AOC has been one of the most aggressive companies when it comes to launching new displays, with its gaming "AGON" series seeing the addition of multiple monitors in the past few months. The new C4008VU8 doesn't quite tick the gaming aesthetics box, however, which isn't all that bad. Personally, I much prefer its clean, no-frills design, absent of some over-design features.

The panel seems to be an interesting one, nonetheless, with its 40" size, 16:9, 4K (3840 x 2160) resolution on a 10-bit MVA panel, with a 60 Hz refresh rate. Its 5 ms response time is relatively good, though the absence of any VRR (variable refresh-rate) technology such as AMD's FreeSync or NVIDIA's G-SYNC is puzzling. The lack of HDR support, however, is kind of a downer, but a necessity when one considers the display's maximum 300 cd/m² brightness. The panel boasts an 85% NTSC wide color gamut with 1.07 billion colors, with 178º horizontal and vertical viewing angle on a 1800R curved display. As for adjustments, the monitor can only be tilted: 5 degrees down, and 13.5 degrees up. Connection-wise, the AOC C4008VU8 boasts 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x HDMI 1.4, 2x DisplayPort 1.2, and 1x VGA connector (only 8 months ago I would be using such a connection myself, so I really shouldn't judge. There are legacy use cases, after all, and more options are always better.) There are also 4x USB 3.0 ports available, one of which can be used for fast charging devices. The AOC is available with a MSRP of $899, though you may find some retailers selling these for less already.

Here it is. The OLED monitor to beat all others. Sate your image quality needs with the new, $3500, 4K OLED monitor from Dell. Its 30" displays a 3840 x 2160 resolution, and presents a response time of just 0.1ms at a 60 Hz refresh rate - with no support for Freesync, sadly. It can 1.07 billion colors (Anandtech assumes it's probably a 10-bit presentation), and covers 100% of the Adobe RGB color space, 97.8% of the DCI-P3 color space (which is expected to be adopted in home movies and cinema in the future), as well as 85.8% coverage of Rec2020. Dell declares a 1,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, which is basically only truly achievable on OLED displays, due to their ability to turn off individual pixels.

When it comes to inputs, the Dell Ultrasharp UP3017Q features 1x mini-DisplayPort 1.2 connector,1x HDMI 2.0 port, and 1x USB type-C port, which is compatible with video and data connectivity as well as power delivery up to 100W. The monitor's stand supports Tilt (5~21°), Pivot (+90°, -90°), and Height (100 mm) adjustments. AnandTech reports that Dell has implemented a special pixel-shifting technology to try and inhibit the possibility of static image burn-in, which is one of the drawbacks of this panel technology, and perhaps one of the reasons its transition towards a desktop environment wasn't made sooner. What do you think of this? Are you looking forward to having an OLED monitor in front of you, or would you prefer to keep high-frequency monitors?

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.

The 32UD99 is to be LG's flagship consumer monitor, if its specs are anything to go by. And while it isn't mainly marketed towards gamers, it seems to be a good bet for image quality enthusiasts, ticking the 4K, HDR10, and Freesync (between 40 and 60 Hz via DisplayPort) boxes in a 32" panel. The LG 32UD99 carries a IPS panel with a native 3840×2160 resolution, and its 1.07 billion colors cover more than 95% of the DCI-P3 color space, and 100% of the sRGB gamut - with factory calibration to boot. The panel features 350 nits typical brightness, a neither great-nor-bad 5 ms response time, a 60 Hz refresh rate for those who don't need a million frames in a microsecond, and the 178° viewing angles that are par of the course for IPS.

The monitor's stand supports Tilt (2~15°), pivot (90°) and height (110 mm) adjustments. Input-wise, it features 1x DisplayPort 1.2, 2x HDMI 2.0a (HDCP 2.2), 1x USB Type-C (with DP 1.2 support), and a 2-port USB 3.0 hub with support for Quick Charging. There is also a pair of 5 W speakers. Availability is expected in late May. And it's a good thing this monitor is such a looker up-front, because its profile somewhat reminds me of Quasimodo.

To strangely low pomp and fanfare, MSI has further increased its line-up of offerings for the RX 460 family of graphics cards, with the launch of the Radeon RX 460 4GT LP (4GB), as well as a 2GT (2GB) version. Based on AMD's Olaris 11 "Baffin" graphics chip, these graphics cards feature a 75 W TDP, thus eschewing any auxiliary PCIe power connectors. That TDP being tamed by a dual-fan cooling solution and the usage of MIL-STD-810G certified components mean that this is a card where MSI feels comfortable about its lifespan.

Connectivity-wise, the boards offer 1x DL-DVI-D, as well as 1x HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 2.2 support, which makes any of these a relevant choice for an HTPC. MSI has not revealed a MSRP for any of these cards, but considering the segment at which they fit in like a jigsaw puzzle, one can surely expect their pricing to not be that far off from those recommended by AMD ($109 for the 2 GB version, and $139 for the 4 GB one).

Acer today unveiled its high-end XR382CQK 38-inch monitor. This ultra-wide curved monitor with a curvature of 2300 R, serves up a native resolution of 3840 x 1600 pixels, with a response time of 5 ms, viewing angles of 172°/178° (H/V), 300 cd/m² brightness, and 10-bpc (1.07 billion colors) support. The display takes input from DisplayPort 1.2a, and HDMI 2.0, with support for AMD FreeSync technology over DisplayPort.

The XR382CQK features active blue-light reduction technology, a non-PWM method of controlling brightness (reduces LED flicker), "black boost," which improves contrast, and game modes (presets) specific to various game genres. Measuring 896.9 mm x 327.7 mm x 309.1 mm (WxDxH), it weighs about 10.71 kg. It supports VESA wall mount. Other features include a 4-port USB 3.0 hub including one type-C port. Available now, the XR382CQK is priced at USD $1,299.

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.

Eurocom launches the fully upgradeable, high performance 15.6" Tornado F5 with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 graphics, Intel Core i7 7700K processor, 64 GB DDR4 memory via four slots, dual M.2 SSD slots and a 4K 15.6" display.

EUROCOM Tornado F5 users who own an Intel Core i7-6700K SKU can upgrade to the i7-7700K since the two processors share the same LGA 1151 socket. The EUROCOM Tornado F5 is one of the few laptops with a Z170 chipset, LGA 1151 CPU socket and MXM 3.0 graphics slot for a wide range of customization options. Two M.2 SSD PCIe x2/x4 or SATA SSD and one 9.5mm SATA3 6Gb/s storage drive is also supported to offer a great combination of capacity and speed. Four memory slots are available to support up to 64 GB of DDR4 SODIMM. Customers have a 15.6" FHD matte display and a 4K matte display to choose from as well.

GIGABYTE showed off four socket AM4 motherboards, designed for the upcoming AMD Ryzen processors and 7th gen. A-series APUs, at its 2017 CES booth. The lineup begins with the AB350M-D3H, an entry-level micro-ATX board based on the mid-tier B350 chipset; the mid-range AB350-Gaming 3, the mid-high segment AX370-Gaming K5, and the AX370-Gaming 5. The AB350-D3H covers the basics, with a 7-phase VRM, one PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot wired to the AM4 socket, a second x16 slot that's electrical x4 and wired to the B350 chipset, one legacy PCI slot; one 32 Gb/s M.2 slot and six SATA 6 Gb/s ports (from which two are directly wired to the AM4 socket); and connectivity that includes 6-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.1 (10 Gb/s) ports, DVI, HDMI 2.0, and DisplayPort.

Moving up the ladder, the AB350-Gaming 3 is a gaming-grade board in the ATX form-factor, featuring a red+black color scheme. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors; conditioning it for the CPU with a 7-phase VRM. The APU is wired to four DDR4 DIMM slots, and one PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot. Other expansion slots include two x16 slots that are electrical x4, and two x1 slots. Storage connectivity includes one 32 Gb/s M.2 and six SATA 6 Gb/s ports (from which two are low-latency ports). Display outputs include DVI, DisplayPort, and HDMI. USB connectivity includes two USB 3.1 (10 Gb/s) ports, and six USB 3.0 ports. GIGABYTE deployed its gaming-grade AMPUp! onboard audio solution with a 115 dBA SNR CODEC, ground-layer isolation, audio-grade capacitors, a headphones amp, and gold-plated audio jacks. Network is care of an Intel-made gigabit Ethernet controller.

Dell has announced at CES their new ultrathin 27" monitor. Aptly (and maybe unoriginally) named the "Dell 27 Ultrathin Monitor", it sports a Quad HD (2,560 by 1,440 pixels) screen with a 178º viewing angle which also supports HDR (though apparently, and according to Dell, not the same as HDR standards you'll find in 4K TVs. However, it will still be able to display higher contrast and color range than most consumer monitors, with support for up to 99 percent of the SRGB gamut.

GIGABYTE today introduced the GeForce GTX 1080 Rock Edition G1.Gaming graphics card (model: GV-N1080G1 ROCK-8GD). Put simply, this is a GTX 1080 WindForce OC (GV-N1080WF3OC-8GD) graphics card with an older generation WindForce 3X cooling solution, which the company deployed on some of its GeForce GTX 900 series products, such as the GTX 980 Ti G1.Gaming.

The underlying PCB is identical to that of the WindForce OC, and it also features an identical factory OC of 1632 MHz core, 1771 MHz GPU Boost, and 10 GHz (GDDR5X-effective) memory, out of the box. The card draws power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. Display outputs include three DisplayPort 1.4, and one each of HDMI 2.0b and dual-link DVI. The company didn't reveal pricing.

BenQ, internationally renowned provider of digital lifestyle devices, today announced the SW320 photographer monitor, a 31.5-inch 4K display with class-leading color performance and High Dynamic Range (HDR) capability. Spanning a wide color gamut covering 99% of Adobe RGB and 100% of sRGB, Rec. 709, and the digital cinema industry's DCI-P3 color space, SW320's true 10-bit IPS panel and advanced 14-bit lookup table (LUT) deliver spectacular color quality with precise ≤2 Delta E values.

"SW320 represents the pinnacle of BenQ color-critical display technology," said Conway Lee, President of BenQ Corporation. "This wide color gamut HDR monitor takes professional imaging to new heights, fulfilling the demanding and exacting requirements of photography enthusiasts."

After announcing earlier this week the impending release of their VR Go backpack, ZOTAC has now made pricing details available: $1999 will net you the ability to strap a PC to your body so you can freely engage with enemies or friends alike in VR environments.

The ZOTAC VR GO can work autonomously for up to two hours, feeding on two Li-ion batteries rated at 95Wh (6600mAh). The batteries can be hot-swapped and charged separately, featuring a DC12V-out for powering the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift. When not in use as a backpack to play virtual reality games, the VR GO can be used like a normal desktop computer: its form-factor allows it to be placed on a desk either vertically or horizontally and all the ports will remain accessible. It isn't very heavy, either, though at 4.95 kilograms, your mileage may vary.

AOC's AGON line of PC monitors has been increasingly added to by the company - which usually signifies strong sales and brand recognition. In trying to cater to an even more diverse consumer base, AOC has now added a new offer to their AGON line of gaming monitors: the AG251FZ.

The AG251FZ 25" is a 16:9 ratio monitor, which comes in at the still-dominating 1920*1080 resolution, sporting a TN-type panel with a 1ms Grey-to-grey response time which allows it achieve a 240Hz refresh rate. The panel offers 16.7 million colors, brightness of 400cd/m2, contrast ratio of 1000:1, and pretty decent viewing angles of 170/160. On top of that, the monitor also includes AMD's royalty-free FreeSync (active from 48Hz towards the 240Hz maximum refresh rate), with 1x HDMI 2.0 and 1x DisplayPort 1.2a adaptive sync compatible inputs, as well as more legacy 1x DVI and 1x VGA inputs. The monitor also features a connectivity hub, sporting 4 x USB 3.0, Audio out/in, and Microphone in/out ports.

MSI unveiled the first half-height (low-profile) graphics card based on NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. The MSI GTX 1050 Ti 4GT LP graphics card features a half height PCB, and a dual-slot cooling solution that uses a pair of 50 mm fans ventilating a dense aluminium heatsink. The card is 18.2 cm in length, and includes both standard- and low-profile I/O shields.

The MSI GTX 1050 Ti 4GT LP relies on the PCI-Express slot for all its power. It ticks at NVIDIA reference clock speeds of 1290 MHz core, 1392 MHz GPU Boost, and 7.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective) memory. It features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory across the GPU's 128-bit wide memory interface. Display outputs include one each of dual-link DVI, HDMI 2.0b and DisplayPort 1.4 connectors. MSI didn't reveal pricing.

ASRock updated its Beebox-S line of mini-PC desktops with 7th generation Core "Kaby Lake" processors. These 110 mm x 46 mm x 118.5 mm (WxHxL) desktops come with two new processor options, Core i5-7200U, and Core i3-7100U. Both are dual-core chips, with the i5-7200U offering 2.50-3.10 GHz clock speeds (core/Turbo Boost), 3 MB L3 cache, and Intel HD 620 graphics; while the i3-7100U offers 2.40 GHz clocks (no Turbo Boost), 3 MB L3 cache, and HD 620 graphics.

Other internal features of the Beebox-S include two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots, supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel DDR4-2133 memory; one 32 Gb/s M.2-2280 slot with NVMe boot support, and one 9 mm-thick 2.5-inch drive bay with SATA 6 Gb/s interface. Network connectivity includes 802.11ac WLAN, Bluetooth 4.0, Infrared, and gigabit Ethernet. Display outputs include one each of HDMI 2.0 (supports 4K @ 60 Hz), HDMI 1.4, and DisplayPort 1.2a. Other features include two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 3.1 ports (of which one is type-C), and an infrared media remote. ASRock didn't reveal pricing.

High-dynamic range or HDR is all the rage these days as the next big thing in display output, now that hardware has time to catch up with ever-increasing display resolutions such as 4K ultra HD, 5K, and the various ultra-wide formats. Hardware-accelerated HDR is getting a push from both AMD and NVIDIA in this round of GPUs. While games with HDR date back to Half Life 2, hardware-accelerated formats that minimize work for game developers, in which the hardware makes sense of an image and adjusts its output range, is new and requires substantial compute power. It also requires additional interface bandwidth between the GPU and the display, since GPUs sometimes rely on wider color palettes such as 10 bpc (1.07 billion colors) to generate HDR images. AMD Radeon GPUs are facing difficulties in this area.

German tech publication Heise.de discovered that AMD Radeon GPUs render HDR games (games that take advantage of new-generation hardware HDR, such as "Shadow Warrior 2") at a reduced color depth of 8 bits per cell (16.7 million colors), or 32-bit; if your display (eg: 4K HDR-ready TV) is connected over HDMI 2.0 and not DisplayPort 1.2 (and above). The desired 10 bits per cell (1.07 billion colors) palette is available only when your HDR display runs over DisplayPort. This could be a problem, since most HDR-ready displays these days are TVs. Heise.de observes that AMD GPUs reduce output sampling from the desired Full YCrBr 4: 4: 4 color scanning to 4: 2: 2 or 4: 2: 0 (color-sub-sampling / chroma sub-sampling), when the display is connected over HDMI 2.0. The publication also suspects that the limitation is prevalent on all AMD "Polaris" GPUs, including the ones that drive game consoles such as the PS4 Pro.

In January 2016 Club 3D brought a solution to the market as an upgrade since GPU solutions were not bundled with HDMI 2.0 connectors. Users needed to spend a lot of money for the latest graphics card, Notebook, Ultrabook or MiniPC, that were equipped with up to date technology HDMI 2.0 output for 4K@ 60Hz.

With the introduction of the CAC-1070 (DP 1.2 to HDMI 2.0 Adapter) and CAC-1170 (MiniDP to HDMI 2.0 Adapter) Club 3D has been the first company in the market to fulfil this demand. These 2 products have become our star products for 2016. Now it is time to develop things further and introduce the next products for this demand.

AOC today announced availability of the AGON AG352QCX, its premium 35-inch curved gaming monitor. The monitor features a VA (vertical alignment) ultra-wide display panel with 2560 x 1080 pixels resolution, 4 ms response time, 2000:1 contrast-ratio, and a staggering 200 Hz refresh-rate. Its gaming credentials are further bolstered with support for AMD FreeSync technology. The monitor takes input from DisplayPort 1.2a (needed for FreeSync), HDMI 2.0, and D-Sub. Other features include a 4-port USB 3.0 hub, a headset stand, and 5W stereo speakers. Expect this monitor to be priced around the $600 mark.

GIGABYTE has announced the newly updated AERO 14 professional laptop, now equipped with the latest NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 VR Ready graphics. The original light and thin professional workstation has just gotten even better. The new graphics is not the only thing worth mentioning, the AERO 14 comes with QHD IPS display, up to 1TB M.2 PCIe SSD plus 32GB DDR4-2400 memory, and a 94.24 Wh large capacity battery to further extend mobile usage. All this is packed within an ultra-slim 19.9 mm chassis.

Powered by the most advanced NVIDIA Pascal architecture, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 dilivers unparelleled graphics performance and exceeds VR Ready specifications. The AERO 14 is a mobile powerhouse when it comes to gaming and professional work. Not everything is only focused on performance, GIGABYTE has also put emphasis on the aesthetics. With three colors to choose from, each color is finished with "Nano-Imprint Lithography" (NIL) top aluminum cover, showcasing fine details and textures that screams unique qualities.

AMD announced the AMD Embedded Radeon E9260 and E9550 graphics processing units (GPUs), the industry's first discrete embedded graphics cards leveraging the new AMD Polaris architecture. The cards are ideal for applications requiring rich multimedia and 4K video in power-constrained embedded environments. Use cases include immersive casino gaming, digital signage, 4K teleconferencing and interactive digital whiteboards, enhanced medical imaging for clinical diagnoses, and transportation instrumentation.

The Polaris GPU architecture leverages an optimized 14nm FinFET process designed to deliver a dramatic performance-per-watt gain over previous generations of embedded GPU architecture. Providing up to 5.8 TFLOPS performance in a sub-95W TDP power profile, the new embedded GPUs offer advanced 4K encode/decode multimedia processing capabilities and support for up to six displays on the E9550.

LG Electronics unveiled the 24UD58-B, its entry-level 24-inch 4K Ultra HD monitor, which could be priced around the $300 mark. Its specifications are anything but "entry-level," with an IPS panel that puts out 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) at 60 Hz, with 10-bit color support (1.07 billion colors), active blue light reduction, 5 ms response time, 250 cd/m² maximum brightness, 178°/178° viewing angles, and dynamic mega-contrast ratio. On the input side of things, the monitor supports AMD FreeSync technology, HDMI 2.0, and DisplayPort 1.2a.

NEC Display Solutions of America, a leading provider of commercial LCD display and projector solutions, today announced the MultiSync EA245WMi display, capable of simplifying multiple-monitor configurations with an improved, sleek cabinet and 3-sided ultra-narrow bezel design. The new 24-inch widescreen model features IPS panel technology, LED backlighting with wide viewing angles (178° horizontal/vertical), and 3 ultra-narrow bezels, each less than 1 mm thick, in order to create desktop configurations with little distraction so users in corporate, command and control, and financial industries can focus on their work.

Designed for multiple-monitor configurations, NEC's exclusive ControlSync technology allows users to automatically control settings on up to six displays from one primary monitor using the included ControlSync cable. Additionally, the DisplayPort 1.2 daisy chain capability allows for connectivity of up to four monitors through one DisplayPort 1.2 input, simplifying cable connections.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today announced the release of its next-generation, high-performance Thunderbolt 2 NAS TVS-x82T series. Available in three different models (TVS-1282T, TVS-882T and TVS-682T) the TVS-x82T series is powered by 6th Generation Intel 14nm multi-core processors that deliver higher system performance for CPU-demanding applications.

Featuring an advanced hardware design based on the concept of tiered storage, application-based partitioning, and network traffic distribution the TVS-x82T series achieves maximized storage efficiency and optimum performance. The TVS-x82T also features a HDMI 2.0 port for a prime viewing experience with smooth 4K 60 fps video transfer and display, while the new VJBOD function allows for maximized storage utilization by using multiple QNAP NAS to expand the storage capacity of the TVS-x82T.

Microsoft's new slim Xbox One S console achieves its slimness - including its inbuilt power-supply, by significantly reducing thermal load of its key components. This begins at the heart of the console, its SoC. A semi-custom chip by Microsoft and AMD, the SoC powering the Xbox One S is built on the 16 nm FinFET process at TSMC. The chip powering the original Xbox One was built on the same foundry's 28 nm node.

The new SoC isn't merely an optical shrink of the original 28 nm chip down to 16 nm FinFET, Microsoft added a few components to the chip, including an HEVC hardware decoder, hardware CODECs for Blu-ray UHD with HDR; and a revamped display controller with HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2. The chip also performs 1080p to 4K UHD upscaling, with a native upscaling algorithm. The eSRAM memory bandwidth is increased slightly from 204 GB/s from 219 GB/s.