▲ 23 r/Amd
AI Dev Kit, Batteries Included - AMD Ryzen AI Halo | LTT Labs
lttlabs.comu/LabsLucas — 11 hours ago
▲ 140 r/LinusTechTips
AI Dev Kit, Batteries Included - AMD Ryzen AI Halo
The AMD Ryzen AI Halo is a truly mini-PC built around the Zen 5 AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor(16 core, 32 thread) that streamlines learning AI development with ROCm or AMD hardware.
The Max+ 395 processor is equipped with AMD Radeon 8060S integrated graphics which will be doing most of the heavy lifting, and an NPU which historically doesn't do much, but we were finally able to use.
CT Scan of the Ryzen AI Halo.
u/LabsLucas — 14 hours ago
▲ 247 r/LinusTechTips
Does the Belkin Cable Charge the Nintendo Switch 2 Faster? - LTT Labs Article
Labs has previously found that the Nintendo Switch 2 was sending proprietary USB signals to allow docked/TV gaming with only Nintendo docks.
A month ago we were sent a link to the Belkin USB-C cable for Nintendo Switch 2, asking if Belkin had figured out something similar to enable their claims of 60 W charging. This is intriguing because our previous testing also found that the Switch 2 charges at only 10-15 W, drawing up to 20 W if you're playing a game at the same time.
Read the article on the LTT Labs website!
(Happy Canada Day)
u/LabsLucas — 5 days ago
▲ 39 r/LinusTechTips
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ CG3EM with Intel Arc G3 Extreme - LTT Labs Article
Intel announced their new Intel Arc G3(G3 and G3 Extreme) processors at Computex 2026; they ship first in a wave of handhelds including the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ CG3EM and uhhhh, it's difficult to not fixate on the Claw 8 EX’s $1,799 USD price.
At least the price probably isn’t Intel’s fault, so let's focus on the Intel Arc G3 Extreme for a bit; scroll down if you're looking for the Claw 8 EX construction and test results.
u/LabsLucas — 14 days ago
▲ 793 r/LinusTechTips
Steam Machine LTT Companion Article - LTT Labs Article
We finally have the Steam Machine in our hands, and it feels good to hold another mainstream gaming device that ships with Linux. The Steam Deck put Linux in the hands of countless gamers, and abandoning Windows for Linux was finally a real option for many who previously thought it a joke. We recently test-drove a few gaming-oriented distros, and the Linux gaming experience is good these days. Valve is doubling down on its SteamOS bet with the Steam Machine, and the gamble seems to be paying off.
u/LabsLucas — 14 days ago
▲ 251 r/LinusTechTips
LLM Quantization Part 1: What Even is an LLM? - LTT Labs Article
You've seen the headlines. You've probably used ChatGPT or asked Claude something embarrassing at 2 am. Have you wondered what is really happening under the hood when someone says "large language model"? You don't need a PhD to get a useful mental model of this stuff, and more importantly, you'll need this foundation to follow along when we get into our quantization experiments in later articles. Feel free to skip to the next article (if it has been released) if you have a working understanding of LLMs.
Note: This is Part 1 of 3 in our LLM Quantization series.
- Part 1: What Even is an LLM?
- Part 2: Why do LLMs Need So Much VRAM? (coming soon)
- Part 3: How Do We Compress an LLM? (coming soon)
u/LabsLucas — 17 days ago
▲ 56 r/Controller
You're Pressing Buttons Harder Than You Think | LTT Labs
With the recent release of the Steam Controller (2026), LTT Labs collected controllers from around the office to perform testing for LinusTechTips and ShortCircuit videos, but within the team we were noting the variety of face buttons(A, B, X, Y). They're all shaped differently, and combined with the ergonomics of the controller body, they can feel different to press as well.
Strangely, we weren't able to find any force test results online, so we're going to (partially) remedy that! We have the tools to check these out, so we did some poking and prodding with our test stand and force gauge.
We likely received some of these controllers as review units, but this isn't a review of the controllers, more of an exploration of the button mechanics and testing. Let us know if you have any questions!
u/LabsLucas — 20 days ago
▲ 507 r/LinusTechTips
You're Pressing Buttons Harder Than You Think - Measuring Controller Button Force - LTT Labs
With the recent release of the Steam Controller (2026), we collected controllers from around the office to perform testing for LinusTechTips and ShortCircuit videos, but within the team we were noting the variety of face buttons(A, B, X, Y). They're all shaped differently, and combined with the ergonomics of the controller body, they can feel different to press as well.
Strangely, we weren't able to find any force test results online, so we're going to remedy that! We have the tools to check these out, so we did some poking and prodding with our test stand and force gauge.
u/LabsLucas — 21 days ago
▲ 63 r/LinusTechTips
LTT Labs Article - Massive PSUs, Miniature PCs, and 'Good' AI(ML) - Computex 2026 Trends
The theme of Computex 2026 was “AI Everywhere”, and it showed. However, we also observed a couple other trends worth noting. They may not be a surprise to enthusiasts, but there are some unusually large, and surprisingly small trends with power supplies and computers. We even found a reasonable use for AI (neural networks)!
u/LabsLucas — 25 days ago
▲ 158 r/LinusTechTips
LTT Labs Article - Priming Revisited: It's Not Just the AirPods Pro 3
In a previous article, we identified priming as one of the key variables that makes the AirPods Pro 3 particularly difficult to measure. Since then, we have done some testing on the AirPods Max 2, which have the same dynamic adaptive EQ features as the AirPods Pro 3 but affect the frequency response more subtly.
u/LabsLucas — 27 days ago
▲ 262 r/LinusTechTips
LTT Labs Article - ASUS Server Testing Lab
While in Taiwan for Computex, we ventured out of the city of Taipei to visit ASUS's server testing facility and get a look inside an ASUS NVIDIA GB300 compute tray. This is where they confirm that the systems meet NVIDIA's standards, and that they will continue to meet those standards after time in the field.
Our tour covered four main areas:
- R&D Lab - This acts as a large test bench for their server racks.
- QTR Lab - An impressive environmental chamber for extreme environmental condition testing.
- Thermal Lab - Testing their thermal solutions for reliability and performance.
- ASUS NVIDIA GB300 Compute Tray - The star of the show, open for us to see.
Check out the rest of the article and photos on the LTT Labs website!
u/LabsLucas — 1 month ago
▲ 22 r/hardware
Carbon Nanotube CPU Cooling with Carbice Ice Pads
While this may not seem like a hardware focused topic at first impression, these are the underappreciated components that enable higher power and lower temperature technologies.
Carbice is using an aluminum substrate with carbon nanotube forests on either side to facilitate thermal transfer. Not making claims of the lowest temperatures immediately after application, but long term stability while other thermal compounds can experience pump-out and dry-out.
u/LabsLucas — 1 month ago
▲ 131 r/LinusTechTips
LTT Labs Article - Carbon Nanotube CPU Cooling with Carbice Ice Pads
Does using a cool material technology actually help keep cool your CPU? Carbice sure hopes it does, but they didn't rely on those hopes when designing their Space Pad for operation in orbit and the Ice Pad for use in consumer electronics. Carbice designs and manufactures carbon nanotube sheets to cool your CPU, inplace of a traditional thermal paste. These are aluminum sheets with a forest of carbon nanotubes on each side, transferring heat from the CPU to the cooler.
We tested Carbice Ice Pads with air and water coolers against a Ryzen 9 9950X3D system. Initial temperature results aren't incredibly competitive, but Carbice Ice Pads have an 'activation' period and will apparently improve with time rather than drying/pumping out like thermal paste. We explore some of the science and our initial results.
u/LabsLucas — 1 month ago
▲ 213 r/LinusTechTips
LTT Labs Article - Two Is Better Than One: Maxsun Intel Arc Pro B60 Dual 48G Turbo Review
We got our hands on two B60s, but not in the way we expected. We received the MAXSUN Intel Arc Pro B60 Dual 48G Turbo. The MAXSUN is a rare breed of graphics card, a dual GPU; two graphics processors fused onto a single PCB.
At the launch of Battlemage, Intel promised excellent virtualization support, which we’ve been itching to explore. This was the focus of our testing alongside the standard game and productivity benchmarks. MAXSUN pitches this card heavily for AI inference. We ran a portion of the Procyon inference test suite to satisfy some of the AI appetite.
u/LabsLucas — 2 months ago
▲ 194 r/hardware
LTT Labs Article - What's up with UPSs? Testing UPS Output
Our company has always had many UPSs around for the convenience and business case of not suddenly losing a ton of work. We've been intrigued to check them out further, but we've been wary of connecting any of them to measurement equipment considering the high voltages involved. There is a serious potential they could damage equipment or ourselves.
Despite all that, we're throwing caution to the wind to check out some UPSs from around the office. There are so many directions that UPS/surge testing could go so this article will cover the test setup and interesting exploration results.
u/LabsLucas — 2 months ago
▲ 298 r/LinusTechTips
LTT Labs Article - What's up with UPSs? Testing UPS Output Waveforms
Our company has always had many UPSs around for the convenience and business case of not suddenly losing a ton of work. We've been intrigued to check them out further, but have been wary of connecting any of them to measurement equipment considering the high voltages involved. There is a serious potential they could damage equipment or ourselves.
Despite all that, we're throwing caution to the wind(for our safety committee, no we didn't) to check out some UPSs from around the office. There are so many directions that UPS/surge testing could go so this article will cover the test setup and interesting exploration results.
u/LabsLucas — 2 months ago
▲ 40 r/hardware
Nearly every computer power supply you buy today will be part of a series - a collection of two to four power supplies with the same branding across different wattages(i.e. FOCUS, RMe, MAG). These series will cover ranges of power like 500-800 W, 750-1000 W, or 1000-1200 W.
Why do manufacturers produce these series, how similar are the power supplies within a series, and is it a good assumption that models within a series will perform similarly?
In this article we test and compare the NZXT C Gold Core series of power supplies.
u/LabsLucas — 2 months ago
▲ 171 r/LinusTechTips
Nearly every power supply you buy today will be part of a series - a collection of two to four power supplies with the same branding across different wattages(i.e. FOCUS, RMe, MAG). These series will cover ranges of power like 500-800 W, 750-1000 W, or 1000-1200 W.
Why do manufacturers produce these series, how similar are the power supplies within a series, and is it a good assumption that models within a series will perform similarly?
We don't typically test all models in a series but we did for the recently released NZXT C Gold Core series that we'll look at in this article.
u/LabsLucas — 2 months ago
▲ 319 r/LinusTechTips
As many of you would love to correct someone, Linux isn't an operating system, it's a kernel. Linux distributions are operating systems built around the Linux kernel according to the needs and desires of the distribution(distro) designer.
We know it can be slightly daunting to take the first step to trying out Linux so we've thoroughly documented the setup process for a few of the most popular(ever changing) gaming-specific distros.
u/LabsLucas — 2 months ago