed over to the Ugreen IDX6011 NAS. The connection speed over the network, due to that 10GbE port, made the transfer speed far exceed that of any other machine I know.

I usually use an old Intel Nuc 9 Ghost Canyon that I can leave for a few hours before network editing on the MacBook Pro; however, here, with this small, inexpensive machine, it handled everything at speed.

While the 24-core TOPS, as quoted by Beelink, is marginal on the AI processing front, and while I was able to use Co-Pilot, running a local LLM was limited to a 3-4B model, I opted for Qwen3. The main issue here was that the RAM is only single-channel, which limits the speed; however, for checking through documents and basic summary tasks, it actually worked surprisingly well.

• Performance: 4 / 5

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake: Final verdict

(Image credit: Alastair Jennings)

The Beelink EQi is an impressive office-focused machine that underwhelms with its design but outperforms in performance. It packs in the usual office-based Mini PC features such as being able to support three displays, 2.5GbE networking, a base level of storage and RAM, but then it surprises by offering more.

The 10GbE networking and Thunderbolt 4 ports are surprising and completely change what’s possible with this machine, and for something with such a small footprint, those two specifications instantly make it interesting.

When you then add in the fact that you can expand the internal storage with two 4TB SSDs, it then becomes even more interesting.

For me, the 10GbE and Thunderbolt ports are what make this Mini PC go from something that would blend into the background to something that’s actually very useful. The speed of those two ports enables me to hook this directly into an existing 10GbE network and to take advantage of the speeds that it offers. The issue, of course, is that you need the network infrastructure in place to make the most of this speed.

That brings me round to who the Beelink EQi is best for? Straight down the line, it would be for Office work. It has excellent single-core performance, runs pretty much silently, supports up to three displays, lets you upgrade the internal storage, and has an ultra-fast network connection that is beyond what most desktops offer. It’s also not really usable for playing games, and, on the surface, if you work in the creative sector, it’s not going to make an impact there either.

However, as I found with a cheapish mini PC that offers solid performance, the Thunderbolt 4 and 10GbE network make it great for offloading large video and image files to the NAS. Realistically, however, this is a Mini PC perfectly suited to anyone whose work involves documents, spreadsheets, browsers, and moving large files across a network; it is one of the more capable small machines I have tested this year.

Should I buy the Beelink EQi Wildcat Lake?

Value

Decent connection options for the money, if you have a 10GbE network to use it

4

Design

Compact, quiet and well laid out inside, let down by plasticy casing

4

Features

Outstanding port selection for a machine this size, focused for the office but with potential

5

Performance

Fast in everyday work, weak in graphics, excellent storage in the right slot

4

Overall

An excellent quiet office machine with workstation connectivity

4

Buy it if...

You store a lot of files in different places

Whether that is a NAS, a media library, or a shared project drive, the dual 10GbE and 2.5GbE ports move large files at a rate most full-sized desktops can’t match.

You want a silent machine.

Single-core performance is excellent, and in the office I couldn’t hear the machine over the ambient noise in most situations.

Don't buy it if...

You want to play modern games.

A Time Spy graphics score of 773, compared to 3,963 for the CPU, shows exactly where the limitations are. The single Xe3 core is built for displays, video playback and light graphical work, not gaming.

You need heavy multicore performance.

While light video and image editing is possible, it’s certainly not where the machine's strength lies.

For more professional-grade desktops, we've tested the best business computers.

• A spent Falcon 9 upper-stage rocket will hit the Moon near the Einstein Crater on 5 August at 5,400 mph, releasing roughly the energy equivalent of three tons of TNT
• The impact, though unintentional, was predicted since September 2025, giving NASA's LRO and South Korea's Danuri time to plan before-and-after imaging of the new crater
• Its scientific value is a rehearsal rather than a measurement: no seismometers have operated on the moon since 1977, so the event mainly tests impact-localization methods for future experiments

At roughly 06:35 UTC on August 5 2026, a spent Falcon 9 upper stage will stop being space junk and start being a crater.

The object, cataloged as 2025-010D, is projected to strike the lunar surface near the crater Einstein at 2.43 kilometers per second, which converts to about 8,700 kph or 5,400 mph.

While this was not intentionally aimed at the moon, almost a year of advance notice separates it from the usual category of orbital accident, even as NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and South Korea's Danuri are being prepared to take before-and-after images of the area on the moon where it is expected to make its impact.

An increasingly crowded atmosphere

The object itself is the spent upper stage of the Falcon 9 which launched from Kennedy Space Center on January 15, 2025, carrying two commercial landers: Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1, which went on to make the first fully successful private lunar touchdown that March, and ispace's Hakuto-R Mission 2, which was lost shortly before landing in June.

Independent astronomer Bill Gray, whose Project Pluto software produced the original prediction, puts the stage at roughly 12 meters long, about the height of a five-story building, with a mass near 4,900 kg.

After separation, it stayed in an elongated Earth orbit with a 26-day period, swinging between roughly 220,000 and 510,000 km. Its path and the moon's path cross, but for 18 months the two objects have never met at the crossing point.

Gray expects a single crater around 17 meters across, reasoning by analogy with the double crater left by a Chang'e-5 T1 upper stage in 2022. The observation-planning paper led by Benjamin Fernando points higher, at roughly 27 meters across and 5 meters deep. Either way, the impact should release energy equivalent to about three tons of TNT.

There are limits to what can be measured from it. When NASA deliberately crashed Saturn V third stages and lunar modules into the moon between 1969 and 1972, those impacts were seismic sources fired into an emplaced network of four seismometers. That network was switched off in 1977, and nothing has replaced it yet. So while orbiters will photograph the resulting crater, the impact cannot be recorded seismically at all.

This will be only the second dead rocket known to have hit the moon by accident, after the 2022 Chang'e-5 T1 event, which China has never publicly acknowledged. Gray, for his part, says the episode points to a certain carelessness about how leftover space hardware gets disposed of. Objects in low Earth orbit eventually meet the atmosphere and burn up. The moon has no such cleaning mechanism, so lunar impacts are permanent.

• Nothing's cheaper CMF arm just launched CMF Clip Pro, its first clip-on buds
• LDAC, new '3-point Clip Design', 10.8mm driver and just 5.9g per bud
• £79 / $99 / AU$179 with no flagship 'Audio Snapshot' or call recording — and I'm glad

Loved Nothing until recently, but now you’re not so sure? If you looked at my recent Nothing Ear (3a) review and thought "Wait, they record calls? Why?" you're not alone.

Thankfully, the firm’s cheaper CMF arm just launched its first-ever clip-style open earbuds with LDAC and the basics — ie., no in-call recording — and they're delightfully chic and affordable. I predict a return to form.

CMF says the Clip Pro (for that is their name) are designed to deliver a listening experience that "feels as natural as it sounds" and that the buds are built for "people who move through busy cities, long workdays and active lifestyles".

Open earbuds of this type are growing rapidly in number, but achieving comfort, the ability to hear your surroundings (to be clear: the 10.8mm driver in each earpiece rests in the well of your outer ear, like an ear cuff), and decent sound quality is one of this category's biggest challenges. With Clip Pro, CMF says it set out to solve these issues.

How? First, it starts with a new 3-point Clip Design, which the company describes as a "carefully balanced three-point support system that distributes pressure naturally across the ear instead of concentrating it in a single area". Lovely stuff.

CMF Clip Pro: what you need to know

(Image credit: CMF)

The design features an "elastic titanium wire core" with a "slim C-bridge" to fit your shell-like, and at 5.9g per earpiece, a barely-there wearing experience is the goal.

In terms of audio chops, the 10.8 mm dual-magnet dynamic driver in each earbud is aided by CMF's own Ultra Bass Technology, which the company says "intelligently enhances low frequencies while simultaneously reducing treble distortion" for a more engaging experience through those tricky-to-nail-in-this-design lower frequencies.

Clip Pro supports LDAC, for higher-quality wireless streaming. It's not the first time we've seen the better-quality codec supported in Nothing's affordable earbuds, but it's welcome at this entry-level price if you own a Samsung or Sony phone.

Think they'll be a bit hit-and-miss for calls? CMF thought of that too. Clip Pro combines what the company calls its "flagship VPU-powered Clear Voice Technology and a four HD mic system" to separate the wearer's voice from surrounding noise in real time.

For users who value privacy (and I'd say that's all of us), CMF says its Sound Seal system should reduce sound leakage by intelligently managing mid and high frequencies. The goal? Making conversations and music less audible to people nearby.

All of this can be customized in the Nothing X app (a companion app I like very much, having tested most of Nothing's output to date), with dedicated settings for calls or both calls and audio playback.

Oh, and Clip Pro also totes CMF's signature smart dial, as seen in the CMF Buds Pro 2. It's a tactile rotating control built into the charging case for adjusting volume, managing playback, answering calls and pairing devices without needing to unlock your phone. We were wary of the implementation previously, summarising in our review of those July 2024-issue buds: "The dial is prone to accidental turns or presses in your pocket, the notification sound to tell you that a function has been triggered is startlingly loud, and there’s a significant delay between using the dial and hearing its result", so it'll be interesting to see if CMF has tweaked its efficacy here.

You also get on-ear physical controls (which the company says will work even if the user is wearing gloves) as well as a low-latency mode for gaming, dual device connectivity and Nothing's 'find my' solution, which makes your lost earbud emit a rattlesnake-like sound to help you find it under the couch, say.

Your color options here are Dark Grey, Light Grey, and Coral. In case I haven't stressed this enough, you should not wear all three hues like the model in the main image of this missive. The buds are also IP54 rated for water and dust ingress.

Stamina? Of course: Clip Pro's battery claim is up to 10 hours of continuous playback on a single charge and up to 32.5 hours of total playback with the charging case.

Let's talk money: £79 / $99 / AU$179, and they'll hit shelves on August 15, 2026. We can't vouch for them yet, but we'll be working on it…

The Telegram CEO says Apple made the app unavailable for download without any warning.

• Whoop has partnered with women's health tracking app Natural Cycles
• Whoop users get one year of the app totally free
• Natural Cycles will use that data to provide a 'daily fertility status' through its app

Whoop has partnered with women's health tracking app Natural Cycles, offering a year's worth of membership to existing Whoop users free of charge.

Whoop users also using the Natural Cycles app can now enable their Whoop app to import skin temperature data into Natural Cycles, said to 'eliminate the need for manual daily tracking' using a fingertip sensor or similar. Natural Cycles will incorporate this data to provide a daily fertility status, as basal body temperature is a key indicator in cycle tracking.

“At Natural Cycles, we're committed to making digital contraception as seamless as possible for our users," Dr. Magda Armbruster, VP of Product at Natural Cycles, said in a statement.

"Integrating with WHOOP removes friction from the experience by allowing members to use the wearable they already rely on to automatically capture overnight skin temperature used by the NC° app to determine daily fertility status."

It's worth noting the integration is only available with Whoop MG and Whoop 5.0 devices: anyone still rocking the Whoop 4.0 is unfortunately left out in the cold.

(Image credit: Whoop)

Whoop isn't the only wearable that Natural Cycles works with. Natural Cycles can use data from Whoop's fellow subscription-powered premium wearable, the Oura Ring, as well as the best Garmin devices and Natural Cycles' own NC Band.

Natural Cycles costs $149.99 in the US, £89.99 in the UK or AU$149.99 in Australia, so you're saving a packet here.

Natural Cycles is unusual for a women's health tracking app in that it claims to be the 'only FDA-cleared, hormone-free birth control app'. Clearance from the US Food & Drug Administration is a badge of quality in the consumer health tech space.

The Whoop's recently seeing a new challenger in the screenless smart band form factor: the Garmin Cirqa. You can watch our video review of the device below.

The feature — previously rumored as Pixel Glow — may bring a visual twist to Google’s next Pixel series

Oregon has been having an extremely active fire season. Some of the areas burning are critical to ranchers whose livelihoods depend on cattle.

These shows and tons of great new movies arrive to HBO Max this month.

In mid-coast Maine a grassroots coalition is fighting to prevent the proposed closure of Miles Hospital's labor and delivery center.