Leading global motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, proudly announces its new series of Intel B760 motherboards, including B760M Steel Legend WiFi, B760M Pro RS, and special edition B760M PG SONIC WiFi. These feature-filled motherboards are designed to bring supreme performance and the latest technologies - including up to PCI-Express 5.0 & overclocked DDR5 - to benefit more PC enthusiasts, gamers, and office/workstation builds than ever before. The B760 chipset is designed for the latest 13th Generation Intel Core 'K' or 'non-K' series processors (socket LGA1700), while also supporting the previous 12th generation.

Followed by the success and critical acclaim of the ASRock Z790 PG SONIC, the company has released another officially licensed motherboard featuring SEGA's Sonic the Hedgehog: the B760M PG SONIC WiFi. Based on the mainstream Intel B760 chipset, this micro ATX motherboard features all the exciting SONIC elements in a small form factor and budget friendly design.

Just over a month ago, news broke that NVIDIA is planning to move its logistics center from Hong Kong to Taiwan and it now looks like AMD is getting ready to follow suit. The news is coming via Taiwan's United Daily News (UDN) and the paper claims that AMD will be setting up its logistics center in the Farglory free trade zone area in the Dayuan district of Taoyuan, which is next to Taiwan's main international airport. Currently companies like ASML and Asus operate inside the free trade zone and Farglory is currently in the last phase of an expansion of the free trade zone, which should be finalised sometime early in 2023. As such, there should be plenty of space for both NVIDIA and AMD to set up their logistics centers there.

The move for AMD doesn't seem to make as much sense as that of NVIDIA, as AMD's main graphics card partners, which should be Sapphire and XFX (Pine Group), are Hong Kong based companies. That said, AMD still has PowerColor, ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte and MSI in Taiwan, but only PowerColor is an exclusive AMD partner. This does of course not take motherboards or servers into account, where its Taiwanese partners are key. On the other hand, just as NVIDIA, AMD produces its GPUs at TSMC, so for products that doesn't end up in the PRC, it would make more sense to have them go straight to a logistics center in Taiwan, rather than having to ship them out to Hong Kong and then back to Taiwan again. According to UDN it's apparently also cheaper for AMD to shop goods directly from Taiwan to the PRC, as it's apparently quite costly to ship via Hong Kong. Another reason is of course the ongoing trade war between the US and the PRC, which could lead to future issues for both AMD and NVIDIA. Hong Kong has also slowly lost its importance as a key center in the electronics business, with Taiwan and Singapore having become more important hubs, according to UDN.

ASRock, the leading global motherboard, graphics card and mini PC manufacturer, today launched the new AQUA, Taichi and Phantom Gaming series graphics cards based on AMD Radeon RX 7900 Series GPUs.

The new graphics cards are built on the groundbreaking AMD RDNA 3 architecture with chiplet technology. AMD RDNA 3 architecture delivers up to 54% more performance per watt than AMD RDNA 2, features the world's fastest interconnect linking the graphics and memory system chiplets at up to 5.3 TB/s, and offers up to 96 new unified compute units and second-generation AMD Infinity Cache technology. It also delivers increased AI throughput that provides up to 2.7X higher AI performance, and rearchitected compute units with second-generation ray tracing technology that provides up to 1.8X higher ray tracing architectural performance in select titles versus AMD RDNA 2 architecture.

As we're getting closer to the official launch date, pictures of AMD Radeon RX 7900-series cards from both ASRock and XFX have tipped up online. The ASRock cards are part of its Phantom Gaming and Taichi series of cards, whereas the XFX card is part of the MERC line. Sadly none of the cards appear to sport a USB-C port, suggesting that it's not a feature that any of the OEM's have thought worthwhile to include in their custom board designs.

The ASRock Phantom Gaming cards appear to be 2.5-slot cards, whereas the Taichi cards are triple slot. The Phantom Gaming cards seem to be equipped with a short backplate that only covers the rear of the PCB, rather than the full length of the card, with the Taichi cards seemingly having a full-length backplate. The XFX MERC 310 also appears to be a 2.5-slot design, but it has a very different backplate design which appears to act much more as a heatsink than most backplate designs we've seen to date. The fact that it appears to be made of a large chunk of aluminium that wraps around the back edge of the card is also rather unusual. XFX also appears to have gone with the same size for its RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX cards. We can also see that XFX has gone for three 8-pin power connectors for their cards.

Here's the first picture of the ASRock Radeon RX 7900 XTX AQUA, marking the debut of the company's top-of-the-line AQUA brand to its graphics card lineup. The ASRock AQUA line of motherboards come with liquid monoblocks that let you cool the processor, chipset, and CPU VRM using your own DIY liquid-cooling loop. The Radeon RX 7900 XTX comes with a factory-fitted full-coverage water block. The OEM of this block is unknown (could be either CoolIT or Bitspower). The block features a nickel-plated copper primary material, with an acrylic top and vinyl film for the brushed-aluminium look. The top is studded with addressable RGB LEDs. The block sits on top of ASRock's most premium custom-design PCB for the RX 7900 XTX, which pulls power from three 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

A while back, some ASRock motherboards showed up with an eDP connector, which seemed odd, as outside of the embedded market or notebooks, eDP isn't commonly found. ASRock has now revealed what it's for, namely a 13.3-inch display, or side panel kit as the company calls it. In other words, this is a 13.3-inch display that mounts inside your case, assuming you have a tempered glass side panel. It's meant to be used as a secondary display, rather than just being some kind of diagnostics tool, which similar products on the market today end up being. The display uses an IPS panel and has a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, with a refresh rate of 60 Hz and a brightness of 300 cd/m², so nothing out of the ordinary there.

However, ASRock provides a custom eDP cable with a 40-pin connector, as well as four mounting brackets, some cable clips and even extra adhesive strips, in case you'd want to move the display to a new case in the future. The panel measures 300.26 x 193.01 mm (W x H), so it might not fit all cases. ASRock also points out that you need to have a clear, transparent tempered glass side panel for optimal usage of the display, as a tinted panel would for obvious reasons reduce the light that could be transmitted through the glass. The panel is compatible with the ASRock Z790 LiveMixer, Z790 Pro RS/D4, Z790M-ITX WiFi, Z790 Steel Legend WiFi, Z790 PG Lightning, Z790 Pro RS, Z790 PG Lightning/D4, H610M-ITX/eDP and B650E PG-ITX WiFi motherboards.

Today Intel launched its 13th gen Core processors alongside the Z790 chipset, which in turn lead to a lot of new motherboards being available. However, it appears that ASRock is working on a special edition of its Z790 PG Riptide board that has something of an unusual twist. The board is known as the Z790 PG Sonic and appears to be some kind of cooperation with Sega, since the board carries clear Sonic the Hedgehog branding.

The board seems to be some kind of limited edition version of the Z790 PG Riptide, as we can't spot any features that have changed, at least not based on the pictures posted by @momomo_us on Twitter. The top of the board has Sonic themed heatsinks, as well as some of the printing on the PCB and the rear is adorned with a rather large Sonic in white on the black PCB. Obviously the packaging is also adorned with a Sonic print, but there doesn't appear to be any other connection to Sonic or Sega, which makes the whole partnership a bit of a mystery at the moment, but it's highly likely that we're looking at a limited edition product for the Asian markets here.

ASRock today launched its Arc "Alchemist" A770 and A750 custom-design graphics cards. These include the A770 Phantom Gaming OC, and the A750 Challenger OC. The A770 maxes out the 6 nm ACM-G10 silicon, featuring all 32 Xe Cores (4,096 unified shaders); besides 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory; whereas the A750 gets 28 Xe Cores (3,584 unified shaders), and 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory. Both of ASRock's cards come with 8 GB of memory across a 256-bit wide memory bus, there's no 16 GB version of the A770 Phantom Gaming.

The ASRock A770 Phantom Gaming features a premium, RGB-illuminated cooling solution that's also found in the company's Radeon RX 6000-series Phantom Gaming graphics cards. This card also offers a factory-overclock of 2.20 GHz compared to 2.10 GHz reference. The cooler features a dual fin-stack heatsink with five 6 mm-thick nickel-plated copper heat-pipes that make indirect contact with the GPU over a copper base-plate. The dual ball-bearings fans come with idle fan-stop. There's a switch to manually turn off RGB lighting.

Intel announced the general availability of the Arc A770 and A750 performance-segment desktop graphics cards. This includes Intel's reference-design Limited Edition cards, and custom-design ones by the likes of ASRock, Gunnir, and Acer, among other OEMs. The A750 has a baseline price of USD $289, the A770 8 GB at $329, and the A770 16 GB at $349.

Based on the Xe-HPG "Alchemist" graphics architecture, the A750 and A770 are carved out of the same 6 nm ACM-G10 silicon. The A750 is configured with 28 Xe Cores, 448 EU, or 3,584 unified shaders; whereas the A770 maxes it out with 32 Xe Cores, 512 EU, or 4,096 unified shaders. Both cards get 256-bit wide GDDR6 memory interfaces, and while the A750 uses 16 Gbps memory (512 GB/s bandwidth); the A770 has 17.5 Gbps (560 GB/s).

Leading global motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, is proud to announce its new lineup, LiveMixer. There are Z790 LiveMixer and B650 LiveMixer for Intel's and AMD's new platform separately, which are produced in partnership with content creators that need motherboards with superb reliability, cutting-edge performance and an extended connectivity mix for the many auxiliary devices required for streaming. LiveMixer is the incarnation of valiance. It sets us free from the concrete jungle with its colorful graffiti. The stylish pattern represents the courage and bravery we possess to speak up for ourselves and try new things enriching life.

"We've studied the need of live streaming for a long time, and here comes our first LiveMixer that helps streamers to stream in great quality with its well VRM design, additional PCIe slots and twenty-plus USB ports." Says Chris Lee, Vice President of ASRock Motherboard & Gaming Monitor Business Unit. With a maximum of 23 USB ports to connect external devices, users will never run short. Hook up every peripheral, whether it's mice, keyboards, microphones, headsets, multiple cameras, fill-lights, macropads, and much more. Equipped with dual PCI-Express 4x slots & Thunderbolt header, The LiveMixer allows users to connect a graphics card, a high-speed capture card and a Thunderbolt add-in card at the same time.

ASRock is shaping up to be the first major custom-design Intel Arc "Alchemist" board partner with a footprint in the EU and North America. The company is ready with a pair of custom-design Arc A770 products based on its key gamer-focused brands. The first of these is the ASRock A770 Phantom Gaming OC. This card features a meaty triple-slot Phantom Gaming cooling solution, complete with RGB LED illumination. It should also feature the company's highest state of tuning for the A770. The next of the custom-design cards is the Arc A750 Challenger. This card features clean 2-slot, dual-fan design, and a factory-overclock. It's also likely that ASRock is extending the Challenger OC treatment to the A770.

Leading global motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, is proud to announce its AMD B650E/B650 motherboard series. These motherboards are targeted at the mainstream AM5 segment featuring various exciting new products such as our flagship B650E Taichi, the high-end B650E Steel Legend Wi-Fi for high end market, B650E PG Riptide Wi-Fi and B650 PRO RS for mainstream users, and B650 PG Lightning a new SKU joining the Phantom Gaming family targeted the entry level market. ASRock also offers the new B650E PG-ITX WiFi for small form factor enthusiasts.

ASRock went all-out on its VRM design by creating a 24+2+1 phase Smart Power Stage (SPS) Dr.MOS on the B650E Taichi series, providing users with the most powerful AM5 platform it can offer ready to unlock maximum CPU performance. The flagship ASRock B650E Taichi motherboards are equipped with many exciting features and technologies such as PCIe 5.0 technology for graphics cards and M.2 SSDs, an incredible IO that includes the latest USB4 offering a fast and simple level of connection for work or home.

Unfortunately there's no pricing attached to this leak, unlike the earlier pricing details for MSI's B650 motherboards from B&H, but Videocardz has managed to get the specs for ASRocks upcoming B650 and B650E motherboards. Once again we're looking at a collection of seven models, four B650E and three B650 models in total. Something interesting to note that Videocardz is pointing out, is that only the cheapest board in the lineup has a six layer PCB, with most models using an eight layer PCB and the Mini-ITX board is going up to 10 layers. In other words it seems like most entry level boards are now using high-end PCBs, due to the transition to PCIe 5.0.

The base model is the B650 PG Lightning, which is a pretty feature stripped motherboard, yet all PCIe slots are said to be PCIe 4.0 and it has a pre-installed I/O shield. It comes with 2.5 Gbps Ethernet, but WiFi is optional. At least there's a rear mounted 20 Gbps USB-C port here and the board has a total of three M.2 slots, of which one is PCIe 5.0. On the same kind of level sits B650 Pro RS, which is a step down in the sense that one of the M.2 slots PCIe 3.0 x2 and it has fewer PCIe slot, but it appears to have slightly fancier cooling for the VRMs and it gains a DisplayPort output around the back.

This one is likely to go down ASRock's internal history as a failure of sticking proportions. Namely, it seems that some ASRock motherboards in the newly-released AM5 X670 / X670E family carry stickers overlaid on the DDR5 slots. The idea was to provide users with a handy, visually informative guide on DDR5 memory stick installations and a warning on abnormally long boot times that were to be expected, according to RAM stick capacity. But it seems that these low-quality stickers are being torn apart as users attempt to remove them, leaving behind remnants that are extremely difficult to clean up and which can block DRAM installation entirely or partially. I, for one, would never install a DDR5 module if I thought there was a chance for some paper bits to have fallen on to the DRAM slots - paper and glue bits within the DRAM slots don't seem particularly conducive to a successful motherboard POST.

In the meantime, the company has already announced that it's not only aware of the problem, it's willing to accept RMAs for motherboards that sport the impossible-to-cleanly-peel stickers (consumers should contact their retailers and e-tailers for the exchange). Information around forums where this issue is being discussed don't seem to point to any instance of actual motherboard damage resulting from the stickers - enough patience or an entire motherboard exchange seem to be two solutions to this problem. The company also announced that its latest motherboard batches on AMD's X670 chipsets no longer carry the stickers themselves, due to several BIOS-level improvements that have brought down the boot times, making the informative stickers unneeded. Still, when one takes into account the consumer and company cost of activating an RMA process, it seems that the company shouldn't have skimped on the sticker quality itself.

Leading global motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, proudly announces its new series of Intel Z790 motherboards supporting the latest 13th Generation Intel Core Processors. ASRock's Z790 series includes premium Z790 Taichi, including a new Special Edition Z790 Taichi Carrara, in addition to Z790 Steel Legend WiFi targeting high-end users, Z790 PRO RS, Z790 PG Lightning and Z790 PG Riptide designed for mainstream users, and also the Z790 PG-ITX/TB4, a powerful mini ITX motherboard with Thunderbolt 4 for small form factor lovers.

If you've been keen on finding out some more details about the upcoming Z790 based motherboards for Intel's upcoming 13th gen Core processors, then we got good news for you. VideoCardz got hold of a treasure trove of board pictures from ASUS, ASRock and MSI for those interested in taking a look at what will be on offer next month from Intel's partners. There are no big surprises when it comes to the leaked board models, but there are one or two things that are worth pointing out.

The ASUS leak is limited to four boards, two Prime models, one TUF board and the ROG Maximus Z790 Hero, which is unlikely to be the top-of-the-range board. ASUS seems to have held back a bit with the Hero board compared to its AM5 equivalent, but it's a bit hard to tell from the picture. ASRock is carrying over its limited edition Carrara look for its Z790 Taichi board and ASRock will also have a Mini-ITX board with Thunderbolt 4 support. MSI will also offer a Mini-ITX board, with a black PCB and white heatsinks and a white rear I/O shield. No additional specs were provided, outside of what can be seen in the pictures. There are additional pictures after the break.

With only a couple of days to go until the official retail availability of the Ryzen 7000-series CPUs and accompanying X670 and X670E motherboards, early pricing of the motherboards are starting to crop up in Europe. Courtesy of @momomo_us we now have pricing from an unknown European retailer for 11 ASUS models, as well as MSI's Godlike board. We also managed to dig up some additional pricing over at Geizhals, which is a European price comparison site, for five ASRock models and one from Gigabyte. Hopefully we're looking at placeholder pricing here, as it's not looking good in terms of value for money. Admittedly, ASUS is known for charging a premium over its competitors, but it's not looking good anywhere right now.

Starting with @momomo_us pricing and MSI for no specific reason, its upcoming MEG X670E Godlike is listed at €2,399 and that doesn't include any kind of liquid cooling accessories. This has to be one of the most expensive consumer motherboards ever, if this is the actual retail pricing it'll sell for. Moving over to ASUS, its Prime X670-P model is listed at €418.53, with the WiFi version jumping to €446.89. This is the first indicator that these are not the actual retail prices, as WiFi versions of motherboards tend to have a $/€/£10-20 premium over non-WiFi models. We're not going to go over every individual board price here, simply look at the attached pictures, but based on these early prices, ASUS has two models for well over €1,000, the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero and the ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme, with the latter being listed at €1,486.95.

Leading global motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, is proud to announce its X670E motherboard series, ready for new AMD Ryzen 7000 Series processors. This first wave of AMD Socket AM5 motherboards includes Special Edition X670E Taichi Carrara, flagship X670E Taichi, high-end X670E Steel Legend, mainstream X670E PRO RS, and entry X670E PG Lightning.

"With the AM5 platform we're investing in the next generation of high-performance computing and gaming," said David McAfee, Corporate Vice President and General Manager, Client Channel Business Unit, AMD. "With the continued support of best-in-class partners like ASRock, AMD is bringing the most advanced features and technologies to desktop. The X670 Extreme is designed to bring the best connectivity and ultimate overclocking with PCIe 5.0 support."

ASRock Arc A380 Challenger ITX graphics card started selling in Europe. German retailer Mindfactory has it listed at 189€, including taxes (non-referral link), and is ready to ship. This is possibly the first listing of the A380 in the EU. Until now, you needed to import the A380 from China (sold by GUNNIR), or from the US, where the ASRock card has been listed on Newegg for a few weeks now. The ASRock A380 Challenger ITX uses an aluminium monoblock heatsink not unlike Intel CPU HSFs, but ventilated by a noise-optimized single 100 mm fan. The card is 19 cm long, and so bags ITX chops. ASRock is running the A380 at a boost frequency of 2.25 GHz, while the memory ticks at 15.5 Gbps (GDDR6-effective). The card features a single 8-pin PCIe power connector.

Here's the first picture of a custom-design Intel Arc A750 "Alchemist" graphics card, in this case, an ASRock Arc A750 Challenger. ASRock showed the card off at its Tokyo Game Show 2022 booth. The strictly 2-slot thick card appears to have a fairly well-endowed aluminium fin-stack cooling solution featuring a pair of large 100 mm fans. Its cooling solution uses two aluminium fin-stacks skewered by a number of copper heat pipes. The card draws power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and features some illumination in the way of an illuminated Arc logo.

The Arc A750 is based on the same 6 nm "DG2-512" silicon as the A770 Limited Edition—which looks increasingly like an Intel-exclusive that will only be sold in its reference design. While the A770 maxes out the chip with all 32 Xe Cores being enabled (512 EUs, or 4,096 unified shaders), the A750 gets 28 Xe Cores (448 EUs, or 3,584 unified shaders). It also gets 8 GB of 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit wide memory interface (512 GB/s bandwidth), 448 XMX units (accelerates AI and features like XeSS), and 28 RT units. The reference engine clock of the A750 is set at 2.05 GHz, although it's likely that the ASRock Challenger is a factory-overclocked card.

The leading global motherboard, graphics card, and small form factor PC manufacturer, ASRock, announces entering the gaming monitor market with the Phantom Gaming range for gamers completing the gaming solution. ASRock's new Phantom Gaming monitors, including PG34WQ15R2B and PG27FF1A are designed for the FPS, RCG, and other fast-paced games.

"Our goal is to create gaming lineups across the board," said Chris Lee, Vice President of ASRock motherboard & gaming monitor business unit. "We are ecstatic to announce Phantom Gaming monitor, committed to making high-performance and reliable products to gamers." ASRock Phantom Gaming monitors, PG34WQ15R2B and PG27FF1A, will be based on 165 Hz refresh rate and 1 ms (MPRT) response time, which means gamers can be one step ahead of opponents during gameplay. Furthermore, Phantom Gaming monitor offers highly competent functions such as HDR, Flicker-free, and FreeSync Premium technologies, allowing gamers to enjoy incredible gaming experience.

ASRock will announce no fewer than thirteen motherboard models based on the upcoming Intel Z790 chipset, the top chipset option for the 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" desktop processors. "Raptor Lake" is backwards-compatible with Intel 600-series chipset motherboards; and the Z790 is expected to support 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" processors, since both generations share Socket LGA1700. ASRock's lineup is led by the Z790 Taichi, and its variant that features a white-marble finish, the Z790 Taichi Carrara, several models in the Phantom Gaming (PG) series, including the PG Riptide, PG-ITX/TB4, and new extensions including the PG Sonic, and PG Lightning. The Sonic Mixer brand that's making a debut with the AMD X670 chipset is also to be seen here. There's just the one Steel Legend SKU, and a couple of PRO series. The list also mentions one model based on the mid-tier B760 chipset.

Leading global motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, has built new BIOS decreasing AM5 booting time. ASRock is dedicated to providing products with the best user-experience. The new BIOS providing better compatibility and shorter booting time has been built, and it will be available on ASRock website after product launch. Besides, all ASRock X670E/X670 motherboards support BIOS flashback, which allows users to update their motherboards to the newest BIOS with merely 24-pin power supply and a USB drive.[Editor's Note: This news post will provide more context.]

At this point, we don't know if this is a limitation at AMD's level or ASRock's, but someone with access to a retail ASRock X670E Steel Legend motherboard, with all its packaged paraphernalia in place, spotted an interesting sticker covering the board's four DDR5 DIMM slots. The sticker has some info on the ideal DIMM slot selection for dual-channel memory (4x sub-channels); but what catches our eye is a table which states just how long the motherboard will take to train the memory the first time it's booted up, or after a clear-CMOS operation (where your BIOS settings are erased).

The table says that a typical setup with two 16 GB modules (read: two single-rank modules in a 1 DIMM per channel/1DPC configuration), takes 100 seconds to train (or until first boot). Two 32 GB modules (typically a pair of dual-rank modules in 1DPC configuration) take 200 seconds, as do four 16 GB modules (four single-rank modules in a 2DPC configuration). The least optimal config, four dual-rank modules in a 2DPC configuration, takes a whopping 400 seconds (almost 7 minutes) to train. That's 100 to 400 seconds of a black screen, or no display signal, enough to unnerve anyone and assume something is DOA.Update Sep 2nd: The source behind this story confirmed that this is an ASRock-level issue, and that it's been "fixed" with the latest BIOS.

Update Sep 8th: This has been fixed according to ASRock.

With AMD announcing an October 2022 debut of its mid-range Socket AM5 motherboard chipset, the AMD B650E and B650; manufacturers appear to be ready with a fairly broad selection of products targeting various price-points. The B650E and B650 are expected to have a lighter I/O feature-set than the X670E/X670, and will enable manufacturers to sell motherboards at prices starting at $125. Two of the leading manufacturers, ASUS and ASRock, are ready with their product lists.

The initial ASUS motherboard lineup for the AMD B650E and B650 chipsets include just one product in the mainline Prime series, as many as four from the TUF Gaming series, and two from the ROG Strix series. From these, only one is based on the B650E (meaning, it gets a PCI-Express 5.0 x16 slot besides the M.2 Gen 5 slot). The others are based on the vanilla B650 (PCI-Express 4.0 x16 slot besides M.2 Gen 5 slots). None of the boards has more than 4 SATA 6 Gbps ports. The board to watch out for will be the ROG Strix B650E-E Gaming WiFi, as it could bring several high-end features into the mid-range, and if previous generations of AMD chipset are anything to go by, the B650/E retains CPU overclocking support.