We live in strange times, with GALAX releasing HOF Black Edition graphics cards, and now ASUS dishing out an ROG Strix White Edition. Unlike GALAX, ASUS limited its whitewash to the cooler shroud, the fan impellers, the back-plate, and even the various internal cables (fans, lighting, etc.,) while leaving the PCB black. The cooler shroud has RGB LED embellishments at the same spots as the original ROG Strix RTX 2080 Ti, so you can play with color.

The card ships with 1770 MHz GPU Boost frequency, and an untouched 14 Gbps (GDDR6-effective) memory. The GPU Boost frequency in particular is significantly higher than the 1650 MHz of the ROG Strix RTX 2080 Ti O11G, and closer to the 1800 MHz that the ROG MATRIX RTX 2080 Ti ships with. The ROG Strix RTX 2080 Ti White Edition is priced at 1,600€ (including taxes).

With AMD "Valhalla" desktop platform mainstreaming PCI-Express gen 4.0, several SSD manufacturers put out their first products that can take advantage of it, this Computex. The drive with the highest on-paper transfer rates has to be the HOF E16 from GALAX, which will also be sold under the Galaxy and KFA2 brands in various markets. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor, the drive features an M.2 PCI-Express 4.0 x4 host interface (backwards-compatible with older PCIe generations), with 64 Gbps of interface bandwidth on tap. The drive comes in capacities of 1 TB, 2 TB, and segment-first 4 TB.

The HOF E16 uses the same heatsink GALAX deployed on the older generation of HOF M.2. A block of aluminium pulls heat from the drive's controller, while a flattened copper heat-pipe spreads heat across. The drive is based on the new Phison E16 controller that's cushioned by an LPDDR4 DRAM chip, and wired to 96-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory. The drive offers sequential read speeds of up to 4,800 MB/s, and sequential writes of up to 4,000 MB/s. 4K random reads are rated at up to 750,000 IOPS, and 4K random writes up to 700,000 IOPS.

High-end M.2 NVMe SSDs are beginning to come with integrated heatsinks as overheating controllers impact sustained performance. The latest such drive is a new edition of the Hall of Fame (HOF) M.2 PCIe series from Galaxy, which come with a chunky aluminium heatsink, only this one isn't just another hunk of metal. This heatsink uses a flattened copper heat pipe to pull heat from the drive's hot components and spread it evenly along both sides of the aluminium block. The heat pipe makes direct contact with the drive's Phison PS5012-E12 8-channel controller and Toshiba-made 64-layer 3D TLC NAND flash chips.

The heatsink wraps around sideways of the drive and so it may not be a perfect fit for NVMe RAID cards with multiple M.2 slots side-by-side, although for most applications, such as the M.2 slot on the motherboard, the design could click. The drive comes in capacities of 512 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB. All three models offer sequential read speeds of up to 3400 MB/s. The 1 TB and 2 TB models write at up to 2800 MB/s, while the 512 GB writes at up to 2000 MB/s. 4K random access performance of the 2 TB and 1 TB models are rated at up to 400,000 IOPS reads with up to 600,000 IOPS writes; and up to 400,000 IOPS reads with up to 540,000 IOPS writes for the 512 GB model. The drive is initially being launched in China, and could make its way to western markets under the Galax and KFA2 brands later this year.

Galax is readying compact 17.5 cm long GeForce RTX 2070 and RTX 2060 for the Japanese market, distributed exclusively by Kurouto Shikou. The common board design for both models retains its short length despite not being taller than the ATX standard height, and is no thicker than 2-slot. It uses a dense aluminium fin-stack heatsink that's ventilated by a pair of 80 mm fans. The RTX 2070 Mini (GK-RTX2070-E8GB/MINI) ticks at GPU Boost frequencies of 1620 MHz, while the RTX 2060 Mini (GK-RTX2060-E6GB/MINI) does 1650 MHz. Both cards offer one-each of DisplayPort, DVI, and HDMI; and draw power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector.

Pictures, and not renders, of GALAX GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics cards are the first real indicator of the existence of the GTX 1660 Ti, its wacky name, and the fact that it's based on the "Turing" architecture minus RTX technology (real-time ray-tracing). Thanks to NVIDIA's SKU box design standardization, the front face of the box reveals that the card is indeed based on the newer "Turing" architecture, with an emphasis on "shaders." This indicates CUDA cores based on the newer architecture, minus RTX technology. We also see a confirmation that the 6 GB of memory on tap is based on the newer GDDR6 standard. Pictures of the box were snapped up by someone unboxing a crate of these cards to stock up a retailer. The card is rumored to be launched as early as 15th February, with availability later this month.

The EU-specific brand of GALAX, KFA2 today rolled out its latest flagship graphics card in the old continent, the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Hall of Fame (HOF). In true tradition of this brand extension, the card is all-white - including its cooler shroud, fans, back-plate, and the PCB. The custom-design PCB pulls power from a trio of 8-pin PCIe power connectors located at the tail-end of the card rather than on top of it, and conditions it using a 16+3 phase VRM, to support an out-of-the-box speed of 1635 MHz boost, which isn't much higher than the NVIDIA-reference 1545 MHz, but is probably set to leave you a lot of manual OC headroom to play with. The memory is unchanged at 14 Gbps (GDDR6 effective).

The cooling solution uses a large aluminium twin-stack heatsink to which heat drawn from the GPU is fed to the fin-stacks by six nickel-plated copper heat pipes that make direct contact at the base. Additional contact points in the heatsink pull heat from the memory chips and MOSFETs. Three 100 mm fans ventilate the heatsink. The top of the card features an LCD matrix display that can put out live monitoring of temperature, fan-speed, and voltages. When interfaced with an app, it can also put out other details such as clock-speeds and memory utilization. The back-light illumination to this display, along with an ornament on the back-plate, are RGB LED illuminated. The card features two BIOS ROMs switchable via a push-switch. Both BIOSes run the card at the same clock-speeds, however, the second BIOS ramps up power-limit and stiffens the fan-curve. Available now, the KFA2 GeForce RTX 2080 Ti HOF is priced at 1,899€ (including VAT).

KFA2, the EU-centric co-brand of GALAX launched its GeForce RTX 2070 EX and RTX 2070 EXOC graphics cards in the old continent. Both cards combine a standard-height PCB, mated with a custom-design cooling solution. This cooler features an aluminium fin-stack heatsink that's ventilated by a pair of 100 mm spinners that stay off when the GPU is idling. The fans and a decal on top of the card are RGB LED illuminated. The RTX 2070 EX sticks to NVIDIA-reference clock speeds, with a GPU Boost frequency of 1620 MHz, while the RTX 2070 EXOC dials up the GPU Boost frequency to 1815 MHz. Available from late-December in the EU, the RTX 2070 EX is priced at 519€, and the RTX 2070 EXOC at 569€.

Port Royal is the name of the latest component of UL Benchmarks 3DMark. Designed to take advantage of the DirectX Raytracing (DXR) API, this benchmark features an extreme poly-count test-scene with real-time ray-traced elements. Screengrabs of the benchmark depict spacecraft entering and leaving mirrored spheres suspended within a planet's atmosphere, which appear to be docks. It's also a shout out to of a number of space-sims such as "Star Citizen," which could up their production in the future by introducing ray-tracing. The benchmark will debut at the GALAX GOC Grand Final on December 8, where the first public run will be powered by a GALAX GeForce RTX 2080 Ti HOF graphics card. It will start selling in January 2019.

While GALAX has introduced numerous solid graphics cards over the years, their product names are a bit of a mouthful, or in some cases just odd. The latest example being their EX OC "White Gamer" line, which, let's face it, is a tad off-putting to say the least. Of course we know that GALAX aren't racist, but you have to wonder how something like this happens. It probably comes down to marketing focusing too much on buzzwords, forgetting the context of said words in the process. In my humble opinion you can trace it back to the fact every company has to stick "Gaming" in every product name or on every box. In this case you would think the fact the product is a graphics card for gaming would be enough to get the point across.

It all started with MSI in 2013, when NVIDIA Kepler was all the rage. They released the "MSI GTX 780 Gaming", which was an amazing product, better than what most other graphics cards vendors had to offer. Competitors were surprised by the success of MSI's new cards and instead of searching into the reasons for their own products failures, their conclusion was that it must be the "Gaming" name, that drove the sales, so suddenly everybody started to fluff up their product names.

GALAX has announced availability of their OC Lab Edition GPU Pot, a non-plant-based solution for users to cool their graphics cards with. The OC Lab Edition GPU Pot is fully made of 99.9% purity copper, which allows it to withstand up to -196 ºC. Not many more details are available for now, except pricing, and it's something to definitely not smile about: the OC Lab Edition GPU Pot will cost users $229.99.

GALAX, however, being a customer-friendly brand, are suggesting users put down an order for three of these OC Lab Edition GPU Pot alongside three of their own Galax HOF OC Lab WC cards, which go for $1,799... netting you a $600 discount on the pots. So, yeah. There's that. If you want it.

GALAX spilled the beans on the specifications of two of NVIDIA's upcoming high-end graphics cards, as it's becoming increasingly clear that the company could launch the GeForce RTX 2080 and the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti simultaneously, to convince GeForce "Pascal" users to upgrade. The company's strategy appears to be to establish 40-100% performance gains over the previous generation, along with a handful killer features (such as RTX, VirtuaLink, etc.,) to trigger the upgrade-itch.

Leaked slides from GALAX confirm that the RTX 2080 will be based on the TU104-400 ASIC, while the RTX 2080 Ti is based on the TU102-300. The RTX 2080 will be endowed with 2,944 CUDA cores, and a 256-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface, holding 8 GB of memory; while the RTX 2080 Ti packs 4,352 CUDA cores, and a 352-bit GDDR6 memory bus, with 11 GB of memory. The memory clock on both is constant, at 14 Gbps. The RTX 2080 has its TDP rated at 215W, and draws power from a combination of 6-pin and 8-pin PCIe power connectors; while the RTX 2080 Ti pulls 250W TDP, drawing power through a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors. You also get to spy GALAX' triple-fan non-reference cooling solution in the slides below.

It's not just fast memory, but also fast storage from GALAX this Computex. The company unveiled three new SSD products, beginning with the Hall of Fame (HOF) E12 AIC PCIe SSD. This drive features signature HOF styling, complete with the white PCB, and a silvery shroud. There's also a dash of RGB LED lighting elements along the top and front of the shroud. The drive comes in 1 TB capacity, and combines 3D TLC NAND flash with new Phison PS5012-E12 controller. The drive takes advantage of PCI-Express 3.1 x4 and the NVMe 1.3 protocol. The drive is capable of sequential speeds of up to 3400 MB/s reads, with up to 3000 MB/s writes, and 4K random access speeds of up to 600,000 IOPS.

Next up, is the GALAX One 2.5-inch SATA drive. The model shown has 240 GB capacity, and combines MLC NAND flash with Phison PS3111-S11 controller, to serve up sequential transfer rates of up to 520 MB/s reads, and up to 460 MB/s writes, and 4K random access speeds of up to 90,000 IOPS reads, with up to 80,000 IOPS writes. Lastly, there's the GamerRGB, a 2.5-inch SATA drive with 256 GB capacity, the same PS3111-S11 controller, but RGB LED lighting. The company didn't reveal performance numbers for this drive.

GALAX unveiled its Hall of Fame (HOF) Extreme series limited edition DDR4 memory with a staggering speed rating of DDR4-5000. Featuring a gold-plated heatspreader, this 16 GB (8 GB x2) dual-channel kit ticks at DDR4-5000 with timings of 21-36-36-46, and at 1.50V. If that's a little too much to handle, there's also an identical-looking kit with DDR4-4700 speeds, with tighter timings of 19-26-26-46, at 1.50V.

There's also chrome/silver colored kit clocked at DDR4-4500, with 19-19-19-39 timings and 1.40V DRAM voltage, though it lacks the limited edition tag. Getting into the mid-range of this series, we find the HOF Extreme DDR4-3600 kit, with a similar design, but matte-white heatspreaders, 17-18-18-38 timings, and safer voltages of 1.35V. The gateway to this series is the HOF Extreme DDR4-3200, with 16-18-18-38 timings, at 1.35V, and a matte-black heatspreader.

GALAX and its EU-specific brand KFA2 announced the SNPR external graphics enclosure, with a factory-fitted GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB graphics card. Measuring 165 mm x 156.5 mm x 73 mm (WxDxH), and weighing in at 1.38 kg, the enclosure relies on an external power brick. Internally, it's a stack-up of three key components, the main-board which takes in power and Thunderbolt 3 (40 Gbps) host connectivity, and puts out a PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot; the extremely compact graphics card PCB, and the custom-design fan-heatsink cooler, which combines an aluminium fin-stack heatsink, with a pair of 70 mm spinners, to keep cool.

The enclosure is made of SECC steel, that's perforated along three sides. Display outputs from the card include one each of DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0, and dual-link DVI-D. The internal GTX 1060 6 GB graphics card ticks at factory-overclocked speeds of 1531 MHz core, 1746 MHz GPU Boost, and 8.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective) memory (against reference clocks of 1506/1709 MHz). An external 230W power-brick (included) supplies power to the unit. Available now, the KFA2/GALAX SNPR GTX 1060 6 GB is priced at 499€ in the EU, including taxes.

GALAX' EU-regional wing KFA2 rolled out the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti EX-SNPR White graphics card. A step above the GTX 1070 Ti EX graphics card, the SNPR White comes with a white metallic cooler shroud, while fan impellers, white LED lighting over the fans, and a white metallic back-plate with RGB LED diffusers. RGB LEDs line the periphery of the back-plate, and the "GeForce GTX" decal on top of the card. The card ships with NVIDIA-reference clock speeds of 1607 MHz core, and 1683 MHz GPU Boost. Its memory ticks at 8.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective).

Drawing power from a combination of 6-pin and 8-pin PCIe power connectors, the card conditions it using a 7-phase VRM. It uses a custom-design aluminium fin-stack heatsink that's ventilated by a pair of 100 mm fans, which stay off when the card is idling. Display outputs include three DisplayPort 1.4, and one each of HDMI 2.0 and DVI-D. Based on the 16 nm "GP104" silicon, the GTX 1070 Ti features 2,432 CUDA cores, 152 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 8 GB of memory. The KFA2 GeForce GTX 1070 Ti EX-SNPR White is priced at 479€ (including VAT).

GALAX has seemingly found itself in a profitable market position with its products marketed for the premium enthusiast, with their (perspective depending) bold good looks and out of the ordinary propositions for new products. Now, the company has announced an extremely limited edition kit (really; there are just 50 of these) of DDR4 memory, aptly named the HOF Extreme Limited Edition. The "Extreme Performance" engraving on the aluminum heat spreaders serves as a psychological reminder for the kits that they just "gotta go fast", and should put to rest concerns regarding memory performance.

Under the heatspreaders rest handpicked Samsung B-die chips, which should guarantee better performance and stability compared to other memory dies (particularly in the AMD Ryzen platform). The modules are available for direct purchase from the GALAX store, and the company is currently offering a 20% discount for users who have previously acquired one of the company's GALAX GTX 1080Ti OC Lab Edition. The kits are available in 16 GB (2x 8GB) dual-channel pairs, and orders will receive free shipping with an estimated shipping date towards the end of the month. The kits run at particularly impressive speeds of 4133MHz, with CL 19-21-21-41 timings, at 1.35V. Pricing is slightly less limited in this product, though; a dual-channel kit will set you back some $368 (around $294 if you have previously bought the OC Lab Edition GTX 1080 Ti.)

GALAX is apparently on the verge of launching two GPU overclocking-specific products, materialized in the HOF Power Board and an LN2 memory pot kit. Built to increase overclockability in your graphics card of choice, the GALAX power board will allow you to feed the GPU with way more power than it is designed to receive - provided you have decent cooling for the increased temperatures and operating voltages. And with the caveat of whether or not your GPU manufacturer of choice allows such changes in voltage.

Around one year ago, GALAX introduced their Gamer DDR4 memory kits, which counted with LED illumination - these were not RGB parts, mind you, and instead, you had to choose between either Red, Green or Blue LEDs with matching color lid. But the times, they are a-changing, and nowadays, pure LED illumination isn't enough: gamers want permanent customization ability, so they can keep cycling kaleidoscopic colors around them at a whim.What the GALAX Gamer III line-up does well is that their RGB prowess comes absent of any unsightly extra cables for separate RGB power; like the G.Skill Trident Z, these make do without any extra wiring. However, where these fall short is on frequency and timings. It's almost as if the added LEDs reduce DRAM performance, since these kits will (at least for now) only be available in 2666 MHz frequency kits with CL 15... Which, for a company such as GALAX, with its over the top GPUs, seems slightly anemic. GALAX has yet to announce which motherboard manufacturers will support RGB controls, pricing, or actual availability dates (so, all the important bits.)

GALAX today introduced its more affordable custom-design GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card, the EXOC White. The card combines an NVIDIA reference-design PCB with a custom-design cooling solution that's characterized by its milky white shroud and fan impellers, and a white back-plate. Under the shroud is a strong aluminium fin dual-stack heatsink that employs five 6 mm-thick copper heat pipes to distribute heat drawn directly from the GPU die, to two aluminium fin-stacks, which are ventilated by a pair of 90 mm fans, which stay off when the GPU is idling. The cooler also features white LED illumination.

The GALAX GTX 1080 Ti EXOC White ships with factory-overclocked speeds of 1531 MHz core, 1645 MHz GPU Boost, and an untouched 11 GHz (GDDR5X-effective) memory, against NVIDIA reference speeds of 1480/1582 MHz (core/boost). Galaxy's EU-specific brand, KFA2, also unveiled an identical version of this card under its name. The company didn't reveal pricing.

This here is probably the most beautiful AIB partner card I've ever seen (and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so you are naturally free to disagree with me.) The pristine color scheme and subdued backplate design really stand out for me, as does the white PCB. Nitpicking, I hoped the power cables would not be color coded as they are, but I guess that would invite disaster.

GALAX is marketing the KATANA as the world's first single-slot GTX 1070 single-slot graphics card with a maximum thickness at just 16 mm, which is an engineering feat in itself. The card leverages a "legendary turbo radiator" (it's funny how the renders show a white warning sign next to the cooling fan with a "CAUTION Hot Surface" warning, though that's probably needed there to avoid any lawsuits from burns resulting from touching the card while gaming.)

The card features a RazorX cooling technique, with copper fins and a vapor chamber that "maintain cooling performance even in thermally challenging scenario(s)". The GALAX GTX 1070 KATANA uses a single 8-pin connector, and video output is taken care of by 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x HDMI 2.0b, and a single DL-DVI-D connector. Clocks on the card are reported at 1518 MHz base, and 1708 MHz boost clocks. I wince at the noise and heat this baby must put out, and wonder how much it's going to be thermally throttled, but I guess those are necessary drawbacks for what is otherwise an interesting single-slot design.

GALAX has detailed their Founders Edition NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card, "packed with extreme gaming horsepower, next-gen 11 Gbps GDDR5X memory, and a massive 11 GB frame buffer." As a casual reminder, the GTX 1080 Ti packs 3584 CUDA Cores, and runs at a 1480 MHz Base Clock and a 1582 MHz Boost Clock. The 11 Gbps GDDR5X memory chips deliver 484 GB/s memory bandwidth over a 352-bit bus. The GTX 1080 Ti's most interesting details, aside from its performance metrics and its $699 price tag, are the upgrade to a 2x dual-FET design, alongside a vapor-chamber cooling solution

All in all, there isn't much that differentiates the "Founders Edition" graphics cards from NVIDIA's AIB partners, save for the box art. I for one don't find my confidence and enthusiasm renewed by the clown's sight, but... Your mileage may vary?

Joining in on other manufacturer's offerings for low-profile graphics solutions for HTPCs and other small fomr factor PCs, GALAX has recently announced that they too will be offering low-profile variants of the GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti graphics cards. With 2 GB and 4 GB of GDDR5 at 7 Gbps respectively, both over a 128 bit bus, both cards make do without any additional power connectors, making do with exclusive power delivery from the PCIe socket.

The core clocks are set at 1303 MHz and 1366 MHz base clocks for the 1050 and the 1060 Ti respectively, with boost clocks seeing a healthy (but somewhat traditional)n uplift to 1417 Mhz and 1468 Mhz. As to connectors, both cards carry 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x DVI-D, and 1x HDMI 2.0b. Considering the cards' characteristics, they probably won't be sold much higher than NVIDIA's reference MSRP for both cards: $139 for the GTX 1050 Ti and $109 for the GTX 1050.

GALAX, at its GEC 2016 special event, unveiled a host of new graphics cards. While it's likely that all of these are designed for the Chinese market, one of the cards piqued our interest - the world's first single-slot GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card (as captioned by Chinese tech publication XFastest). This could even be a GTX 1060, looking at the visual similarities the PCB of the card shares with GTX 1060 Founders Edition. Given the 150W TDP of the GTX 1070, a single-slot card can certainly not be ruled out. The card appears to feature a dense copper fin-channel heatsink through which air is guided by a lateral-flow fan, covered by a metal cooler shroud with an industrial design. GALAX could launch this card some time in 2017.

GALAX whitewashed its GeForce GTX 1060 6GB EXOC graphics card with its "White Edition" variant. The Galaxy subsidiary, which shares much of its product design with sister-brand KFA2, gave the card the distinctive milky-white color-scheme Galaxy brands are famous for, except it didn't go the whole way. The white color-scheme is limited to the cooler shroud, fan impellers, and the full-length back-plate. The underlying PCB, however, remains black.

The GALAX GTX 1060 6 GB EXOC White Edition serves up factory-overclocked speeds of 1556 MHz core, 1771 MHz GPU Boost, and an untouched 8 GHz (GDDR5-effective) memory, against NVIDIA reference speeds of 1506/1709 MHz. The card draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector. An aluminium fin-stack heatsink featuring 8 mm-thick nickel-plated copper heat pipes, and a pair of 90 mm fans, keeps the card cool. GALAX didn't reveal pricing or availability.