The "Zen" CPU micro-architecture seems to be turning AMD's fortunes as it reported its first black quarter in years. The 14 nm "Zeppelin" or "Summit Ridge" die is at the heart of this change. This 8-core CPU die is implemented on everything from performance mobile packages, to single-die mainstream-desktop socket AM4 under the Ryzen 3, Ryzen 5, and Ryzen 7-series, 2-die high-end desktop (HEDT) multi-chip modules under Ryzen Threadripper, and the 4-die enterprise multi-chip modules under the EPYC brand. The next logical step for AMD with its new "Zen" CPU IP was to fuse it with the "Vega" graphics architecture, and give its APU lineup a much needed overhaul. At the heart of this move is the new 14 nm "Raven Ridge" silicon.

While "Summit Ridge" is the combination of two "Zen" CCX (quad-core CPU complex) units making up an 8-core CPU die that lacks integrated graphics, the "Raven Ridge" silicon combines one "Zen" CCX with an integrated graphics core based on the "Vega" architecture. AMD's new Infinity Fabric interconnect ferries data between the CCX and the iGPU, and not an internal PCIe link. The CCX houses four "Zen" CPU cores with 64 KB of L1I cache, 32 KB of L1D cache, 512 KB of dedicated L2 cache, and 4 MB of L3 cache shared between the four cores.

NVIDIA has dropped the next piece of the Pascal puzzle into place. Dubbed the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, it promises higher gaming frame rates and smoother VR experiences than the standard 1070 without completely blowing your budget. We've deployed the chip in several new graphics cards, including a range-topping ROG Strix model whose binned GPUs and beefy cooling are perfect for overclocking, and a streamlined ASUS Turbo that sticks to the essentials.

With 2432 CUDA cores, the GTX 1070 Ti boasts 27% more pixel-processing horsepower than the vanilla 1070. The 1683MHz Boost clock is the same, putting you within striking distance of the GTX 1080 at 2560 cores and 1733MHz. You get 8GB of dedicated video memory with each GPU; the Ti pushes GDDR5 to 8 Gbps, just like the GTX 1070, while the 1080 opts for pricier GDDR5X at speeds up to 11Gbps.

BenQ rolled out the ZOWIE XL2536 gaming monitor featuring DyAc (Dynamic Accuracy). This 25-inch (24.5-inch viewing area) monitor features Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) resolution, but bolstered by 144 Hz refresh-rate, and 1 ms (gray to gray) response-time. The DyAc feature helps keep the screen steady in fast-paced game sequences by compensating for motion-blur from the game. In theory, this should improve your accuracy in first-person shooters that have gun recoil mechanics. There's also an OSD crosshair to help you out with aim. The Black eQualizer feature improves contrast in dark areas of an otherwise bright 3D scene, letting you spot campers hiding in the dark.

Other key specs of the ZOWIE XL2536 include 320 cd/m² maximum brightness, 1,000:1 static, and 12M:1 dynamic contrast ratios. The monitor features a non-PWM method of controlling brightness of its LED back-lighting, making it flicker-free. Display inputs include one each of HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.2, and dual-link DVI-D. Other features include a 2-port USB 3.0 hub, and audio jacks. The stand allows height, tilt, and swivel adjustments. The company didn't reveal pricing.

HP posted the datasheet of its upcoming 2-in-1 notebook PC, the ENVY x360 15-bq101na, which could be the world's first implementation of AMD's upcoming 14 nm "Raven Ridge" APU. The silicon combines a quad-core "Zen" CPU with an integrated graphics core based on the "Vega" GPU architecture. The datasheet speaks of an "AMD Ryzen 5 2500U" processor powering the machine.

The Ryzen 5 2500U is being described as featuring a quad-core CPU clocked at 2.00 GHz with 3.60 GHz boost frequency, and 6 MB of cache. This could very well be total-cache, since that's how AMD likes OEMs to advertise cache on its chips, which works out to 512 KB of L2 cache per core, and 4 MB of shared L3 cache. The graphics core features the branding "AMD Radeon Vega M," confirming that this chip is indeed a derivation of "Raven Ridge."

MSI today rolled out the Optix AG32C, a gaming-grade 32-inch (31.5-inch viewing area) monitor, with an 1800R curvature. Despite its colossal panel size, the monitor only puts out Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) resolution. Lending to its gaming-grade credentials are 165 Hz maximum refresh-rate, 1 ms response time, and support for AMD FreeSync technology. Other vital specs include 178°/178° viewing angles, 3000:1 static contrast-ratio, and 250 cd/m² maximum brightness. Display inputs include HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.2, and dual-link DVI. Other features include an anti-flicker brightness adjustment, OSD crosshairs, etc. The company didn't reveal pricing.

GIGABYTE rolled out what it claims to be the shortest GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card, the GV-N1080IX-8GD. With a length of just 169 mm, the card is significantly shorter than the 211 mm length of ZOTAC GTX 1080 Mini, the previous record-holder for the smallest GTX 1080 graphics card. The card features a dense aluminium fin-stack heatsink to which heat drawn directly from the GPU is conveyed by copper heat pipes; and ventilated by a single 90 mm fan, which remains off when the card is idling.

Out of the box, the GIGABYTE GTX 1080 Mini comes with NVIDIA-reference clock speeds of 1607 MHz core, 1733 MHz GPU Boost, and 10.00 GHz (GDDR5X-effective) memory, but a software-enabled OC mode spools up GPU clocks to 1632/1771 MHz. The card draws power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, and conditions it using a 5+2 phase VRM. Based on the 16 nm "GP104" silicon, the GeForce GTX 1080 features 2,560 CUDA cores, 160 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5X memory interface, holding 8 GB of memory. Display outputs include three DisplayPort 1.4, and one each of dual-link DVI and HDMI 2.0. The company didn't reveal pricing.

GIGABYTE today introduced the Aorus AC300W, an ATX mid-tower chassis designed for gaming PC builds, which lets you take advantage of the VR-Link feature of some of the recent Aorus-branded graphics cards. The case features a front-panel HDMI 2.0 port, which internally plugs into the VR-Link HDMI port of your Aorus graphics card. The front-panel also features a type-C USB 3.1 port, and two other USB 3.1 type-A ports; besides HDA front-panel audio jacks. The AC300W is made mostly of steel and ABS plastic, with a brushed aluminium-finish front panel, and an acrylic side-panel window. It is studded with RGB LEDs along two front-panel design accents, an Aorus logo, and a second Aorus logo on the bottom compartment cover, visible through the window. These LEDs plug in directly to the RGB LED headers of your motherboard, and can be controlled using GIGABYTE RGB Fusion software.

Under the hood, the AC300W has a horizontal dual-compartment layout which is all the rage, these days. The top compartment holds a standard ATX motherboard with add-on cards as long as 400 mm, and CPU coolers as tall as 170 mm. The bottom compartment holds a PSU up to 180 mm in length, and two 3.5-inch/2.5-inch drive bays. Three additional 2.5-inch drives can be mounted behind the motherboard tray. While the case has 7 expansion slot bays, two additional slots are designed such that you can mount your graphics card vertically, using a PCIe riser (not included). You can mount either three 120 mm or two 140 mm fans along the front panel, two 140 mm fans along the top panel, and a 140 mm fan along the rear panel. The front fan mounts include a detachable dust filter. The company didn't mention pricing.

ViewSonic Corp., a leading global provider of visual solution products, introduces the VP2785-4K, a 27-inch 4K UHD (3840x2160) monitor that delivers precise and consistent color representation and performance to ensure incredible image quality. Built to deliver unmatched color accuracy for professional color-critical applications, the ViewSonic VP2785-4K ensures vibrant and intense color reproduction, making this monitor the perfect display solution for photographers, video and content producers and editors.

The ViewSonic VP2785-4K offers 4K UHD resolution, a wide color gamut and consistent performance with 99 percent Adobe RGB and 98 percent DCI-P3 colors and factory calibration to achieve Delta E <2 across multiple color spaces. Hardware calibration capability allows users to ensure best-in-class color accuracy, while the built-in uniformity function guarantees screen consistency. With USB 3.1 Type C, HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort, Mini DisplayPort 2.1 connectivity options, the VP2785-4K can be used with a variety of external devices. The HDCP 2.2 input provides content protection for 4K content playback, streaming and gaming.

AMD's AM4 socket really is shaping up to be one of the company's most versatile to date. From true quad-core CPUS (just now available through Ryzen 3's launch through to veritable svelte behemoths 8-core, 16-thread CPUs, AM4 has something for every consumer. AMD is now taking that show further with the release of the Bristol Ridge family of APUs, which includes eight APUs and three CPUs. While pricing wasn't announced at time of writing, the top-priced part should fall below the $110 mark and bottom out at $50, so as not to collide with AMD's Ryzen 3 1200 (although these products aren't specifically overlapping anyway.)

AMD's new entry-level processors will hit a maximum of 65 W TDP, with the top spot being taken by the 2-module, 4-threads A12-9800, running at 3.8 GHz base and 4.2 GHz Turbo. This part holds a Radeon R7 GPU with 512 Stream Processors (GCN 1.3, the same as in the Fury GPUs) running at 800 MHz Base and 1108 MHz Turbo. There are three 35 W parts (denoted by a capital E after the model name.) One thing users should take into account is that the Bristol Ridge APUs deliver a maximum of 8x PCIe 3.0 lanes - thus rendering a multi-GPU solution unfeasible.

BenQ, internationally renowned provider of digital lifestyle devices, introduced today SW271, a 4K UHD 27" monitor offering industry-standard HDR10 support and advanced color performance for photographers. Covering 99% of Adobe RGB, and 100% of both sRGB and Rec. 709, SW271 delivers the ultimate color accuracy of Delta E≦2 performance with its 10-bit IPS panel and advanced 14-bit 3D lookup table (LUT). "We are proud to present SW271, which joins our full line of professional monitors purpose-engineered for photographers," said Conway Lee, President of BenQ Corporation. "SW271 brings photo enthusiasts professional-grade performance, specialized tools, and advanced calibration for color-critical applications."

To display each color across its broad color gamut with perfect accuracy, SW271 utilizes an advanced 14-bit 3D LUT to achieve Delta E values of two or better. Technicolor Color Certified to meet strict color accuracy standards used in Hollywood and entertainment media, SW271's 10-bit 27" IPS panel delivers authentic colors as envisioned by content creators. Producing intense photographic realism and color depth by expanding the dynamic range between true darkness and high brightness, SW271 clearly displays high-resolution images from sophisticated DSLRs and other HDR source devices.

ASUS rolled out the VP28UQG, a 28-inch gaming-grade monitor with 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) native resolution. Adding to its gaming credentials are 1 ms (GTG) response time, support for AMD FreeSync adaptive v-sync technology, and ASUS GamePlus, a collection of gamer-friendly features such as OSD crosshairs, frame-rate counter, and game genre-specific display presets. The monitor also features TÜV Rheinland Certification for flicker-free brightness control, and blue-light reduction.

The VP28UQG features a TN-film display panel with 170°/160° (H/V) viewing angles, 3840 x 2160 pixels native resolution, 1 ms response time (GTG), 10-bit (1.07 billion colors) palette, 300 cd/m² maximum brightness, and 1000:1 static contrast-ratio with dynamic mega-contrast ratio. Display inputs include one DisplayPort 1.2a, and two HDMI 2.0 connectors. The monitor features an audio DAC that puts out audio from the HDMI/DP input (your graphics card) to a 3.5 mm analog headphones jack. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, today announced its upgraded 13.3-inch version of the award-winning 12.5-inch Razer Blade Stealth. The new Razer Blade Stealth is one of the most portable laptops for professionals in the world, measuring 0.52 inches thin, weighing 2.93 pounds and with up to nine hours of battery life.

Razer's latest chassis is CNC-milled out of aircraft grade aluminum, and it is now available in a black or gunmetal gray finish. The gunmetal gray variant features a tone-on-tone Razer logo and white backlit keyboard, offering a sleek, solid and professional design. Gunmetal gray will be available in the United States and Canada.

LG Electronics USA Business Solutions has added premium 4K UHD and In-Plane Switching (IPS) commercial monitors to its already-broad portfolio of cutting-edge desktop monitors. Led by the brand new 43-inch 4K UHD monitor, which will be demonstrated at InfoComm 2017, the new displays provide users the high-end picture quality and flexibility needed to maximize productivity and ease of use.

"As content formats rapidly evolve, LG's portfolio of state-of-the-art commercial monitors has been expanded with 4K and HDR (high dynamic range) technologies," said Stephen Hu, head of monitors at LG Electronics USA Business Solutions. "With a three-year warranty, advanced imaging technology, unmatched interoperability and industry-proven calibration methods, LG's new commercial desktop monitors are designed to meet evolving customer needs across different verticals."

ASUS is looking to have two distinct monitor product lines catering to either AMD or NVIDIA enthusiasts. Adding to their Swift line-up of NVIDIA G-Sync monitors, ASUS seems to be building up a Strix line as well, which features AMD's FreeSync technology to deliver the same fundamental variable refresh rate technology at a lower price-point (or so we hope.)

Starting with the flagship Strix monitor, the ASUS Strix XG32V has a 31.5" IPS panel with a WQHD resolution of 2560 x 1440. It's curved, so it envelops your FOV better, with the usual 1800R curve. This model can handle refresh rates of up to 144Hz, though readers looking to jump at this panel as we speak should wait for both Freesync range and pricing announcements. Connectivity-wise, we're looking at 2x DisplayPort 1.2, 1x HDMI 2.0, and an os yet unknown amount of USB 3.0 ports. ASUS has also added the inevitable Aura Sync lighting to the XG32V, materialized on both a ROG logo that shines down onto the desk, as well as an RGB LED suite on the back of the unit that can be synchronized with other Aura Sync-enabled PC components and peripherals.

Sapphire showed off a Radeon RX 550 graphics card with an off-spec DVI-I connector. This is significant, as it has analog (D-Sub) wiring, and an included DVI to D-Sub dongle lets you plug in ye olde analog displays. AMD stripped analog display support off its Radeon "Polaris" family, limiting them to modern digital standards such as DVI-D, HDMI 2.0, and DisplayPort 1.4. Sapphire got around this by deploying a custom DAC chip on the card, so you can have DVI-D (D-Sub via dongle), without needing an active adapter that's half the price of the card itself.

Remember that EVGA card to end all cards? Well, EVGA has now officially announced it. Built in collaboration with overclocker K|ngp|n (Vince Lucido), the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti K|ngp|n Edition Graphics Card sports a cooler that builds upon the iCX technology innovations EVGA has been moving towards. In addition, the company has redoubled efforts towards packing the highest-grade electrical components in this graphics card for extreme overclocking methods, even going so far as to include support (via a connector) to external overclocking modules such as EVBot.

GIGABYTE updated the BRIX UHD SFF desktop it showed off in 2016, with the new BRIX VR BNi7G6-1060, a desktop with actual gaming credentials, targeted at VR gaming. The BNi7G6-1060 is based on the same cuboidal chassis as the BRIX UHD, with updated hardware - 7th gen Core "Kaby Lake" mobile processors, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 graphics (not sure if 3 GB or 6 GB), two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots, two 32 Gb/s M.2-2280 slots, 802.11ac WLAN, Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI 2.0 display output, and USB 3.1 type-C ports.

Intel is giving final touches to its next-generation "Gemini Lake" SoC, which will be sold under the Celeron and Pentium brands, and will succeed the current-generation "Apollo Lake" SoC. Built on a refined 14 nm process, the chip features a TDP of just 6W for the mobile variant, and 10W for the SFF desktop, but boasts of improved performance-per-Watt than its predecessor, translating into direct performance gains.

To begin with, "Gemini Lake" will embed a dual-core or quad-core CPU based on Intel's "Goldmont Plus" micro-architecture. A Goldmont Plus core isn't physically different from the current-gen "Goldmont," but apparently doubles the L2 cache to 4 MB from the existing 2 MB, and takes advantage of process-level improvements to lower power-draw, which Intel is using to bump up the CPU clock speeds.

PowerColor announced market availability of its Radeon RX 570 4 GB Red Devil graphics card. The company had announced the card at the RX 570 SKU launch. It is Positioned above the RX 570 Red Dragon, and is characterized by a high-end looking product design, featuring a long custom-design PCB, mated with an equally long 2-slot, triple-fan cooling solution, which features an aluminium dual-fin-stack heatsink ventilated by a trio of 70 mm fans, which stay off when the GPU is idling. PowerColor also included a back-plate to add to its premium appeal.

The Radeon RX 570 4 GB Red Devil features factory-overclocked speeds of up to 1320 MHz GPU (boost), compared to reference frequencies of 1275 MHz; and its memory is left untouched at 7.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective). Based on the 14 nm "Lexa" silicon, the Radeon RX 570 features 2,048 stream processors across 32 GCN compute units, 128 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. The RX 570 Red Devil draws power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector; display outputs include three DisplayPort 1.4, and one each of HDMI 2.0 and dual-link DVI.

Palit Microsystems Ltd, the leading graphics card manufacturer, today released the Pascal-based GT series - Palit GeForce GT 1030. It's powerful graphics engine and state-of-the-art technologies provide a performance upgrade to drive today's most demanding PC applications. Speed up your PC experience when you upgrade from integrated graphics to the new Palit GeForce GT 1030 graphics card. Unleash your creativity with stunning photo and video editing. The Palit GeForce GT 1030 is based on the Pascal GP108 ASIC, featuring 384 Pascal CUDA cores, and 2 GB of GDDR5 memory. And it consumes up to 30 watts of power, performs the most power saving features to PC user.

Palit GeForce GT 1030 is equipped with DVI and HDMI 2.0b which can support up to 4K@60Hz resolution and can upgrade the entire PC multimedia experience with 2X faster performance than the Intel Core i5. With the latest ultra-Efficient next-gens Pascal architecture support, Palit GeForce GT 1030 Low Profile enables to let graphics users to go faster and enjoy a premium PC experience.

LG is looking to launch what seems to me one of the most well-rounded monitors for our use cases, with the LG 43UD79-B. Barring the enormous size of the monitor (I for one don't think a 43" on my desk would be the best way of going around computing), this monitors ticks almost all the boxes. It features 4K resolution (3840 x 2160) and an IPS panel with non-glare coating, which delivers a peak brightness of 350 cd/m2, a contrast ratio of up to 1000:1, and an 8 ms gray-to-gray (GTG) response time, which is the only sour point I see here (though it's still miles ahead of most 4K television sets.) The panel ticks on at 60 Hz, which, let's face it, is probably right for the resolution your graphics card will have to be driving anyway. The presence of Freesync here is mighty welcome indeed, ensuring you can make the most of those 60 FPS. LG mention support for 1.07 billion colors which come factory-calibrated, but the absence of any information regarding this being a 10-bit panel (which manufacturers naturally jump towards marketing) probably indicates this is actually an 8-bit panel using A-FRC to achieve a 10-bit color depth.

ASUSTOR Inc., a leading innovator and provider of network storage solutions, has announced the launch of two new tower NAS models, the AS6302T and AS6404T, that utilize the new Intel Apollo Lake platform Celeron processor. Both models feature hot-swappable hard disks. The AS6302T is equipped with a dual core processor, 2GB of built-in RAM and 2 disk bays while the AS6404T is equipped with a quad-core processor, 8GB of built-in RAM and 4 disk bays. These two new models provide better performance than previous generation ASUSTOR NAS models with RAID 1 read and write speeds of 216.14 MB/s and 218.25 MB/s (Link Aggregation). Additionally, dazzling 4K multimedia processing and remarkable streaming playback fluidity provide prosumers and medium sized businesses with the advantage of having high performance cloud storage combined with multimedia applications.

Both the AS6302T and AS6404T support the popular HDMI 2.0 playback function, allowing users to play ultra high resolution 4K @60Hz videos. Furthermore, the built-in USB Type-C connector lets users to conveniently connect Type-C external storage devices for data access. Also, with the release of these two new NAS models, ASUSTOR becomes the first vendor in the NAS industry to offer Wake-on-WAN support. This function allows users to remotely power on and shut down their NAS via the Internet, providing added convenience for managing energy consumption while adding access security as well.

XFX has launched three variants of the RX 550 graphics cards, the tiny GPU that could, which AMD launched so as to bridge the enormous gap between IGP and its previous entry-line RX 460 (now RX 560) series of graphics cards. There are two low-profile versions of the RX 550, packing either 2GB or 4 GB of memory (whose amounts can be justified or not,) both with boost clocks set at 1203 MHz and 7000 MHz GDDR5 memory over a 128-bit bus. There is also a full-profile, dual slot RX 550, dubbed the Core Edition, and another Core Edition, though this one is a full-profile, single-slot solution.

All of these pack the same 1203 MHz boost clocks, so XFX is basically telling you to pick and choose the size of the graphics cards that best fits your use case, with improvements on cooling and sound profile that come with the larger, beefier cooling solutions. Display outputs stand the same among all the different cards, with 1x DVI-I Dual-Link, 1x DisplayPort, and 1x HDMI 2.0.

Dell, which makes some of the best computer monitors around (though they really don't tend to be the most cost-effective), has announced a new addition to its line of monitors. The UP2718Q is a 27" monitor which boast of 4K (3140* 2160) resolution, and supports the UHD Alliance's HDR10 standard. Its peak brightness of 1,000 nits ensures its adherence to the HDR standards (which backs up to 400 nits brightness on non-HDR material), while the 100% Adobe RGB, 100% sRGB, 100% REC 709, 97.7% DCI-P3, and 76.9% REC2020 color coverage ensures this is a panel best used by professionals who need extreme color accuracy. Connectivity wise, we find 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x mini-DisplayPort 1.4, 2x HDMI 2.0a ports, 2x USB 3.0 ports, and a hub of 4x USB 3.0 ports, two of which are capable of charging.

ASUS is excited to launch the RX 500 Series, an all-new line-up of gaming graphics cards powered by the latest AMD Radeon RX 580 and RX 570 GPUs. These new graphics cards are capable of delivering HD+ resolution gaming with ultra-settings, bringing new levels of performance to the market at an affordable cost. The ROG Strix RX 580 and Strix RX 570 are engineered with advanced cooling and reliability features to deliver superb gaming performance, plus Aura Sync illumination for the best in PC personalization.

The new models include the high-performance ROG Strix RX 580 series with higher clock speeds, MaxContact cooling, and FanConnect II technologies along with Aura Sync illumination for building a personalized high-performance gaming PC. The ASUS Dual RX 580 Series provides "sweet spot" graphics performance that is ideal for both VR and eSports gaming. Both RX 580 series cards feature 0dB wing-blade fans that spin down completely when the cards are idling or under lighter loads for blissful silence when you're surfing the web, watching movies, and even playing less-demanding games. You also get dual HDMI 2.0 ports, which is perfect for connecting a VR headset and monitor simultaneously.