Valve’s second VR headset finally reached reviewers this week, and the verdicts split cleanly down the middle: nobody argues the hardware is bad, and nobody agrees on who should spend $1,059 on it. Elsewhere the week belonged to displays and storage, with two OLED monitors arriving at opposite ends of the price ladder, Sandisk rebranding its flagship SSD without changing a thing inside it, and Remedy shipping a sequel that refuses to render natively on any GPU you own.

Valve Steam Frame

Written reviews:

Engadget: https://www.engadget.com/2257659/valve-steam-frame-review/
Road to VR: https://roadtovr.com/valve-steam-frame-review/
Kotaku: https://kotaku.com/im-not-sure-about-valves-new-1000-vr-headset-2000734260
ComputerBase: https://www.computerbase.de/artikel/gaming/valve-steam-frame-test.99312/
Aftermath: https://aftermath.site/steam-frame-review/

Video reviews:

Gamers Nexus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcerOYY_K1g
Linus Tech Tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PGKMwgjla0
IGN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nStfDr2L9oY
Adam Savage’s Tested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9JyWAVj94E

Consensus summary: Engadget measured it at 440 grams against the Quest 3’s 515 grams and found the rear battery pack balances it well enough to forget you are wearing it, though glasses wearers get a worse deal. Road to VR is the most positive, reporting zero complaints with head and controller tracking on Valve’s first inside-out headset and calling the standalone mode better than expected, with the caveat that demanding or poorly optimized titles are largely unplayable without a host PC, which is what the Frame-certified program exists to flag. Kotaku is the dissent, describing repeated Wi-Fi connection failures and a headset that was receiving frequent firmware updates throughout the review period, while Aftermath notes that gamepad-while-streaming and Linux dongle support were simply not present yet. The 256 GB model is $1,059, with the 1 TB version around $1,300 and a $60 ergonomics kit that most reviewers consider mandatory.

FPS Review take: We covered the launch and the $1,059 starting price earlier this week, and the reviews don’t add much clarity to the pricing because the hardware everyone praises is wrapped around software that reviewers watched change under them mid-test. Read Road to VR if you already own a capable gaming PC and Kotaku if you were hoping this replaces one, since that is exactly where the two verdicts diverge.

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D vs. Other X3D Parts

Written reviews:

The FPS Review: https://www.thefpsreview.com/2026/09/14/amd-ryzen-7-7700x3d-vs-ryzen-7-9800x3d-cpu-review/
Club386: https://www.club386.com/amd-ryzen-7-5800x3d-vs-9800x3d/

Consensus summary: Two comparisons landed within three days, both asking what the $479 Zen 5 X3D part actually buys you over an older one. Our own testing against the $329 Ryzen 7 7700X3D found average frame rate gains mostly in the 10 to 12 percent range across 12 games at 1080p on an RTX 5090, with Hogwarts an outlier at 25 percent, while the real separation showed up in the 1% lows: Alan Wake 2 was 36 percent faster, Cyberpunk 2077 23 percent, Stalker 2 21 percent. Outside games the 9800X3D pulled 30 to 33 percent more multi-core and roughly 20 to 30 percent more single-thread performance. Club386 came at it from the AM4 side and found the 9800X3D is the more efficient chip despite drawing more power, by about 19.7 percent, and 29.8 percent better in multi-threaded performance per dollar, while flagging the obvious asterisk that jumping from a 5800X3D means paying for an AM5 board and DDR5 as well.

FPS Review take: The two reviews land on the same shape of answer from opposite directions, which is that the 9800X3D is comfortably the better processor and the argument is entirely about what the platform around it costs. If you are weighing the newer Zen 5 X3D parts instead, our Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs Ryzen 7 7800X3D comparison covers that upgrade path.

Gigabyte MO32U24

Written reviews:

TechPowerUp: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/gigabyte-mo32u24/

Video reviews:

Monitors Unboxed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVKyAAUVpXM
1 Up Nerdcore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8QVshUsa9Q

Consensus summary: TechPowerUp’s verdict is that the panel gets nearly everything right and the connectivity is self-inflicted damage. Samsung’s fourth-generation Penta Tandem QD-OLED hit 299 cd/m² full-screen in SDR and measured 99.19 percent DCI-P3, and at 140 PPI the triangular subpixel layout stopped mattering for text, with weeks of spreadsheet and code work at 125 percent scaling producing no fringing worth noticing. Grayscale accuracy reached reference grade after a two-parameter OSD adjustment. The complaint is the USB-C port, which is capped in a way that undercuts the otherwise flawless automatic KVM, and at $1,000 the MSI MPG 322UR X24 sits $99 higher with the same panel plus DisplayPort 2.1a UHBR20 and 98 W power delivery.

FPS Review take: We flagged this one when it launched with the ObsidianShield coating, and the measured 299 cd/m² full-screen figure is the number that matters, because sustained brightness was the thing OLED could not do two generations ago. Budget for the hundred extra dollars if a single-cable laptop setup is part of your plan.

iiyama G-Master GOB2701QSC

Written reviews:

The FPS Review

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