LIAN LI's stars of the show this year are the head turning and showpiece worthy new Odyssey X, a morphable PC chassis with flare, and the revolutionary Concept UNI Fan, an aesthetically pleasing solution to cable clutter. To accompany its latest innovations, LIAN LI also launches a few new products such as the next generation of the TU and LANCOOL series chassis with the TU150 and LANCOOL II, and co-designed products with the O11D-Distro Block G1 and O11 Dynamic XL. In addition, LIAN LI will also be presenting its latest desk solutions with the DK-04 F and DK-05 F, as well as a new contender in the AIO field with the Galahad 240 CPU AIO. Once again, LIAN LI brings a successful lineup of solutions that are sure to make PC enthusiasts drool with envy.

ASUS at Computex 2019 showcased a myriad of products - as is usual, for one of the foremost PC hardware manufacturers. This news piece breaks down two of these products: the TUF Gaming VG27AQ monitor and the ROG STRIX 650 W Gold power supply. Starting with that which allows you to see, the TUF Gaming VG27AQ monitor features both ULMB and Adaptive Sync support (in the form of AMD's FreeSync and NVIDIA's G-Sync). Dubbed ELMB, the new feature allows the monitor to keep its Active Sync features active for super smooth gameplay, whilst enabling motion blur reduction - usually, a choice between the two technologies has to be made.

The 27" screen offers an IPS panel with a 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution, 1 ms response time and maximum 155 Hz refresh rate (Adaptive Sync works between the 40-155 Hz interval) over a DisplayPort connection (144 Hz max over HDMI). A maximum brightness of 350 cd/m² doesn't win any serious accolades, but is more than enough for gaming scenarios. Connectors stand at 2x HDMI 1.4 ports, 1x DisplayPort 1.2, and 2x USB 3.0 ports.

ASRock came to Computex 2019 with a fairly big selection of socket AM4 motherboards based on the AMD X570 chipset. The lineup is led by the X570 Taichi, launched as a single SKU and not differentiated into an "Ultimate" variant. ASRock retains the characteristic gearwheel style along the board's styling. Almost the entire bottom half of the board is covered by a metal shroud that spreads heat from the chipset heatsink, and three M.2 SSDs. The chipset heatsink's fan is concealed behind a grille to not look like an eyesore. New generation connectivity options from this board include 2.5 GbE wired + 2.4 Gbps 802.11ax WLAN, and USB 3.2 ports. The Taichi looks a little less understated than its predecessors, with more RGB LED embellishments.

We also spied the X570 Steel Legend, with its polarizing "urban camo" print, and bright metal meatsinks and I/O shrouds. The Steel Legend series motherboards command interesting sub-$200 price-points, and it will be interesting to see where this one lands. You get two M.2 NVMe slots, both with metal heatsinks, an M.2 E-key slot, open-ended x1 slots, and a reasonably powerful ALC1220-based onboard audio solution. We also spotted two Phantom Gaming products, the X570 Phantom Gaming X, and the X570 Phantom Gaming 4, with the Gaming X being the company's flagship X570 offering. This board maxes out the platform's connectivity with three M.2 NVMe slots, 802.11ax WLAN, 2.5 GbE wired networking, an additional 1 GbE interface driven by an Intel controller, USB 3.2, and a strong 16-phase VRM powering the AM4 socket. Like most other ASRock boards, the fan ventilating the chipset heatsink is concealed behind a grille.

Computer Upgrade King (CUK) is a new BTO (build-to-order) gaming PC manufacturer based out of Virginia, USA. Unlike other system integrators, CUK extends component choices all the way down to the cases. At Computex, the company showed off its Stratos Mini high-end desktop (HEDT), powered by an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX processor, AMD Radeon VII graphics, 32 GB of quad-channel DDR4-3000 memory, an ASRock X399M Taichi motherboard, and a SeaSonic Prime 1300W 80 Plus Gold PSU. Also shown off was the Continuum Mini, a compact powerhouse built around a mini-ITX motherboard. Its chops include the Core i9-9900K processor seated on an MSI MPG Z390I Gaming Edge AC motherboard; GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics, 16 GB of dual-channel DDR4-3200 Apacer NoX memory; and a 750W power supply.

AMD at its 2019 Computex keynote unveiled its Ryzen 3000 series desktop processors with the more glamorous Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 SKUs while glossing over its more high-volume Ryzen 5 3000 series. It turns out that AMD will launch even these chips on the 7th of July. The Ryzen 5 lineup includes the 3600X and 3600. Both these chips are 6-core/12-thread, and AMD is taking the fight to Intel's 9th generation Core i5 series by not touching the core-count and instead focusing on higher IPC and clock-speeds than Intel's offerings.

The Ryzen 5 3600X ticks at 3.80 GHz, with a boost frequency of 4.40 GHz, which is among the highest in the lineup. Its TDP is rated at 95W. The Ryzen 5 3600 is the 'cooler' offering of the two, with 3.60 GHz nominal and 4.20 GHz boost clocks, and 65W TDP. You get the same 512 KB of L2 cache per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache, as the 8-core Ryzen 7 series offerings. AMD is expected to price the two along expected lines, with the 3600X going for roughly USD $239, and the 3600 at $199.

ASUS at a private pre-Computex event gave us a closer look at a treasure of upcoming products. The star-attractions, however, were its AMD X570 motherboard family that's spread across nearly every brand: ROG Crosshair, ROG Strix, TUF Gaming, Prime, and for the very first time for the AM4 platform, the WS series. The crown jewel of course is the mini-ITX form-factor product, the ROG Strix X570-I Gaming. This board is quite an engineering feat considering the ≥15 Watts TDP of the X570 chipset, which requires active cooling in most cases. An intricate network of heatsinks suspended along heat-pipes leading up to a dense aluminium fin-stack ventilated by a 30 mm fan, cools both the chipset and CPU VRM. ASUS designed this board to handle even the 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X, but we don't expect too much overclocking headroom.

AMD at its 2019 Computex keynote today unveiled the Radeon RX 5000 family of graphics cards that leverage its new Navi graphics architecture and 7 nm silicon fabrication process. Navi isn't just an incremental upgrade over Vega with a handful new technologies, but the biggest overhaul to AMD's GPU SIMD design since Graphics CoreNext, circa 2011. Called RDNA or Radeon DNA, the new compute unit by AMD is a clean-slate SIMD design with a 1.25X IPC uplift over Vega, an overhauled on-chip cache hierarchy, and a more streamlined graphics pipeline.

In addition, the architecture is designed to increase performance-per-Watt by 50 percent over Vega. The first part to leverage Navi is the Radeon RX 5700. AMD ran a side-by-side demo of the RX 5700 versus the GeForce RTX 2070 at Strange Brigade, where NVIDIA's $500 card was beaten. "Strange Brigade" is one game where AMD fares generally well as it is heavily optimized for asynchonous compute. Navi also ticks two big technology check-boxes, PCI-Express gen 4.0, and GDDR6 memory. AMD has planned a July availability for the RX 5700, and did not disclose pricing.

AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su at her 2019 Computex keynote address announced the 3rd generation Ryzen desktop processor family, which leverages the company's Zen 2 microarchitecture, and are built on the 7 nm silicon fabrication process at TSMC. Designed for the AM4 CPU socket, with backwards compatibility for older AMD 300-series and 400-series chipset motherboards, these processors are multi-chip modules of up to two 8-core "Zen 2" CPU chiplets, and a 14 nm I/O controller die that packs the dual-channel DDR4 memory controller and PCI-Express gen 4.0 root complex, along with some SoC connectivity. AMD claims an IPC increase of 15 percent over Zen 1, and higher clock speeds leveraging 7 nm, which add up to significantly higher performance over the current generation. AMD bolstered the core's FPU (floating-point unit), and doubled the cache sizes.

AMD unveiled three high-end SKUs for now, the $329 Ryzen 7 3700X, the $399 Ryzen 7 3800X, and the $499 Ryzen 9 3900X. The 3700X and 3800X are 8-core/16-thread parts with a single CPU chiplet. The 3700X is clocked at 3.60 GHz with 4.40 GHz maximum boost frequency, just 65 Watts TDP and will be beat Intel's Core i7-9700K both at gaming and productivity. The 3800X tops that with 3.90 GHz nominal, 4.50 GHz boost, 105W TDP, and beat the Core i9-9900K at gaming and productivity. AMD went a step further at launched the new Ryzen 9 brand with the 3900X, which is a 12-core/24-thread processor clocked at 3.80 GHz, which 4.60 boost, 72 MB of total cache, 105W TDP, and performance that not only beats the i9-9900K, but also the i9-9920X 12-core/24-thread HEDT processor despite two fewer memory channels. AMD focused on gaming performance with Zen 2, with wider FPU, improved branch prediction, and several micro-architectural improvements contributing to a per-core performance that's higher than Intel's. The processors go on sale on 7/7/2019.

Who would have thought that Gigabyte - who don't manufacture controllers, nor memory - would be the first company to tease a PCIe 4.0-based M.2 SSD. In a blog post on its website that serves as a warm-up for the upcoming Computex, the company says that they'll be announcing the world's first PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD - with speeds up to 5000 MB/s at "low temperatures" - I guess that means that thermal throttling will become much more common with these new SSDs.

Any other details are currently unknown; however (and we're just speculating here), we know that Phison was preparing a PCIe 4.0 NVMe controller in the form of the E16. At the time (back in January of 2019), Phison paired their E16 controller with Micron's 96-layer TLC flash, but improvements in controller development as well as changes in the flash memory used could have brought up their - then - performance figures of expected 4.8/4.4 GB/s of read/write throughput on Toshiba's BiCS 4 flash. We'll just have to wait for Computex and see, but oh my - new PCIe 4.0 SSDs, new up-to 16-core CPUs on the 7 nm process, new 7 nm GPUs... Isn't this a great time to be a PC enthusiast? Read after the break for the rest of Gigabyte's Computex tease.

With AMD expected to launch its 3rd generation Ryzen processor family at the 2019 Computex, the show is expected to have unveilings of several compatible motherboards based on the new AMD X570 chipset. ASUS posted a collage picture that teases its upcoming X570 lineup. This appears to include boards from pretty much all of ASUS's brands, including the high-end ROG Crosshair, the upper mainstream ROG Strix, the mainstream TUF Gaming, and the sober Prime series. From this, the ROG Strix board appears to be the first one we've come across that doesn't use a fan-heatsink to cool the 15W TDP X570 chipset. The Ryzen 3000 "Matisse" processor and X570 chipset make up AMD's "Valhalla" desktop platform.

Can you believe it's been 10 years since MSI launched its flagship Lighting brand of graphics cards? Turns out we reviewed our first MSI Lightning card more than a decade ago! An MSI Lightning card has always been the indicator that a flagship GPU by NVIDIA or AMD has succeeded in winning the hearts, minds, and wallets of gamers, lest MSI wouldn't bother with one. MSI already released the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Lighting Z, and we reviewed it. Sources tell us that the MSI could be working on a second Lightning product based on the RTX 2080 Ti, which isn't a variation of the original, such as the RTX 2080 Ti Lighting Z with a water-block bolted on.

Named something along the lines of RTX 2080 Ti Lightning Z 10th Anniversary Special Edition, the card will look significantly different than the RTX 2080 Ti Lightning Z, and will ship with an on-card OLED display that puts out real-time monitoring data of the card's temperatures, clock-speeds, fan-speeds, voltages, memory utilization, or pretty much whatever you program it to. The card's cooler will also feature a more richly detailed RGB LED embellishment all around, and will be designed like a piece of jewelry. MSI may also touch up the card's electricals, BIOS, and overclocking-headroom to rival EVGA RTX 2080 Ti KINGPIN. MSI will unveil this card at the 2019 Computex exhibition.

A Sapphire product manager and PR director, speaking to the Chinese press spilled the beans on AMD's upcoming Radeon Navi graphics card lineup. It looks like with Navi, AMD is targeting the meat of the serious gamer market, at two specific price points, USD $399 with a "Pro" (cut-down) product, and $499 with an "XT" (fully-fledged) product. AMD has two NVIDIA products in its crosshairs, the GeForce RTX 2070, and the RTX 2060. In the interview, the Sapphire rep mentioned "stronger than 2070", when talking about performance numbers, which we assume is for the Navi XT variant - definitely promising. The $399 Navi "Pro" is probably being designed with a performance target somewhere between the RTX 2060 and RTX 2070, so you typically pay $50 more than you would for an RTX 2060, for noticeably higher performance.

Sapphire also confirmed that AMD's Navi does not have specialized ray-tracing hardware on the silicon, but such technology will debut with "next year's new architecture". They also suggested that AMD is unlikely to scale up Navi for the enthusiast segment, and that the Vega-based Radeon VII will continue to be the company's flagship product. On the topic of Radeon VII custom designs, Sapphire commented that "there is no plans for that". On the other hand, Sapphire is actively working on custom designs for the Navi architecture, and mentioned that "work on a "Toxic" version of Navi is complete, and it is watercooled". Many people have speculated that AMD will unveil Navi at its Computex keynote address on May 27. Sapphire confirmed that date, and also added that the launch will be on 7th of July, 2019.

AMD is giving finishing touches to its 3rd generation Ryzen socket AM4 processor family which is slated for a Computex 2019 unveiling, followed by a possible E3 market availability. Based on the "Matisse" multi-chip module that combines up to two 8-core "Zen 2" chiplets with a 14 nm I/O controller die, these processors see a 50-100 percent increase in core-counts over the current generation. The Ryzen 5 series now includes 8-core/16-thread parts, the Ryzen 7 series chips are 12-core/24-thread, while the newly created Ryzen 9 series (designed to rival Intel Core i9 LGA115x), will include 16-core/32-thread chips.

Thai PC enthusiast TUM_APISAK confirmed the existence of the Ryzen 9 series having landed himself with an engineering sample of the 16-core/32-thread chip that ticks at 3.30 GHz with 4.30 GHz Precision Boost frequency. The infamous Adored TV leaks that drew the skeleton of AMD's 3rd generation Ryzen roadmap, referenced two desktop Ryzen 9 parts, the Ryzen 9 3800X and Ryzen 9 3850X. The 3800X is supposed to be clocked at 3.90 GHz with 4.70 GHz boost, with a TDP rating of 125W, while the 3850X tops the charts at 4.30 GHz base and a staggering 5.10 GHz boost. The rated TDP has shot up to 135W. We can now imagine why some motherboard vendors are selective with BIOS updates on some of their lower-end boards. AMD is probably maximizing the clock-speed headroom of these chips out of the box, to preempt Intel's "Comet Lake" 10-core/20-thread processor.

AMD will launch its 3rd generation Ryzen 3000 Socket AM4 desktop processors in 2019, with a product unveiling expected mid-year, likely on the sidelines of Computex 2019. AMD is keeping its promise of making these chips backwards compatible with existing Socket AM4 motherboards. To that effect, motherboard vendors such as ASUS and MSI began rolling out BIOS updates with AGESA-Combo 0.0.7.x microcode, which adds initial support for the platform to run and validate engineering samples of the upcoming "Zen 2" chips.

At CES 2019, AMD unveiled more technical details and a prototype of a 3rd generation Ryzen socket AM4 processor. The company confirmed that it will implement a multi-chip module (MCM) design even for their mainstream-desktop processor, in which it will use one or two 7 nm "Zen 2" CPU core chiplets, which talk to a 14 nm I/O controller die over Infinity Fabric. The two biggest components of the IO die are the PCI-Express root complex, and the all-important dual-channel DDR4 memory controller. We bring you never before reported details of this memory controller.

Intel is rumored to refresh its high-end desktop (HEDT) platforms this Summer with new products based on the "Cascade Lake" microarchitecture. Intel now has two HEDT platforms, LGA2066 and LGA3647. The new "Cascade Lake-X" silicon will target the LGA2066 platform, and could see the light of the day by June, on the sidelines of Computex 2019. A higher core-count model with 6-channel memory, will be launched for the LGA3647 socket as early as April. So if you've very recently fronted $3,000 on a Xeon W-3175X, here's a bucket of remorse. Both chips will be built on existing 14 nm process, and will bring innovations such as Optane Persistent Memory support, Intel Deep Learning Boost (DLBOOST) extensions with VNNI instruction-set, and hardware mitigation against more variants of "Meltdown" and "Spectre."

Elsewhere in the industry, and sticking with Intel, we've known since November 2018 of the existence of "Comet Lake," which is a 10-core silicon for the LGA1151 platform, and which is yet another "Skylake" derivative built on existing 14 nm process. This chip is real, and will be Intel's last line of defense against AMD's first 7 nm "Zen 2" socket AM4 processors, with core-counts of 12-16.

AMD "Navi" is the company's next-generation graphics architecture succeeding "Vega" and will leverage the 7 nm silicon fabrication process. It was originally slated to launch mid-2019, with probable unveiling on the sidelines of Computex (early-June). Cowcotland reports that AMD has delayed its plans to launch "Navi" all the way to October (Q4-2019). The delay probably has something to do with AMD's 7 nm foundry allocation for the year.

AMD is now fully reliant on TSMC to execute its 7 nm product roadmap, which includes its entire 2nd generation EPYC and 3rd generation Ryzen processors based on the "Zen 2" architecture, and to a smaller extent, GPUs based on its 2nd generation "Vega" architecture, such as the recently launched Radeon VII. We expect the first "Navi" discrete GPU to be a lean, fast-moving product that succeeds "Polaris 30." In addition to 7 nm, it could incorporate faster SIMD units, higher clock-speeds, and a relatively cost-effective memory solution, such as GDDR6.

In a development that could explain why Intel is frantically stitching together 10 cores with the "Comet Lake" silicon, a slide leaked from a private event hosted by motherboard major GIGABYTE reveals that AMD's third generation Ryzen desktop platform could launch as early as Computex 2019 (June). The platform will include AMD's first client-segment processor based on its "Zen 2" microarchitecture, codenamed "Matisse," and its companion chipset, the AMD X570.

3rd generation Ryzen with X570 is expected to be the world's first mainstream desktop platform to feature PCI-Express gen 4.0. AMD could maintain the processor's backwards compatibility with older 300-series and 400-series chipset motherboards by shaping its PCI-Express implementation to use external re-drivers based on the motherboard. This could make 500-series motherboards slightly pricier than current AM4 motherboards. Backwards compatibility could mean that unless you really need PCIe gen 4.0, you should be able to save money by opting for older motherboards.

BIOSTAR today introduced the M500 line of solid-state drives in the M.2-2280 form-factor, with PCI-Express 3.0 x2 interface. These were first shown off at Computex 2018. The drives take advantage of the NVMe 1.2 protocol. Available in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB; the drives feature DDR3L DRAM caches of 256 MB, 256 MB, 512 MB, and 1 GB, respectively. Sequential performance numbers put out by the company are up to 1,700 MB/s reads, with up to 1,100 MB/s writes.

The drives pack a couple of handy innovations, beginning with the integrated metal heatspreader, which wraps around three sides of the drive. Near the end of the drive are two indicators - one is a green link/activity LED and the other is an RGB LED that indicates real-time temperature measured at the controller, with red being the hottest, green being the coolest, and yellow~amber indicating typical/normal temperature. The company didn't reveal pricing.

MSI today announced the MEG X399 Creation, its flagship socket TR4 motherboard, with out of the box support for 2nd generation AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2000 processors. The company showed off this board at the 2018 Computex, held this June. Although built in the ATX form-factor, this board is recommended only for EATX-capable cases. The highlight of this board is its gargantuan 19-phase CPU VRM that's optimized for overclocking event the 32-core Threadripper 2990WX. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, two 8-pin EPS, and an optional 4-pin Molex. Heat drawn from the CPU VRM MOSFETS is dissipated not just by a large heatsink that spans almost the entire width of the board, but also a secondary heatsink cooling the SoC phases, via a heat-pipe. The huge chipset heatsink cools not just the X399 chipset, but also three M.2-NVMe slots (two M.2-22110 and one M.2-2280). You get 4 more M.2-2280 slots over the new M.2-Xpander Aero, which is a PCI-Express 3.0 x16 riser card that converts the slot to four M.2-2280 slots with x4 wiring, ventilating them with a 100 mm fan. It ends up looking like a graphics card in doing so.

Expansion includes eight DDR4 DIMM slots supporting up to 2048 GB of DDR4 ECC memory; four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (full-time x16/x8/x16/x4), and an x1. Storage connectivity includes 7 M.2-NVMe slots (3 onboard, 4 via the included M.2-Xpander Aero accessory); and eight SATA 6 Gbps ports. Connectivity includes MSI's highest-grade onboard audio solution combining an ALC1220 with a headphones amplifier, and audio-grade capacitors; and two 1 GbE interfaces driven by Intel i219-V controllers (10 GbE is a notable absentee); and 802.11ac + BT 5.0 WLAN. You get 10 USB 3.1 ports on the rear panel (including a type-C port), and four USB 3.1 ports via front-panel headers). RGB LED diffusers dot the rear I/O shroud, the chipset heatsink, and the reverse side of the PCB. The board is expected to be priced around $500.

Raijintek at Computex 2018 showcased two true tower coolers and a low profile solution that stood smaller besides them. The MYA RBW and the Delos RBW stood tall in their RGB tower greatness, while the Pallas Micro stood true to its name, showcasing compact cooling performance in tight quarters.

The MYA RBW is Raijintek's coup-de-grace in the tower cooler camp, and features a 6x 6 mm heatpipe design with the usual radiator fin design, which feature specially-designed grooves to virtually increase turbulence and heat dissipation area. Raijintek say the MYA RBW can handle up to 250 W TDPs with its dual-fan-supporting design, and should be compatible with all AMD and Intel systems.

Today Lian-Li launches the Strimer a 24 Pin cable extension including full addressable RGB lighting module created in collaboration will world renowned overclocker and modder Der8auer. The innovative 24-pin ATX extension cable was honoured with the Computex design and innovation award for being the first of its type.

The two layer cable design comes with a PCI bracket controller through which users can change through 10 different RGB pre set modes as well as a digital RGB addressable header for those with the compatible motherboards.

We recently went hands-on with two of Streacom's latest creations unveiled this Computex. The Streacom DA2 is bigger than it looks in the images, yet small enough for a build sized just right for an executive's desk. The case is airy because of the gaps between the side panel and the top and bottom panels that aid convection; and the perforated side panel lets you suspend a 240 mm x 120 mm radiator. This is easier to show in a render where you can easily crop the length of an AIO liquid cooler's coolant tubes to be just right. The real-world demo build had a fairly tall top-flow air cooler. The SFX-L power supply mounted towards the front of the case, with its inlet facing the right side panel unclutters the interiors, and lets you mount a fairly long 2-slot graphics card into the ITX motherboard's sole PCIe slot.

At Computex 2018, SilverStone showed off additions to its premier case lines - Precision and Sugoi. The Precision series is expanded by the new PS07-E (working title) and PS15 micro-ATX cases. The PS15 features a refreshingly simple layout - the motherboard and PSU bays are accessible from the left side, while the drive cage from the right. This way your drive cable clutter, and unused PSU cables are tucked away on the left side, taking advantage of the crawlspace behind the motherboard tray. You get familiar design elements from SilverStone, including a meshed front panel, a large top vent with removable filters, and a tempered glass right side panel. There are five fan bays in all, of which three are 140 mm capable, all 120 mm capable. The case measures 190 mm x 365 mm x 351 mm (WxHxD).

Next up, is the PS07-E micro-ATX tower. This case features a solid brushed metal front unlike the PS15, and a characteristic "hump" up top, which slides down along rails to reveal a 5.25-inch drive bay, three USB 3.0 ports, and HDA jacks. The Sugoi TJ08-Pro is practically identical to this case, but has a meshed front fascia. Inside, both cases feature an upside-down (BTX-style) micro-ATX motherboard tray, bottom-mounted PSU bay, three 3.5-inch drive bays, and two additional 2.5-inch mounts; and a staggering four 140 mm fan mounts, in addition to the 120 mm rear exhaust.

Akasa at Computex, unveiled a wide range of fan-less aluminium cases for the 7th generation "Dawson Canyon" NUC boards. The company had alreadly launched the Pascal MD late-2017. Among the new cases are the Newton S7D, Newton D3, and the Plato X7D. The Plato X7D is the largest of the three, and is characterized by a lattice of aluminium ridges that work like heatsinks for the SoC and chipset of the NUC, and diamond-cut edges along the front panel. Front-panel connectivity includes two each of USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports. Besides rear I/O holes for "Dawson Canyon" series NUC boards, the case offers a stub for an RS232 (COM) port at the back. All three cases feature VESA mounts, so you can strap the NUCs behind your monitor and reduce clutter on your desk.

The Newton D3 is the most compact case of the three, and supports fewer NUC board models, namely the NUC7i3DNBE, NUC7i3DNKE, and NUC7i3DNHE (all of which have are low-TDP SoCs and fewer connectors). You still get a 2.5-inch drive bay, mount holes for your WLAN card's antennae, two USB 3.0 front panel connectors, an IR window, and an RS232 serial port provision at the back. The Newton S7D is its larger sibling, with more metal to the bone, to cope with higher TDP SoCs, and hence supports NUC boards based on Core i5 and Core i7 SoCs.

EKWB were full of updates at Computex this year, as seen in our other news post, but this did not stop them from unveiling wholly new concepts as it comes to the company. These are ideas that their R&D thinktank decided to explore beyond the norm, and first up is the creation of a new brand under the EK Special Projects (Spec) team that is tentatively named König, after their founder Eduard König. As we found out in person, Eddy has a passion for woodworking in addition to managing a company, and decided to combine the two. The new König brand intends to offer a personalized, made-to-order experience wherein they will work with the end user to design and manufacture products to match a lifestyle. This is currently built around solid wood of multiple varieties, three Slovenian version of which were shown at their suite, but they are open to working with other materials including carbon fiber, anodized aluminum, leather and so on. They shared some images of some example products as it pertains to watercooling (CPU block top covers, GPU blocks and backplate, fittings and so on) as well as modded cases with wooden panels as seen below. Be sure to also click on the story to read more on an entirely different concept from the company.