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Almost every graphics card vendor makes an all bells and whistles version of a particular GPU. It might be one that's heavily overclocked or one that follows a particular theme, but nearly all of them have a decent enough cooler to keep things well under control. Asus, on the other hand, might reckon it has them all beat because it's teamed up with Noctua once more to create what possibly might be the coolest and quietest RTX 5080 you can buy.

Previous collaborations between the two companies created the likes of the GeForce RTX 3070 Noctua OC Edition, and for Nvidia's last generation of GPUs, Asus and Noctua produced a very similar-looking RTX 4080 Noctua Edition. Sporting just two of the famous brown-and-beige fans, the cards were known for being very cool and quiet, albeit being seriously thick.

The Asus RTX 3070 Noctua Edition lording it over a normal graphics card. (Image credit: Future)

At this year's Computex event, Asus proudly displayed its newest Noctua collab: a GeForce RTX 5080 with what must be one of the chonkiest coolers I've seen in a long time. That's because it's host to three Noctua fans, rather than the usual two.

Given that a normal RTX 5080 has a TGP (total graphics power) of 360 W, all those fans might seem sensible, but RTX 4080 isn't that far behind, at 320 W. Asus' RTX 5080 Noctua Edition does have a higher boost clock than the Founders Edition, though, running up to 2,730 MHz compared to the standard 2,617 MHz.

But that's a mere 4% overclock, so perhaps it's possible to squeeze even more out of the RTX 5080 Noctua Edition. After all, Dave, our hardware head honcho, managed to get over 500 MHz more out of an RTX 5080—an overclock of 40%!

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I have to say that while I'm a fan (pun sort of intended) of Noctua's classic colour scheme, and I really liked the chunky look to the RTX 3070 Noctua card, I feel a bit disappointed with the new RTX 5080 Noctua Edition.

Sure, it's about as thick a graphics card as you could ever want, requiring four slots in your chassis, but that brown shroud hides too much of Noctua's lovely fans.

Computex 2025

(Image credit: Jacob Ridley)

Catch up with Computex 2025: We're stalking the halls of Taiwan's biggest tech show once again to see what Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and more have to offer.

The original Noctua Editions all have a gloriously cobbled-together affair to them, as if you'd strapped the luxury fans to the heatsink yourself. This new one just seems like any other Asus RTX 5080, just brown in colour, and that's a real shame.

I reckon Asus and Noctua should make something truly spectacular, no matter how ridiculous or expensive it turns out to be.

High-end graphics cards are already priced into the realms of ridiculousness, so a quadruple or quintuple Noctua-equipped RTX 5090 would sell just as well as any other 5090. Mind you, it might be so chonky that you'd never fit one inside your PC without doing some serious metal work.But that's fine by me. Ultra-chunky, ultra-brown, ultra-beige. The perfect Noctua collab.

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While OLED gaming monitors might be a stretch goal for many of us, miniature versions are already being crammed into VR headsets. Much like their bigger, desktop-dwelling cousins, however, the price can be pretty prohibitive. Pimax may be bucking that trend, as it's announced the Dream Air SE, a lighter weight, slightly lower-specced version of its Dream Air Micro-OLED VR headset with a much cheaper pre-order price than the standard model.

It's still $899 for the Lighthouse version, which comes without controllers. Boo. Still, that's a full $1,000 cheaper than the non-SE controllerless version, and what you're getting in the headset itself is still pretty impressive.

Two 2,560 x 2,560 resolution Micro-OLED panels sat behind tailored pancake lenses, for a start. That's not quite as impressive as the 3,840 x 3,552 resolution Sony versions you'll find in the standard Dream Air, but the SE should be much less hardware-demanding as a result. And it's still a fair few more pixels than the 2,064 x 2,208 you'll find in each LCD panel of our current best VR headset pick, the Meta Quest 3.

Plus you get integrated audio and eye tracking, and the whole headset weighs less than 150 grams, which makes it significantly lighter than many traditional headsets I've strapped to my skull over the years. It's a downright gorgeous-looking design, too, if you're into the "I-just-fell-through-an-Apple-factory-in-Cyberpunk-2077" aesthetic.

Should you wish for the luxury of included controllers (and Pimax's camera-based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping technology, negating the need for a base station tracking solution), you'll be looking at a total cost of $1,199. The best VR headsets we've tested to date are significantly cheaper than that, but none of them come with Micro-OLED screens, and they don't come cheap.

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That price isn't exactly chump change, granted—but compared to the $2,099 you'd pay for the controller-including regular Dream Air (or the ludicrous $3,499 you'd pay for an Apple Vision Pro), I'd say it's a relatively reasonable sum.

If that's still too pricey a proposition to pay in one go, you could take a look at the Pimax Prime membership program, which lets you pay off the base price of a headset before paying instalments on the rest, with a discount available for the one-off payment in relation to the standard retail price.

It's all a bit overcomplicated if you ask me, but if Micro-OLED VR is where your dreams lie but the price is holding you back, it's probably worth considering.

I haven't had a chance to get hands-on with the Dream Air myself, but I did visit the Pimax booth at CES 2025 for a play around with its Crystal Light VR headset, and the results were impressive.

Virtual reality

(Image credit: Valve)

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I've never been particularly sold on VR in general, but as a newly-discovered flight sim fan I have to say it really adds something to the experience of bombing around in a fighter jet in DCS World.

Plus, our main critique of the Pimax Crystal Light is its overall bulkiness. The Dream Air and Dream Air SE look downright svelte by comparison, which matters when you plan on wearing something attached to the front of your face for a sweaty, adrenaline-filled gaming session.

Now, where did I put my wallet? Oh, that's right—I've locked it away to prevent myself from buying more gorgeous tech I don't necessarily need. Want, though? Most definitely.

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Last year, Wizards of the Coast announced that when the three core books that formed Dungeons & Dragons' updated 2024 ruleset were out, the essence of those rules—the System Reference Document, or SRD—would be made available under a Creative Commons licence. And now, it has.

This is a big deal because, while D&D's 5th edition rules SRD was previously available under the terms of the Open Gaming Licence, or OGL, it was potentially subject to revision. Letting the basics of the most popular tabletop RPG be used by third-party developers—who could sell their creations and retain the rights to them—had made more niche publications like Weekend at Strahd's and the Uncaged series possible. But when a draft of a possible restriction to the OGL leaked a couple of years ago, the community reacted with outrage.

Releasing this new SRD, version 5.2, under the Creative Commons—specifically the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY-4.0)—means it can't be taken back. And third-party publishers citing it only need to include a single sentence rather than the whole chunk of text the OGL required.

SRD 5.2 also includes more stuff than SRD 5.1 did. It contains multiple feats rather than just one, for starters. It also includes the 2024 update's weapon masteries, 20 more spells, 15 magic items, rules for playing a goliath or orc, and a bunch of additional monsters—the 2024 version of the Monster Manual added a fun rule where a troll's arm or leg could get cut off mid-fight and keep attacking you, which is now part of the SRD, as are rules for Bugbear Stalkers, Swarms of Crawling Claws, Vampire Familiars, and more.

What's not in the SRD are rules for trademarked monsters like illithids and beholders, or the artificer class, rules for bastions, or for playing an aasimar (a person who is part-celestial being, and a counterpart to the tiefling's part-fiend). "These exclusions are based on brand identity protection, licensing strategy, and intellectual property rights", Wizards of the Coast explained in its FAQ.

It's still a chunky 361-page PDF. If you're not looking to create your own D&D material but would just like to learn how to play, Wizards of the Coast also uploaded the new D&D Beyond Basic Rules to give you a way in if, say, you've put 100 hours into Baldur's Gate 3 and would like to take this thing out for a spin around a table with your friends.

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