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The story begins with YouTuber Max Tech, aka Vadim Yuryev, who took to X in a now-deleted post to express his disappointment with laptop memory prices. In particular, he posted a screenshot from Dell's website, showing a Snapdragon X Plus-equipped XPS 13 with 16 GB of RAM. The issue? Going from 16 GB to 32 GB apparently cost a whopping $550... at least in the screenshot.

In reality, the upgrade's worth just $150 on Dell's site right now, at least on the laptop Yuryev's original tweet referenced. For context, Apple has charged $400 for the same 16 GB upgrade for years, way before any DRAM shortage, so people were rightfully shocked. However, as mentioned, this screenshot was either actually altered or, more likely, showed a $550 price hike because memory wasn't the only thing being upgraded.

See, Dell's laptop configurator works in a confusing manner where selecting certain options triggers others to automatically change, too. For instance, the jump from 16 GB to 32 GB RAM may have come with a jump in SSD capacity as well, or even a higher spec'd CPU, but since these changes happened silently in the background, they look like standalone charges for the RAM alone.

As you can see in our screenshot above, when you select the 32 GB RAM option, it prompts you to confirm the change since the CPU will be upgraded alongside it — from a Snapdragon X Plus to X Elite, so the total cost of the upgrade is $300, but Dell is offering a $150 discount on that. Try playing around with the configurator yourself to discover just how much of a maze it is, though you can still tell what's changing. A pricing error or perhaps a currency/region issue in the original screenshot also can't be ruled out, but one thing is certain: Dell definitely isn't charging $550 for 32GB of RAM. At least not yet anyway.

The OP must've realized his oversight after replies and media coverage pointed it out, at which point he deleted the original post. Unfortunately, Framework already replied with a scathing post, letting users know that it'll need to raise memory prices soon as well, but that it won't overcharge customers like "apparently" Dell and Apple. A point made based on erroneous information, but perhaps deserved nonetheless.

Framework's tweet remains up, but the post above it from Vadim is gone. However, Framework's point that its memory upgrades are more affordable than rival laptop makers (for now) still stands. Moving forward, that will change. "We are going to need to increase our memory pricing soon," Framework warned in a follow-up. "But we won’t use this as an excuse to gouge customers like Dell apparently has, and that Apple does as their norm," the company added. Only time will tell when Framework will increase its prices and by how much. A few weeks ago, the company stopped selling standalone RAM in order to stop the supply from being consumed by scalpers.

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The announcement, first made by President Donald Trump via Truth Social, comes after months of internal debate within the U.S. administration over how to apply export restrictions without accelerating China’s ability to develop domestic alternatives. The H200, a powerful GPU from Nvidia’s Hopper generation, significantly outperforms the previously approved H20 and had been considered too capable for Chinese markets under earlier rules. Its reauthorization hints that there’s been a shift in Washington’s approach, namely to maintain technological superiority, but it will allow controlled access to limit the pace of Chinese self-sufficiency.

An unexpected U-turn

The decision to allow H200 exports follows concerns that sweeping restrictions were producing unintended results. Since the initial wave of AI chip bans in 2022, Chinese firms have intensified development of homegrown accelerators, with Huawei’s Ascend 910C making significant progress in training and inference workloads. While still behind Nvidia in absolute performance, Huawei’s architecture is increasingly seen as serviceable for national and commercial deployments, especially as its fabrication partners improve yields.

Internal discussions in Washington, as reported by multiple sources, shifted focus from outright denial to managed access. Officials seem to have eventually concluded that permitting H200 sales — while keeping newer architectures like Blackwell and the upcoming Rubin out of reach — could slow China’s push for chip independence without giving away the U.S. lead in performance. The H200 remains one generation behind Nvidia’s cutting-edge designs but is fully capable of training modern foundation models and large-scale AI systems.

This repositioning allows U.S. regulators to reassert some control over China's access to advanced silicon while capturing financial and political value from every sale. Under the terms of the new export framework, each H200 must be manufactured by TSMC, shipped to the U.S. for inspection, and then re-exported to China. The 25% duty is collected at the U.S. checkpoint, with the funds directed to federal revenue.

Beijing convenes tech firms and weighs conditions

Chinese regulators have not publicly responded to the U.S. announcement but are said to have begun internal reviews. According to reporting by The Information, officials from the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology have held meetings with Alibaba, ByteDance, and Tencent to assess their projected demand for H200 GPUs. The companies have been asked to provide use cases and expected unit volumes, with the understanding that the government may impose caps or usage guidelines.

Two sources present at those meetings told The Information that regulators are considering import limits tied to domestic procurement. Companies may be required to demonstrate that they are also investing in Chinese accelerators such as Huawei’s Ascend or Cambricon’s Siyuan series. This model, used previously to guide purchases of data center components and server platforms, allows Beijing to balance near-term hardware needs with its goal of reducing reliance on U.S. suppliers.

China has also continued to apply informal pressure to shift buyers toward domestic chips. In August, Chinese regulators issued guidance to steer state-backed entities and infrastructure projects away from Nvidia’s H20, resulting in widespread cancellations of contracts. The H200 presents a different scenario, given its substantial performance advantage, but officials are expected to apply similar discretion in determining which sectors and use cases are eligible.

SuperCloud, a domestic cloud services provider, confirmed that it expects major Chinese companies to proceed with H200 purchases if permitted, though in a subdued fashion. “The training of leading Chinese AI models still relies on Nvidia cards,” said Zhang Yuchun, a general manager at SuperCloud, when speaking to Reuters. “I expect the leading Chinese tech companies to buy a lot although in a low key manner.”

Production limits may slow short-term access

Nvidia’s ability to meet demand in China will likely be constrained by supply. The company has kept H200 output relatively low as it focused on ramping production of its Blackwell-class B100 and B200 GPUs, as well as preparing for its Rubin successor. Also speaking to Reuters, two sources familiar with Nvidia’s supply chain said that H200 manufacturing has been deprioritized in favor of fulfilling high-margin orders from U.S. hyperscalers and sovereign AI programs in allied countries.

Chinese firms looking to place orders may therefore find themselves at the back of the queue. Alibaba and ByteDance are both thought to be “keen to place large orders” should Chinese regulators give them the green light to do so. However, the companies are concerned about supply and are said to be actively seeking clarity from Nvidia on this.

If all this goes ahead, the H200 would reintroduce training-scale compute capacity to Chinese AI developers after a long period of reliance on repurposed hardware and grey-market acquisitions. The chip delivers roughly six times the performance of the H20 and approaches the capabilities of Nvidia’s H100, which has been banned from China since late 2022. Unlike most Chinese accelerators, the H200 supports Nvidia’s CUDA software ecosystem, simplifying model porting and cluster integration.

Ultimately, Nvidia is unlikely to resume large-scale H200 production unless it receives strong approval from both U.S. and Chinese regulators, and equally strong demand from Chinese customers. The chip is already considered a transitional product within Nvidia’s roadmap, with Blackwell occupying the top end of the current generation and Rubin expected to extend that lead in 2026.

Enforcement measures target diversion and smuggling

U.S. officials have attached a number of technical and procedural conditions to the H200 export approval. Each unit must be shipped to the U.S. before entering China, creating a traceable logistics trail that allows U.S. Customs and Commerce Department inspectors to verify compliance. Nvidia has also introduced optional location-verification software that can confirm whether a chip is operating in an authorized geography.

The system uses a combination of secure telemetry and latency-based network checks to determine the approximate location of a GPU within a customer’s infrastructure. While not mandatory — at least not yet — the feature has been privately demonstrated as a tool for audit and compliance. Nvidia has framed the technology as a data center management solution rather than a surveillance system, and the company has emphasized that it cannot remotely deactivate or control chips in the field.

Nonetheless, the software has raised concerns in Beijing, with the Cyberspace Administration of China questioning whether the technology constitutes a backdoor or allows external access to sensitive operations. Nvidia has stated that the system, which will first be made available on Blackwell chips, cannot be used for eavesdropping and does not transmit any user data to third parties. It remains to be seen whether Chinese buyers will enable the feature or attempt to route around it using intermediaries.

The compliance measures reflect a broader concern that export controls, while useful on paper, have proven difficult to enforce. We’ve seen several examples of banned Nvidia GPUs like the A100 and H100 appearing in the likes of Chinese university research and start-up product documentation since their respective bans. Many of these were likely acquired through grey-market channels or indirect resellers in third countries.

The U.S. Justice Department has already indicted several individuals involved in smuggling high-performance Nvidia chips to China in violation of export rules. Cases are ongoing in multiple districts, and officials have signaled that enforcement will intensify as more tracking capabilities become available.

A concession?

The approval of H200 exports arguably represents a concession rather than any long-term structural change in U.S. policy. The Biden and Trump administrations have consistently maintained that the U.S. must retain leadership in AI hardware and semiconductor manufacturing. The H200, while advanced, is no longer Nvidia’s leading product, and allowing access to it gives Washington a tool to slow China’s push for independence without giving up the top tier of its technology stack.

From Beijing’s perspective, the decision provides short-term relief. AI developers can resume training at scale using supported hardware and familiar toolchains, but the long-term imperative remains unchanged. China continues to invest in domestic foundries, chip design houses, and packaging capacity. Huawei is expanding its Ascend production targets, and other firms are attempting to design new architectures that bypass the limitations of restricted U.S. IP.

The H200 will be welcomed by those who can access it, but the approval comes with strings attached and no guarantee of duration. Chinese firms must navigate what could be a complex approvals process, limited supply, and reputational risk. Nvidia, meanwhile, must manage Washington’s expectations while preventing its technology from slipping beyond authorized use.

The success or failure of this arrangement may determine how future export rules are written. If H200 exports proceed smoothly, it could serve as a model for calibrated engagement, but if compliance breaks down or political conditions shift, the window may close just as quickly as it opened.

Sources close to the matter allege that DeepSeek is involved in a high-complexity smuggling ring focused on getting Blackwell chips into China illegally through the use of fake data centers. Shell companies purchase data centers worth of Nvidia servers somewhere in Southeast Asia, setting up the data center and its hardware entirely to spec. Nvidia's OEM partners send contractors to inspect the installation, confirming successful installs and export compliance.

After this inspection is finished, smugglers reportedly disassemble the entire data center rack by rack, shipping the GPU servers in suitcases across the border into mainland China, where the purchase and use of certain Nvidia chips are restricted by the United States government. According to the report, sources with knowledge of these smuggling operations claim that smugglers and clients prefer 8-GPU rack servers like the HGX B200 over the powerful GB200 NVL72 for this smaller size and ease of covert transportation.

When asked for comment, an Nvidia spokesperson gave the following statement to Tom's Hardware:

We haven't seen any substantiation or received tips of 'phantom datacenters' constructed to deceive us and our OEM partners, then deconstructed, smuggled, and reconstructed somewhere else. While such smuggling seems far-fetched, we pursue any tip we receive.

DeepSeek's Need for Nvidia GPUs

DeepSeek, the most recognizable Chinese AI firm in the United States, thanks to its R1 LLM making worldwide headlines one year ago, has long been connected with Nvidia GPUs. Its sensational R1 model was trained on only 2,048 Nvidia H800s in two months, a number of GPUs far smaller and more efficient than any Western competitor. Since this time, DeepSeek has consistently been linked to the stockpiling and purchase of as many Nvidia GPUs as it can obtain, with reports constantly swirling about DeepSeek somehow bypassing export restrictions and securing huge numbers of the newest Nvidia chips.

Interestingly, DeepSeek's latest internal reports seem to indicate plans to use Nvidia chips for its newest AI models. In a whitepaper released on December 2nd on DeepSeek V3.2, DeepSeek suggests their bottleneck on performance matches that of frontier models like Gemini-3.0-Pro is pre-training compute; "We plan to address this knowledge gap in future iterations by scaling up the pre-training compute." Pre-training compute is a workflow that Nvidia GPUs and CUDA software perform better than most other competitors, suggesting that DeepSeek engineers count on something changing for its access to high-caliber pre-training compute power.

DeepSeek's track record proves that Nvidia's pre-training abilities fill a niche unmatched by domestic Chinese products. Reports in August claimed that Huawei's Ascend GPU servers were unable to run necessary training workloads, prompting a return to Nvidia hardware in the R2 training process. This was despite government intervention and doctrines calling for DeepSeek to turn to domestic Chinese products for its AI workload. While the Huawei Ascend servers were used for inference for the models, the company could not turn anywhere but to Nvidia, much to the chagrin of China.

Nvidia's Future in China

The Trump administration recently announced plans to unrestrict the Nvidia H200 GPU in China, opening up Nvidia's sales in the country. Speculators claim that this policy U-turn from the White House, which has spent much of 2025 toeing a line of complete export isolationism to China, comes as fears of Huawei's CloudMatrix 384 and Ascend 910C systems grow. Reputable claims hold that these servers match the H200 and GB200 NVL72 in certain performance metrics, causing the U.S. government to release the H200 into China.

This new policy is based on a compromise between flooding China with easy-to-access American Nvidia tech and banning it altogether. The hope is to satiate Chinese tech needs and take away motivation for firms like Huawei to develop their own Nvidia competitors. The adoption of this doctrine, oft-touted by Nvidia's lobbying efforts to the White House, marks a major shift in the "Chip War" trade offensive between Beijing and Washington D.C., which has moved from preventing China from any access to next-gen tech to hoping to slow China's tech power that is beginning to threaten Western tech dominance.

While Trump's Commerce Department continues to insist that China will never see Nvidia Blackwell hardware, keeping the export exceptions limited to Hopper-generation hardware like the H200, time will tell if further Nvidia lobbying and fears of the Chinese tech sector will open the doors further. And of course, if DeepSeek truly is involved in conspiracies of phantom data centers, they won't even need the U.S. to allow them access to Blackwell.

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According to the report, he meetings were led by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Both agencies have overseen AI chip procurement since the first round of controls took effect back in 2022, and both are now attempting to balance two conflicting pressures: China does not currently produce a domestic equivalent to the H200 for large-scale training workloads, yet the government continues to press companies to adopt homegrown silicon whenever possible. Officials requested estimates of each company’s H200 requirements earlier in the week and told attendees they would issue guidance once responses are reviewed.

The H200 sits one generation below Nvidia’s new Blackwell platform but remains vastly more capable than the export-compliant H20 that was built specifically for the Chinese market. The H20 contributed just $50 million in revenue during Nvidia’s October quarter, compared to $4.6 billion in the period earlier this year when the company could still ship H100-class processors into China. Nvidia’s overall China revenue fell 63% year over year to about $3 billion in the same quarter. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has since said that Nvidia has virtually no market share left in China.

Trump’s approval of H200 exports follows a meeting with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and introduces a new mechanism for moving high-end GPUs into China. Chips manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan would be imported into the United States for security reviews, taxed at 25% and then re-exported to approved Chinese buyers. U.S. officials told The Information that the arrangement was designed as a middle ground whereby Blackwell remains off-limits, but a complete ban on H200 shipments was viewed as likely to accelerate China’s domestic chip development.

Chinese regulators, meanwhile, are considering restrictions of their own. One proposal would cap the amount of Nvidia hardware a company can buy relative to its existing and planned purchases of domestic accelerators. Another would bar H200 use in sectors regarded as strategically sensitive, including finance and energy. If adopted, these measures would be communicated through informal “window guidance”, the same method authorities used earlier this year when they urged companies to avoid Nvidia hardware and prioritize suppliers such as Huawei.

If Beijing authorizes H200 imports, demand is expected to be substantial. Companies are said to have begun preliminary discussions with Nvidia about potential orders after Bloomberg first reported in November that the U.S. was weighing approval, and, according to Reuters, the likes of Alibaba and ByteDance are said to be “keen” to begin purchasing Nvidia’s chips. For now, China’s policymakers are attempting to determine how to meet short-term AI training needs without undermining the long-term push for semiconductor self-reliance

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Nvidia officially positions its tracking technology, which can approximate the physical location of its AI processors, as a way for infrastructure operators to oversee their GPU fleets as well as monitor their health. As an added bonus, the feature also addresses political demands in the United States to curb illegal diversion of advanced AI GPUs to restricted markets such as China, North Korea, or Russia, according to Reuters. The capability has only been demonstrated confidentially as the company has not yet deployed it publicly, though it does not deny its existence. Yet, it has not formally confirmed that the software can determine the physical location of Nvidia's hardware.

"We are in the process of implementing a new software service that empowers data center operators to monitor the health and inventory of their entire AI GPU fleet," an Nvidia spokesperson told Tom's Hardware. "This customer-installed software agent leverages GPU telemetry to monitor fleet health, integrity, and inventory."

Reuters reports that the mechanism behind the tracking software can not only read GPU telemetry, but also incorporates timing measurements taken from communication between customer systems and Nvidia servers. By analyzing this latency, the software can estimate the location of the GPU with roughly the same precision offered by standard Internet-based geolocation services, according to Reuters. There are two things to note, though. Actual location-based services use IP address and Wi-Fi positioning, but while the former makes sense for data center hardware, Wi-Fi positioning may not work well in remote rural areas, where many of China's AI data centers are located. The company stresses that this is a customer-installed software agent rather than a hidden function, and that it relies on legitimate GPU telemetry rather than any concealed access pathway.

The feature is slated to appear first on the latest Blackwell-generation components, which include strengthened capabilities for 'attestation,' a process that verifies that the hardware and software stack have not been altered. According to Reuters, citing a company representative, these AI accelerators contain more advanced verification logic than the preceding Hopper and Ampere families; however, it is unclear whether Nvidia can remotely disable hardware if it is used in a prohibited region.

Meanwhile, China’s main cybersecurity regulator has summoned Nvidia for questioning over concerns that verification functions could act as backdoors accessible to the U.S. government. Nvidia has firmly rejected the notion that its hardware contains any backdoors, and reading hardware telemetry does not undermine cryptographic protections and other security features.

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It's unlikely the CORE One L will have a kit version, as the AC-powered heat bed is not for tinkerers. The 3D printer is still built with easy maintenance in mind and open source parts for lifetime repairability. The printer is also designed to operate completely offline if you choose, without dependence on the cloud for complete security. However, if you enjoy the convenience of mobile apps, the Prusa App offers remote printer operation, full access to Printables.com for model selection, and a lite version of PrusaSlicer for custom slicing on the go.

The CORE One L has a few clever tricks up its sleeve: it can flip the top vent open or close on its own, a flip of a switch makes loading (and running) TPU super easy, and strategically mounted fans control air flow and heat so the door can remain closed at all times. The chamber can hit 60 °C, making engineering-grade filaments as easy to run as PLA. It will also be the first 3D printer compatible with Prusa-backed OpenPrintTag, an open source initiative to create a universal “smart” spool with NFC tags that customers can reuse as they wish.

The CORE One L retails at $1,799 (including import duties and tariffs) and comes with 24/7 customer service and a complete ecosystem. This machine lives up to its reputation and is one of the best 3D printers we’ve tested to date.

Specifications: Prusa CORE One L

Prusa CORE One L: Included in the Box

The Prusa CORE One L comes 98% assembled. It includes a full set of tools and a full 1 kg spool of Galaxy Black Prusament PLA (plus a bag of Gummy Bears). There’s also a USB stick with models to test out and a handbook on 3D printing with your new machine. The PrusaSlicer is available for free download from the website.

Design of the Prusa CORE One L

The CORE One L is at its heart a larger CORE One, with a few critical changes. The most obvious is the size, now sporting a 300 x 300 x 330 build volume, which is about twice the size by volume, if not exactly plate size.

The slim, all-steel exoskeleton now has aluminum walls to cut down on heft, which means the new printer checks in at about the same weight (48 pounds) as the smaller CORE. This keeps it still somewhat manageable to move by a single person and sit on a desk.

It has the same indents on either side to conceal the spool holder and customizable storage space, though now magnets will only stick to the frame. The door and upper parts of the side panels are translucent black polymer. The top panel snaps into place. The top vent can now be opened or closed by the printer itself. It’s still not exactly airtight, with many gaps at the seams, but a few gaps in the frame won’t spoil the system.

The exoskeleton provides a strong, stiff frame for the printer while also minimizing materials and avoiding the cheap plasticky feel we get from other brands. The indented sides reduce the interior space of the printer, making for less space to heat.

The biggest change to the CORE One L is the heat bed, which is now a solid chunk of aluminum, heated with AC power. It provides uniform heating from corner to corner, which is essential with such a large surface. There are two fans underneath the bed to distribute the heat like a convection oven. This eliminates the need for a second heating system, as the bed can now be used more efficiently to warm the entire chamber for technical filaments.

The CORE One L still shares many 3D parts with its Prusa siblings, which are produced at the large Prusa Research print farm in Prague (or in Delaware by Printed Solid if you buy one in America). CORE One 3D parts are made with PC Blend Carbon Fiber, printed on a combo of MK4s and CORE One machines. Prusa also does its own injection molding, which you can see on the LCD case.

Another thoughtful touch is the door hinge, which can be flipped if you rather have it open on the other side. The door can completely open 180 degrees, but Prusa encourages users to go ahead and keep it closed for any material, thanks to their active cooling system. The door has a sensor that will warn you to keep it shut and stop the print when the door is opened. This is a nice safety feature for schools, parents of small children, and pet owners. Thankfully, the sensor can be switched off if you want the freedom to poke your nose or a camera in there.

The CORE One L specs don’t include acceleration rates, as the company is famous for putting quality over speed. The machine does come with a high flow nozzle, input shaping and factory tuned print profiles for over 200 filaments. Still, I opened up PrusaSlicer to see what kind of settings they’re using for speed and acceleration. The top printing acceleration rate of 3000 mm/s² would not impress a Bambu user who easily has twice the speed. However, acceleration isn’t everything. Using their default settings, both the CORE One L and the similarly sized Bambu Lab H2S printed a Maker’s Muse calibration castle in about one hour and 15 minutes using .25mm layer height and default settings. Sure, the Bambu might be faster printing a big, plain box, but how often do you print things that are so boring?

The CORE One L finally has an onboard accelerometer, though it’s completely factory calibrated and ready to print as soon as you plug it in. It also has an NFC antenna to make getting the machine online and connected to the Prusa app and slicer very easy. The app is entirely optional for those who wish to keep their printers offline. The CORE One L has a USB port for manually loading files, which is the printer’s only place for file storage.

Like the CORE One, bed leveling is fully automatic, with no manual adjustments. First layers go down perfectly smooth thanks to a load cell sensor that has replaced the bedslinger’s PINDA probe. The sensor is connected to the nozzle, which allows the CORE One L to physically tap the print surface for a more precise measurement. The sensor is also used to calculate Z Height, and it does it so well that there is no need for human intervention. Of course, there’s still a live Z adjustment available in the menu should you need it. During testing, we did not.

Assembling the Prusa CORE One L

The Prusa CORE One L comes nearly assembled. You just have to unpack it and remove a few screws that held the bed down during shipping. The screen arrives packed inside, attached to the front trim plate, and just needs to be slapped on the printer with magnets.

Our machine came with the optional filtration system, which did need more complex assembly. That involves removing the back panel to access the electronics, plugging the fans to the board and screwing everything back together. It was fairly straight forward, but I did have to hunt down the directions online.

Leveling the Prusa CORE One L

Bed leveling is a no-brainer, as the Prusa CORE One L is fully automatic. There are no manual adjustments and no need to adjust the Z offset. The printer uses a load cell sensor connected to the nozzle, which physically taps the print surface for precise measurement.

The printer trams the bed and calculates the required z height before each print.

Loading Filament on the Prusa CORE One L

Loading filament is very simple. Simply place the spool into side mounted rack and feed the plastic into the reverse Bowden tube until it reaches the hotend. The printer will automatically detect it and pull it in the rest of the way. The screen will then ask what kind of material you’re using to set the temperature. Once it gets hot enough, it will pull the filament into the hotend and ask if the color has changed. If it has, you can say yes and move on. If the answer is no, it will purge more material.

To remove material, go to the Filament menu from the main screen and click unload. It will remember what material was last installed, determine if the filament is still there, and then heat it to the appropriate temperature. Once hot, it will retract the plastic until you can easily remove it.

If you’re running flexible filaments, there’s a switch where the tube enters the chamber that allows you to switch off one of the filament sensors (another is on the tool head). This allows soft TPU to load as easily as PLA and I didn’t have any trouble at all.

Preparing Files / Software for Prusa CORE One L

You’ll need to download PrusaSlicer, which is free and open source. It is developed by Prusa Research and serves as the foundation for many other slicers. It comes with hundreds of profiles for every material and nozzle size that Prusa Research makes.

PrusaSlicer can also directly access Printables.com, which offers a wide selection of free file models for both fun and practical prints. If you’re using the mobile app, files can be sent directly from Printables to the online EasyPrint slicer and then directly to your printer if you choose to have it online.

Printing on the Prusa CORE One L

The CORE One L comes with a full 1 KG roll of Prusament PLA Galaxy Black. If you want more colors and materials like silks and multicolor filaments, you should check out our guide to the best filaments for 3D printing for suggestions.

We used the sample material to print a Benchy to see what the CORE One can do with its fastest default slicer settings. We used Speed Benchy rules for fairness: 2 walls, 3 top and bottom layers, 10% infill, a .25 layer height and .5 layer width. Using these settings, we got a very nice benchy in 23 minutes with a bit of wisps probably due to the humidity in the house.

I printed a few soap dishes I found on Printables for a practical PLA print. These were a little chonky looking despite the .2 layer height, due to the curves. It had 3 walls for strength printed in Prusament PLA Marble Grey, which makes home goods look more posh. It took 5 hours and 54 minutes to print three of them.

I also printed some cute clips, which mix practical with whimsical. These “Vicegriptor” locking clips have surprising bite when printed in PETG. A word of warning – you need to be very careful loosening them up the first time, or you risk breaking the print in place joints. Once they’re limbered up, they work really nice for holding chip bags and the like.

I printed eight at a time on the CORE One L’s roomy bed, taking 3 hours and 13 min, using a .2 layer height and default settings. This was printed in Greengate’s recycled Deepwater Blue, a sparkly filament created for 3D Print Bunny.

For TPU I made another ill-fated dog toy for my Standard Poodle Ripley. The print was excellent, but 3D printed dog toys for strong chewers is still not that great. The filament loaded very easily, thanks to the new switch, and I had no trouble at all pushing it through to the Nextruder.

This printed in 6 hours and 6 minutes, using Inland Rainbow TPU and a .2mm layer height. It lasted about 6 hours after I gave it to the dog too. Before the dog destroyed it, it had very nice smooth and glossy surfaces and very slight blemishes from layer lines.

We ran a lot of high-temperature material from it, like this Fiberon Red PET-GF15 by Polymaker. This is a form of Polyethylene terephthalate, like PETG, but without the G (glycol), which is usually added to make the material behave. Instead, Polymaker added 15% glass fiber to make the PET stiff, dimensionally stable, and thermal resistant. It prints fast and super hot, and this needed 280 °C on the nozzle and 80 °C on the bed. I filled the bed with parts, and it printed very nicely without warping. There were some goobers on the edges that will brush off.

Bottom Line

The CORE One L is a great addition to the Prusa lineup, filling a space between the “medium” MK4/CORE One and the Prusa XL tool changer. It gives you Prusa quality and security in a larger size without having the larger pro price tag. It has a retail price of $1,799 (including import duties and tariffs) and comes with 24/7 customer service and a complete ecosystem.

Its new aluminum bed with even AC-powered heating is excellent, and it has a few perks like the camera, TPU switch, and self-opening top vent that could be easily added to the smaller CORE One. It will also be the first printer to try out OpenSourceTag when it hits the market.

We’re also keeping our fingers crossed for a tool changer mod through a partnership with Bondtech, but details are still vague as of this writing.

If a Prusa CORE One L seems just a bit too spendy for your budget, the smaller Prusa CORE One comes in at $999 for a kit. The delightfully budget-friendly Bambu Lab P1S Combo is currently on sale for $549, and if you need some massive CORE XY size, the Creality K2 Plus is worth checking out at $1199.

Throughout this year, we saw Microsoft being more committed towards gamers with the launch of the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X, their first handheld consoles made in collaboration with Asus. These consoles came with exclusive features, including the Xbox full screen experience (FSE) and Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD). Microsoft also improved the Windows gaming experience on Arm devices by enabling local game installs through the Xbox app, expanding compatibility and performance in the Prism emulator, and providing native anti-cheat solutions.

With 2026 fast approaching, Microsoft has announced that it will be expanding Xbox FSE to Windows PCs, including desktops, laptops, and 2-in-1s, next year. The feature is currently being tested in a preview and can be accessed by updating to the latest Windows 11 build and signing up for the Windows and Xbox Insider programmes.

Xbox FSE is a controller-first interface that essentially allows you to launch games faster, with minimal distractions. It can also consolidate all of your game libraries from various online stores, including Microsoft Store, Steam, Epic Games, and Battle.net, into one place. Additionally, one can expect a boost in gaming performance as booting into FSE instead of Windows Explorer results in less RAM usage.

Microsoft also plans to expand Auto Super Resolution to handheld gaming devices next year, starting with a preview for the ROG Xbox Ally X. Auto SR was first introduced on Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon X processors, with an aim to deliver sharper visuals and smoother framerates in DirectX games running at lower resolution.

Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD) is also set for an expansion to more Windows 11 devices that allows the system to preload game shaders during download, thus allowing supported games to launch faster, run smoother, and consume less battery when you first launch the game. Lastly, Microsoft says that it is working on improving system behaviors that matter most when you are gaming, including background workload management, power and scheduling improvements, graphics stack optimizations, and updated drivers. The company will be sharing more information during the upcoming Game Developers Conference (GDC) scheduled in March 2026.

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This decision would enable China to continue to access Nvidia's CUDA-based AI accelerators, as many AI systems still rely on that particular software stack. While China is attempting to standardize an instruction set of its own, the open-source CANN, it has been noted that Nvidia chips are preferable for companies such as Deepseek for training advanced AI models.

According to sources speaking to Bloomberg, multiple scenarios were considered, including flooding the market to "overwhelm" Huawei, to exporting no AI accelerators, which would mark a dramatic shift, if the previously-approved Nvidia H20 (a cut-down H200) were to be affected. Ultimately, the decision rests somewhere in the middle.

China won't get access to Nvidia's latest Blackwell architectures, but it will retain access to the full-fat H200. The White House likely hopes that this move keeps the latest Nvidia chips, while also keeping the country locked into Nvidia's carefully crafted CUDA-shaped moat. "The Trump administration is committed to ensuring the dominance of the American tech stack - without compromising on national security", said White House spokesman Kush Desai, in a statement to Bloomberg.

White House officials are reported to have reviewed the performance of Huawei's AI accelerator ecosystem, in particular, the CloudMatrix 384 system, which utilizes 384 Ascend 910C chips. The CloudMatrix 384 is positioned directly against Nvidia's (export-controlled) GB200 platform, but with obvious tradeoffs in performance and efficiency.

While Bloomberg notes recent rumblings that Huawei is preparing to up its 910C chip production to 600,000 units next year, the report claims U.S. officials concluded "that Huawei would be capable in 2026 of producing a few million of its Ascend 910C accelerators," according to the insider.

The AI race is now bound by pure performance, and the Trump Administration clearly hopes that retaining its architectural advantage by restricting Blackwell will keep Western frontier AI models at the forefront of the industry.

Just last week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang commented that he would be uncertain whether or not Chinese companies would even end up purchasing the H200. Huang has long since been a vocal detractor against export controls of AI GPUs, as Nvidia wrote off $5.5 billion in AI chips in April 2025. Whether or not the availability of H200 systems on the Chinese market will be enough to recover the shortfall remains to be seen.

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Today, Snapmaker confirmed it has secured “tens of millions in US dollars” in Series B funding. The round was co-led by Hillhouse Ventures and Meituan, with additional participation from Shunwei Capital, Longzhu Capital (Meituan), Nanshan Innovation Investment, and continuing support from existing shareholders Cowin Capital and Orient Securities Capital.

Shunwei Capital is notable for being the investment firm co-founded by Lei Jun, the billionaire co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Xiaomi Corporation, and one of China’s most respected entrepreneurs. Xiaomi is the world’s third-largest smartphone manufacturer, behind Samsung and Apple. Often called the “Steve Jobs of China,” Lei Jun is well regarded as an angel investor.

Snapmaker announced in a press release that its new funding will be directed toward core technology R&D, global talent acquisition, and ecosystem expansion. The company has been producing 3D printers since 2016 and has twice broken Kickstarter records: first with the Snapmaker 2.0 in 2019 and again with the U1 tool changer this year. The Snapmaker 2.0 raised over $7.85 million, while the U1 brought in over $20 million, becoming the highest-funded 3D printing project in crowdfunding history. Over 20,000 people backed the tool changer, which will be coming to retail shelves in Q1 2026.

Snapmaker is something of a dark horse in the 3D printing world. Despite success with the Snapmaker 2.0 Kickstarter, its machines have been bulky, expensive, niche products designed for makers who want a 3D printer that can also laser-cut and CNC mill. The U1 tool changer flipped the script, offering a faster solution to multicolor printing that doesn’t waste filament and is cheaper than industry leader Bambu Lab’s flagship Core XY machines.

Priced around $750 during the Kickstarter, U1 flew off the shelves and proved that consumers crave a speedy machine that respects their time, budget, and recycling can. It also spurred renewed interest in tool changers. Before the U1, the only consumer tool changer was Prusa Research’s prosumer XL, priced at $ 3,099 for a semi-assembled unit.

Shortly after the U1’s launch, Bambu Lab announced the seven-nozzle, filament-saving P2S, followed by Prusa Research revealing a partnership with Bondtech to turn its new CORE One into a more affordable eight-color tool changer.

Snapmaker’s founder, Daniel Chen, said its new fundraising efforts will allow the company to pivot from a product leader to a global provider of a fully developed ecosystem. He said Snapmaker will “lower the barriers to creation and make 3D printing a universal tool accessible to everyone.” He plans to do this by recruiting top talent to research hardware R&D, AI software, and a content ecosystem.

This sounds like Snapmaker is not only planning to develop more tool changers, but is also going after Bambu Lab’s MakerWorld, a website that provides everything from filament and model files to spare parts for its users. Since Snapmaker is currently using Open Source OrcaSlicer for its software, we hope that Mr. Chen takes a page from the West and keeps the garden gate open to all makers.

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• Check out this deal on Amazon

That’s because this 16-inch Asus V16 gaming laptop is priced at just £849.99, down from as high as £1,199 just a few months ago, according to Camelcamelcamel’s data. While that isn't quite the record low we saw over Black Friday, it's still ~£150 cheaper than its rivals with matching specs. For your money, you’re getting the mobile version of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060, which features 8GB of VRAM and 3,328 CUDA cores. It also includes support for DLSS 4, allowing you to enjoy ray tracing with multi-frame generation in games that support it.

Fitted in this rig is an Intel Core Ultra 240H CPU, which has those 10 cores we mentioned previously. Those cores are split, with six performance cores that allow the best performance for gaming, as well as four efficiency cores, which you'll want for multi-threaded task work. It has a typical 2.5GHz clock speed, but this Raptor Lake CPU can boost up to 5.2GHz when you need it to.

You've also got a 16-inch display with a 144Hz refresh rate, giving this Asus V16 laptop a good amount of screen real estate to have several windows open at once. It runs better than 1080p, too, offering a 1,920 x 1,200 screen resolution with a 16:10 aspect ratio. You might still want to tweak down your graphics presets in-game while you're running at 1200p in the most demanding games to get the best frame rates, but the games themselves should still remain playable.

Cheaper laptops typically see you miss out on having enough RAM or storage, but there are no such compromises here. You've got a 1TB SSD, featuring PCIe 5.0 speeds, as well as 16GB of DDR5 SODIMM RAM. While it probably isn't the best time to think about upgrading your memory with RAM prices skyrocketing, once the prices do stabilise, you can upgrade this model to a maximum 32GB, giving it that extra bit of longevity. Alongside the laptop itself, you're also getting three months of Xbox Game Pass thrown in for free.

This £849 Asus V16 is the cheapest gaming laptop with an RTX 5060 that you can buy right now, and you'll struggle to find an alternative for under £1000. If you're thinking about picking up a new laptop before Christmas that can offer solid performance at or above 1080p, then this Asus model is one of your best options. Expect it to sell out fast.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, or CPU Deals pages.

The Superpower turbine is purportedly "optimized for AI datacenters," a claim boiled down to delivering its full 42 MW with 39% efficiency, at an operating temperature up to a toasty 110° F (43° C). Judging by a quick search, that's significantly higher than contemporary designs, whose output drops at around 86° F (30° C), if not much sooner—and precisely when it's most needed, when servers are working the hardest.

Almost as importantly, Boom claims the new design is "waterless", a fact that should somewhat assuage ever-growing concerns about datacenters' water usage. Although the servers' cooling towers still need water to function, the fact that it would no longer be necessary to cool the turbines would definitely be a bonus.

Boom says it's taken an order for its new design from Crusoe AI for a substantial 1.21 GW of turbines. The company says it builds everything in Denver, Colorado, and that it intends to create a Superfactory for this new enterprise. Boom expects to deliver 200 MW worth of turbines by 2027, 1 GW in 2028, and up to a meaty 2 GW come 2029. Crusoe ordered 29 units, and the first of them ought to be delivered in 2027.

According to Boom's Blake Scholl, the idea came about due to the fact that xAI and OpenAI both are using converted jet engines, whose main limitation is twofold: commercial availability and falling output at high ambient temperatures, as they're designed for high-altitude operation. The Superpower turbine design is derived from the company's existing Symphony airspace-targeted turbine.

According to Boom, the Symphony engine is designed to power supersonic flight at speeds of up to Mach 1.7 at 60,000 feet. Superpower will run on natural gas, rather than jet fuel, of course. While news of a Concorde successor pivoting its tech to AI might give aviation fans pause, Boom says the new project will actually boost its core mission. "The fastest way to a certified, passenger-carrying Symphony engine is to run its core for hundreds of thousands of hours in the real world, powering Earth’s most demanding AI data centers," Boom says.

Turns out these supersonic jet-powered AI data centers will actually serve as a giant test bed for Boom's turbines. Naturally a profitable venture, Boom also says that the profitability from Superpower will fund "the remainder of the aircraft program," creating a self-sustaining path to supersonic flight.

It can be argued that the long-term future for energy generation is nuclear and with more renewables. The AI train stops for nobody, though, so having better local power generation options now, with rising power costs and stressed grids, is as good a stopgap as any.

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We reviewed the Corsair Frame 4000D a while back and found it an excellent case for the money, praising its thermals and airflow options. At the time, we dinged it for the dearth of promised modular upgrades, but Corsair is taking a step towards fixing that today by mounting a Xeneon Edge beneath the case's main chamber.

The Edge's 2560x720 AHVA display is a nifty piece of kit that works as a standard monitor as far as Windows is concerned, so you can put basically any window on it you can imagine. It can be used for component monitoring, general information display, or for general utility shortcuts. It integrates with Corsair's iCUE software and is easily customizable.

The Xeneon Edge also has five-point touch functionality, it's not hard to imagine potential multi-tap gesture functionality, like swiping your fingers past it in one direction or another to change your system's power profile, fan settings, and RGB lighting all at once, like putting a car into sport mode. Or, hey, maybe slap a graph of DDR5 RAM prices on there so you can feel smug about what you've already got.

Indeed, there's already a SimHub plugin that some gamers are already making excellent use of, as well as a Spotify controller widget. We could also see the Xeneon Edge hosting live stream statistics or featured chat messages on a stream PC. Do you strictly need a screen on your case for those things? No, but as with so many other parts of PC building and customization, it would sure look cool.

If you're interested in this setup for your own build, Corsair is asking $399.99 for the case-and-display set, which it's calling the Frame 4000D LCD RS ARGB. That might sound steep, but that variation of the Frame 4000D is $109.99 to start with. Add the corresponding mounting kit for $39.99 and the Xeneon Edge itself at $249.99, and the grand total comes in at basically the same amount as the separate parts, minus the hassle of putting it all together yourself.

The Frame 4000D LCD RS ARGB setup comes in black and white to fit the most common color-coordinated setups nowadays. If you have the larger Frame 5000D Airflow case and want to add a Xeneon Edge to your existing setup, the mounting kit to attach the display to your case is $49.99 on its own.

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Some pictures of my Nvidia Dawn and Dusk demo machine + Brass FX5950 Ultra from r/pcmasterrace

“I took this home from work around 2005. It has a looping demo of Dawn and Dusk and a few other demos,” wrote the lucky Redditor. “It currently has a 7800 AGP inside it but I still have the original FX5950 Ultra. For some reason the card has a brass I/O plate, and a brass top rail decoration,” they explained. Then, to refresh the time-worn craniums of those who remember the nVidia Dusk Demo when it was a technical tour de force, Inclusive_3Dprinting shared the video below in breathtaking HD 720p.

If you want a deeper trip down memory lane, Tom’s Hardware featured the Gigabyte GeForce FX 5950 Ultra graphics card back in January 2004. It looks identical to the sample that Inclusive_3Dprinting shows sitting beside their demo system, except for our review model’s white metal I/O bracket.

As we mentioned back in 2004, this card, featuring the Nvidia NV38 GPU with 256MB DDR RAM on a 256-bit bus, was built to make the most of the then-cutting-edge DirectX 9 API. It was bundled with titles from the Tomb Raider and Rainbow Six franchises to show off its capabilities.

Those wishing to test out the old Dusk demo, featuring Dawn’s racy twin sister, can still test it on their choice of hardware thanks to the Internet Archive preserving access to this 83.4MB demo. The Dusk demo showcased true-to-life skin and hair visuals, delivering the most realistic human-like real-time character animations of the era on consumer hardware.

At some period, lost in the sands of time, the Redditor swapped out the FX 5950 Ultra in favor of a GeForce 7800GS, which we reviewed in February 2006. It has remained with this upgrade ever since, but thankfully the original brass bracket card wasn’t lost to time.

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Getting the S10000 gaming-ready, particularly to get both GPUs to cooperate in supported games, was no easy task. The GPU enthusiast had to make several changes to get the card to work at all with newer titles due to its age. This included using Windows 10 instead of Windows 11, and BIOS flashing the card so the S10000 would function with newer AMD Adrenalin drivers.

First, running the GPU out of the box on Windows 10, RandomGaminginHD discovered several weird quirks with the card. The S10000 only supports up to FirePro driver version 17.4 and not AMD's Adrenalin counterpart, which is critical for getting game optimizations. Under GPU-Z, the card shows up under two distinct names, S10000 and W9000 X2.

After researching the GPU's name, RandomGaminginHD discovered that the two model names are, in fact, the same GPU, only the W9000 X2 was never released under that name. In fact, the enthusiast discovered that AMD had slapped a "S10000" sticker over a "W9000 X2" badge on his particular card, suggesting AMD renamed the graphics card from W9000 X2 to S10000 just before the product's release in November 2012.

The S10000 was technically gaming capable in its out-of-the-box form with the most recent FirePro drivers it supports, running Crysis at just above 60 FPS. However, the YouTuber discovered the FirePro drivers don't enable CrossFire support whatsoever, preventing the second GPU from spinning up in supported games.

To fix this, RandomGaminginHD BIOS-flashed the graphics card with firmware from a Radeon HD 7990 dual-GPU gaming card. This made the S10000 identify as an HD 7990 to Windows 10 and enabled support for AMD's Adrenalin drivers, specifically version 22.6.1 from 2022.

With the S10000 disguised as an HD 7990, performance increased substantially thanks to the 2022 Adrenalin drivers enabling Crossfire support. In Crysis, the S10000 was able to achieve over 110 FPS most of the time with both GPUs sitting at around 65% usage. RandomGaminginHD also tested Crysis 3, GTA V, and Mafia 2, and found all three titles ran well, especially Mafia 2, which was able to take full advantage of both GPUs —both sitting above 90% usage all the time.

Moving to modern games, our intrepid tester tried Arc Raiders, Cyberpunk 2077, and CS2. Despite all three titles lacking multi-GPU support, Arc Raiders and CS2 ran at playable frame rates, albeit with extremely low graphics settings. At the lowest settings — 70% resolution scaling at 1080p — Arc Raiders ran at around 40-45 FPS. CS2 fared better, with 120-160 FPS depending on the scene. Cyberpunk 2077 handled the worst on this card, producing just 20-30 FPS on the S10000 at the lowest settings with FSR set to its ultra performance profile.

The S10000 ranked among the most powerful workstation cards in 2012, as Nvidia had shied away from dual-GPU professional cards at the time. The S10000 sported two Tahiti GPUs featuring 1,792 shader cores, 112 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and 28 CUs each. Memory was split across two 384-bit memory interfaces for each GPU, and each chip was connected to 3GB of GDDR5.

RandomInGamingHD's work to resurrect his particular S10000 shows how potent the dual-GPU graphics card was at the time. It was essentially an HD 7990 consumer graphics card, but with disabled cores on each die. If the second GPU worked in today's titles, the S10000 would likely be capable of playing Arc Raiders near 60 FPS and Cyberpunk 2077 at playable FPS, but with Crossfire and SLI support long gone in modern games, this is the best performance we'll ever see from this graphics card in those titles.

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The Core Ultra X9 388H got 3,057 points in the single-core test and 17,687 points in the multi-core test, both figures that put it way ahead of the Arrow Lake-H Core Ultra 9 285H, but also on par with the beefier Core Ultra 9 275HX.

That all is impressive enough, but compared to Ryzen AI Max+ 395, AMD's best mobile chip right now, the X9 388H's multi-core score is within the margin of error, but the single-core numbers are 8.7% ahead. The Geekbench listing also shows the CPU boosting to 5.1 GHz. Check out the table at the end of the article for a detailed breakdown.

These are exceptional values for a CPU that fits into an even tighter thermal envelope than Strix Halo. The X9 388H has a 45W default TDP versus the Ryzen AI Max+ 395's 55W default.

For some more context, the X9 388H is the highest-spec'd model from Panther Lake we've seen so far, featuring 16 cores in a 4P + 8E + 4 LP-E config, with no Hyper-Threading. The SKU also has the "X" designation because it features 12 Xe3 iGPU cores, but that's beyond the scope of this leak, though we've covered Panther Lake graphics before.

Panther Lake isn't supposed to come out until early next year, but excitement for the release is already dimmed. As it stands right now, surging memory prices may result in insane markups on laptops and other mobile devices featuring Panther Lake parts, no matter how impressive the SoC itself may or may not be.

Also, keep in mind that each Geekbench listing is different, so we have to wait for more benchmarks to come out before an average can be formed, but the first impressions with this leak sure do look great.

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Some of the company's biggest products are on sale right now, including the Secretlab Titan Evo and Secretlab Titan Evo Nanogen, as well as newer favourites like the Recliner add-on. With Secretlab producing some of the best gaming chairs that you can buy, these Christmas deals unlock a fantastic opportunity to upgrade your comfort and save some pennies while you're at it.

• Check out all of the Christmas deals at Secretlab UK

If you're going for that big upgrade, there are also further discounts of up to £120 on chairs and desks if you decide to splurge on a whole set of new Secretlab kit, depending on how much you spend. For instance, you can save an extra £40 if you spend over £690 if you purchase a chair, or an extra £120 sitewide if you spend over £1,799 in total.

These sale prices, along with these extra discounts, will stay live until 2nd January, or at least until the stock runs out, so you best be quick. You've got until 11am on 16th December to get your order in to guarantee delivery before Christmas, too.

Secretlab Christmas Gaming Chair Deals

Secretlab Christmas Desk Deals

Secretlab Christmas Desk Accessory Deals

Secretlab Christmas Skins Deals

Secretlab Christmas Ergonomic Recliner Deals

Secretlab Christmas Lumbar Pillow Deals

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, gaming chair, or CPU Deals pages.

Filament Connector from Sunlu

Filament Connector

Sunlu, $42.99

What do you do with those scraps of filament at the end of the spool that are too short for anything important? If you have an AMS, you could set all your nearly empty spools on sequential mode and let the printer handle them. But it’s way more fun to weld the ends together and create a custom spool. The Sunlu Filament Connector is the only tool I’ve seen that will easily melt the ends to filament together without leaving lumps that could clog your nozzle. This tool heats up to 240°C, so it can splice together everything from PLA to Nylon. Just don’t splice your PLA to Nylon, that will never stick.

Nonsticky Nozzle Stuff from Slice Engineering

Nonsticky Nozzle Stuff

Slice Engineering, $14.99

Nozzles don’t have to get sticky and gross with filament build up, not when you have Slice Engineering’s Anti-Stick nano-coating. Paint the transparent repellent on a clean nozzle and it will stay clean for weeks…or months, depending on how often you print. A clean nozzle can prevent many types of print fails and keep filament from forming a blob on the toolhead. The coating works up to 300°C and is suitable for printing all materials. One bottle can hold over 100 coats.

Heat Set Insert Press from Mintion

Heat Set Insert Press

Mintion, $56.99

When your 3D printed project needs a bunch of screws to hold everything together, heat-set inserts are a must. These little metal fittings are warmed up and pressed into printed parts to create strong, reliable threads that won’t strip out like plastic can. You could install a few by hand with a soldering iron, but if you're doing a lot of inserts (or you want every one of them at a perfect 90-degree angle), a small heat-set insert press makes the job fast and neat. This kit comes with a soldering iron, stand, and 30 brass threaded inserts of assorted sizes.

Sticky Build Plates from BIQU

Sticky Build Plates

BIQU: $18.99 and up

Modern 3D printers come with pretty good build plates these days, but BIQU has them all beat with the CryoGrip Glacier and Frostbite. These plates can work at cooler temperatures, hence the frosty names. The Glacier is an all-purpose plate, while the Frostbite is only for PLA and PETG. Either way, prints stick like mad to these plates, which solves most of your first layer problems. They work wonders for anyone trying to print articulated models, so they are a must have for any beginner who prints a lot of fun fidgets and toys. The plates come in assorted sizes to fit every brand of 3D printer out there, so if you’re buying as a gift, make sure you know what type of machine it needs to fit.

Filament Dryer and Storage Box from PolyMaker

Filament Dryer and Storage Box

PolyMaker: $63.99

There are a lot of good filament driers on the market, but the PolyDryer by PolyMaker is one of my favorites. This system uses a removable box that doubles as a storage container, so filament can stay inside the box indefinitely. Hot air from the Dryer Dock is blown through openings in (and drawn out of) the bottom of the storage box. Extra boxes cost $25.49 each (or 4 for $93.49) which can be a bit pricey for storing all your filament, but you can certainly keep a few special rolls nice and snug. The boxes are more than just cereal containers with spool holders: each has its own hygrometer, a spot for color changing desiccant, and a port to feed filament out of so you can print directly from the box. The Dryer Dock gets up to 70°C, enough to dry ABS/ASA and Nylon.

Vacuum Bags and Pump from EIBOS

Vacuum Bags and Pump

EIBOS: $38.99

Once you dry your filament, you want to keep it dry. A cheaper alternative to boxes are reusable vacuum bags with zipper tops. I like the ones by EIBOS, which come with a USB powered pump with an easy use valve on the bag that screws onto the pump, so you don’t need to keep pressure on the pump. It takes about 56 seconds to remove all the air, for a nice dry environment. The bags are custom-made for 1KG filament spools, with plenty of room to spare.

Silica Gel Packets from Dry & Dry

Silica Gel Packets

Dry & Dry: $8.99

Silica packets are incredibly helpful for keeping your filament dry. You can tuck them into filament storage bags and boxes, and every multimaterial box will have a cubbyhole to stuff with packets of desiccant. Though you could reuse the packets that come with new filament, Dry & Dry packets with orange indicator beads are better. The orange beads will turn green when they are saturated with moisture, letting you know it's time to dry them in the oven to revive them. It only takes 2 hours in the oven or 12 minutes in the microwave to get them good as new.

Nozzle Maintenance Kit from Wham Bam

Nozzle Maintenance Kit

Wham Bam, $17

Sometimes the tools that come with a 3D printer aren’t enough. Wham Bam makes a full service kit that fairly brand agnostic and will come in handy whether you have an old Ender or a brand new Bambu. You get a set of nozzle wrenches, needles, and ram rods style nozzle cleaners to force stuck filament out of your way. There’s also a mini silicone “Slap Mat” to protect your bed, a coil of cleaning filament and my favorite tool, a pneumatic depressor to get those pesky collets (or push connectors) to unclench from your Bowden tubes.

Gloop! from 3D Gloop!

3D Gloop!

$14.99 and up

It's not glue, it’s Gloop! Gloop is the perfect gift for any maker because even if they have some, they could use some more. Gloop is a specially formulated “science sauce” that chemically bonds plastics together by melting them a bit. This is way stronger than any glue on the market, as proven by 3D Gloop’s tug of war contests at 3D printing festivals. Due to the chemical interactions, there are specific formulas for the most popular plastics: PLA, PETG, and ABS/ASA. Gloop has a limited shelf life when exposed to air, so only buy the giant vat-o-gloop if you need to assemble a huge model.

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So is the €39 Arduino Uno Q just an updated Arduino Uno R4? Oh no, it is something much more. The Q stands for Qualcomm, which recently purchased Arduino and now has its Arm-based Dragonwing SoC on the Arduino Uno Q. Still, the Arm CPU isn’t alone, as the Arduino Uno Q also has an STM32U585 microcontroller. Essentially, an Arm Cortex M33 (the same as the Raspberry Pi Pico 2’s RP2350) that runs the Arduino sketches (your projects) alongside the main CPU.

Who is the Arduino Uno Q for? What can you build with it? Does it perform better than just buying a Raspberry Pi 3 and Pico 2? Let's find out.

• The Arduino Uno Q is the first Arduino board after Qualcomm’s recent acquisition of Arduino.
• The Arduino Uno Q can be used as a single board computer, or it can be used via USB or over a Wi-Fi connection.
• The board integrates a Qualcomm Dragonwing SoC for AI and LLM capabilities, with an STM32 microcontroller for real-time control of GPIO.
• The Arduino Uno Q supports a new IDE, Arduino App Lab, which integrates Python and Arduino’s C language to build projects.

Arduino Uno Q Specifications

Look and Feel of the Arduino Uno Q

At a quick glance, the Arduino Uno Q and the Arduino Uno R4 appear the same, but they are quite different. The first noticeable difference is the omission of a DC power jack. The older Arduino Uno boards had a DC barrel jack and in all my years of tinkering with Arduino, I probably used it less than a dozen times.. If you want / need to supply a power source greater than 5V, the VIN pin can be used with a 7-24V supply.

The USB-C port provides power (5V, 3A max) and data connectivity, allowing you to connect the Arduino Uno Q directly to your PC. It also provides, via a hub, access to DisplayPort / HDMI, USB, and power. Using the Arduino Uno Q with a USB-C dock, HDMI display, keyboard, and mouse takes some getting used to. By which I mean, actually sitting down and writing code directly on the Arduino board. In the past, I’d plug it into a PC, write some Arduino code in the IDE, compile and flash the code to the Arduino, and off it went. But sitting here in the Arduino App Lab, writing the code and uploading it to the STM32 just feels alien.

Interestingly, Arduino recommends using the 4GB model as a single board computer, yet the first model released is the 2GB, which leads to a subpar SBC experience. If you prefer the more traditional Arduino workflow, you can connect via USB or Wi-Fi to a PC running the Arduino App Lab. All of your code runs on the Arduino Uno Q, but development and creation take place on your much more powerful PC. This is my preferred means of using the Arduino Uno Q.

When powering up the Arduino Uno Q, the gorgeous 8 x 13 LED matrix illuminates to show an animated Arduino logo, a nice touch that distracts from the rather slow boot process, 34.6 seconds to be exact. Not horrific; the Raspberry Pi 5 is around 20-25 seconds, depending on whether you use a microSD or an SSD. But it feels like a long time for those of us used to powering up an Arduino and seeing the code run straight away.