PowerColor rolled out the Devil HDX PCI-Express sound card. Designed with a strong focus on output quality, and targeted at PC enthusiasts with high-end headphones, the card is driven by a C-Media CMI8888 native-PCIe master processor, wired to Wolfson WM8741 primary DAC, with 124 dBA SNR, driving the headphones and front-out channels. Amplifying this, is a TI LM4562 OPAMP, which is swappable.

Nichicon Muse electrolytic, and metalized polypropylene caps man all channels, reducing signal loss. Only the electrical portion features solid-state capacitors. The card draws power from a 4-pin Molex input. The entire audio area is electrically isolated from the PCIe slot power input. The main PCB features a 6.3 mm headphones jack, supporting cans with up to 600Ω impedance, stereo RCA out, and 7.1-channel optical SPDIF (TOSLINK) outputs. A daughterboard gives out additional analog channels and inputs via 3.5 mm jacks. On the software side of things, you get C-Media's Xear3D software customized by PowerColor, with ASIO 2.2 support.

TechPowerUp released the latest version of GPU-Z, the popular video hardware information and diagnostic utility. Version 0.8.2 brings with it a vast number of changes, support for new hardware, and bug-fixes. To begin with, the user-interface of GPU-Z received a major update, with the addition of a "Lookup" button that takes you to our GPU Database page corresponding to your GPU. The app can now tell you if your drivers are WHQL-signed. GPU manufacturer logos are updated.

Among the new hardware supported includes NVIDIA GeForce TITAN-X, GTX 980M, GTX 970M, GGTX 965M, GTX 845M, GTX 760 Ti OEM, GTX 660 (960 shaders), GT 705, GT 720, GT 745M, NVS 310, and Grid; AMD Radeon R9 255, FirePro W7100, HD 8370D, AMD R9 M280X, and R9 M295X; and Intel "Broadwell" integrated graphics. Specifications are revised for GeForce GTX 970.

A large number of bugs were fixed, and overall usability improved, including notably GPU-Z now supports Windows 10. We implemented a new working way of extracting BIOS from NVIDIA GPUs on systems with WIndows 8 and higher, to avoid a system hang. A large number of bugs were fixed, and overall usability of the app improved, as detailed in the change-log.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.8.2 | GPU-Z 0.8.2 ASUS ROG-themed

The Change-log follows.

Plextor launched its flagship SSD for PC enthusiasts, the M6e Black Edition. Clearly intended for enthusiast PC builds, miles away from an enterprise environment, this drive features a focus on product design, with its matte black PCB, full-length metal shroud, and a racy red aluminium heatsink popping out from a cutout in that shroud. This heatsink cools the controller and NAND flash chips. The drive comes in three capacities - 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB.

Under the hood, the M6e Black Edition is essentially an M.2 riser with PCI-Express 2.0 x4 wiring. The drive sitting on its M.2 slot is driven by a Marvell 88SS9183 controller, wired to Toshiba-made 19 nm Toggle NAND flash, and 1 GB of DRAM cache. The drive offers sequential transfer rates of up to 770 MB/s reads, with up to 625 MB/s writes; with up to 105,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and up to 100,000 IOPS 4K random writes. In addition to PCIe bus power, the drive requires power from a SATA power connector. Features include PlexTurbo 2.0 technology that shuttles hot data to system memory, TRIM, NCQ, and NVMe. The drive is bootable.

For professional gamers to win fierce fights easily, Apacer, the pioneer in digital storage, launches the latest SSD - Apacer PT910 SSD. It adopts the ultra-high-speed interfaces PCI-E 2.0 x 2, reaching amazing sequential read/write speeds of 830/790 MB/s and 4K random read/write speeds up to 100,000 IOPS.

With the dual controller from the top brand SandForce and the chips from the tech giant Intel, the product is available in 256 GB and 512 GB, of which the real capacities are 7% larger than other same-level products.PT910's multiple advantages of high efficiency, high reliability and high cost-performance ratio allow computer game experts, musicians and audio/video workers to enjoy a more pleasant and smooth digital experiences.

MSI, world leader in motherboard technology, is proud to announce its latest motherboard, the Z97S SLI Krait Edition. Inspired by and developed in cooperation with the world's elite case modders, the new Z97S SLI Krait Edition is equipped with an arsenal of new features, improvements like NVIDIA SLI certified for enthusiasts looking to pair up multiple graphics cards. On-board M.2 and SATA Express provides the latest storage technology with transfer speeds up to 10 Gb/s, with flexible solutions for using preferred devices. Military Class 4 provide all the stability you need through carefully selected and thoroughly tested components and materials. The Z97S SLI Krait Edition motherboard caters to those looking for a feature rich motherboard with a unique look & feel.

OCZ showed off its latest high-performance SSD for the consumer market, built in the full-height PCI-Express add-on card form-factor, the RevoDrive 350. The drive features a PCI-Express 2.0 x8 bus interface, and several SSD subunits making up a host-agnostic RAID 0 array; which is bootable. OCZ claims sequential transfer speeds of up to 1,800 MB/s, with 4K random access throughputs of up to 140,000 IOPS, for its top-end 480 GB and 960 GB variants. The company set up a soft-RAID using two of these drives, and put it through popular synthetic benchmarks. It scored as high as 3,752 MB/s in one test.

Intel's upcoming Thunderbolt host controller, codenamed "Alpine Ridge," could allow you to play God with several uncompressed Ultra HD video streams during production, if its leaked specifications hold up. The controller leverages PCI-Express gen 3.0 to double bandwidth of the interface. It will launch around the same time as Intel's next-generation Core "Skylake" processors (some time in 2015), and in a typical implementation, will be wired to the CPU's root-complex, and not that of the PCH. With PCIe 3.0 x4 or PCIe 3.0 x2 links at its disposal, the controller can push data at a staggering 40 Gbps. The link can also ferry DisplayPort, HDMI 2.0, and USB 3.0 data through its link layer. That bandwidth should enable you to plug in up to two Ultra HD displays, apart from your storage array.

The Thunderbolt connector itself will undergo a change with the arrival of Alpine Ridge. It will be slimmer (shorter) than the current connector, at 3 mm (good for Ultrabooks), and there will be adapters for backwards compatibility with older-generation Thunderbolt devices. The connector will be designed to supply up to 100W of power, so Ultrabooks based on it will do away with round DC jacks, and charge up much like tablets and smartphones do. That amount of power should also enable single-cable HDD docks and RAID boxes. There will be two main variants of Alpine Ridge, one that supports two ports over daisy-chaining, and one that supports just a single port.

Here's what the first wave of Intel 9-series chipsets will look like. It will consist of upper-mainstream chipsets for the LGA1150 platform, and the sole chipset for the LGA2011-3 HEDT platform. LGA1150 will get two new chipsets based on a common silicon, the Z97 Express, and the H97 Express. The Z97 will be the next top-end chipset for the platform, supporting current Core "Haswell" and upcoming "Haswell refresh" and "Devil's Canyon" processors. Motherboards based on the Z97 chipset, like the ones based on the Z87 and Z77, will feature up to three PCI-Express 3.0 slots wired to the CPU, in configurations of x16/NC/NC, x8/x8/NC, and x8/x4/x4. It will support overclocking, something its sibling the H97 Express will lack. The H97 will also lack the PCIe configurations that the Z97 supports.

Both Z97 and H97 will introduce support for PCI-Express M.2 storage, which offers 66.6% higher bandwidth than SATA 6 Gb/s, and the same bandwidth as SATA-Express. Its introduction will spur up development and launches of a new generation of high-performance client SSDs in 2014-15. Apart from M.2, the two chipsets offer six SATA 6 Gb/s ports with AHCI and RAID support. Rapid Storage Technology (RST) and Smart Response Technology (SRT) are common for both chips, however, the Z97 also features Dynamic Storage Accelerator (DST), something the H97 will lack. H97 will exclusively offer Small Business Advantage (SBA), instead. Both chips will feature 8-lane PCI-Express gen 2.0 root complexes to drive onboard devices, and 14 USB ports, including six USB 3.0 SuperSpeed ports.

ASRock announced a trio of socket AM1 motherboards for AMD's "Kabini" series APUs, Athlon and Sempron-branded CPUs, in the FS1b (AM1) package. The lineup includes the AM1B-M, a compact micro-ATX model; and two mini-ITX ones, the AM1H-ITX, and the AM1B-ITX. The AM1B-M draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 4-pin ATX connectors, and uses a 3-phase VRM to power the APU. A PCI-Express 2.0 x16, and a PCIe 2.0 x1 make for its expansion slots. Connectivity includes two SATA 6 Gb/s ports, two USB 3.0 ports (rear), D-Sub display output, gigabit Ethernet, and 6-channel HD audio.

The AM1H-ITX, and the AM1B-ITX appear to be based on a common PCB design, but differ with connectivity. The former is gear towards modern connectivity options. It draws power from either a 24-pin ATX, or a 2-pin external DC input. The board is loaded with features, including HDMI and DVI display outputs, four SATA 6 Gb/s ports, four USB 3.0 ports, PCI-Express 2.0 x16 and mPCIe slots, and 8-channel HD audio. The latter is geared more towards essential/legacy connectivity. It features the same display outputs, but chucks out 2-pin power input, and 8-channel HD audio to make room for a parallel LPT port.

ASUS rolled out second-generation add-on Thunderbolt cards for its motherboards, the ThunderboltEX II series. It includes the single-port ThunderboltEX II, and the two-port ThunderboltEX II DUAL. The two are based on Intel's DSL5320 and DSL5520 chipsets, respectively, and support the Thunderbolt 2.0 standard, which offers 20 Gb/s of bandwidth over a single cable.

The cards aren't completely independent, and can't just be plugged into any motherboard with a PCI-Express 2.0 x4/x16 slot. It requires a special header that's used for timing, and low-level system interface, and optionally, an end-to-end DisplayPort (if you want to relay display from your graphics card through the common Thunderbolt pipe). A list of compatible motherboards can be found on the product page.

Mushkin unveiled its second-generation Scorpion line of PCIe SSDs, which made its debut in June, 2013. A prototype of the series was shown at the 2014 International CES. The second-generation Scorpion leverages LSI's SandForce 3700 controller, which features both SATA 6 Gb/s and PCI-Express 2.0 x4 interface. In this implementation, the chip is wired to the latter, and is seated on a half-height add-on card with PCI-Express 2.0 x4 bus interface. The drive is bootable. All eight ONFI channels on the controller are populated by Toshiba-made 20 nm MLC NAND flash chips.

The controller is so highly integrated, that there are virtually no other components on the card, than itself, and the NAND flash chips. There are traces on the card for three large capacitors, which the controller can use for its bad power protection mechanism. When it senses a power failure or erratic power, the capacitors will supply enough power for the drive to finish its last safe write operation, and power down, to prevent data loss. In terms of performance, the controller offers sequential transfer rates as high as 1800 MB/s. Mushkin also showed off an M.2 drive based on the same controller, but with just four of its eight ONFI channels populated, which shouldn't be a problem, given that M.2 interface, with its two notches only offers 6 Gb/s interface speeds.

In addition to the HyperX Fury series, Kingston showed off one of the first client SSDs in the 2.5-inch SATA form-factor that's based on the new SandForce 3700 controller platform by LSI. The drive is unnamed as of now, but will feature in the company's SSDNow family of client SSDs. The controller features pins for both SATA 6 Gb/s and PCI-Express 2.0 x4. On drives built in the PCIe add-on card form-factor, the controller offers sequential transfer rates as high as 1,800 MB/s. SATA 6 Gb/s should certainly bottleneck it, but it could also be one of the fastest drives in its form-factor. The dual interface makes the controller ready for the SATA-Express form-factor, with backwards compatibility for SATA 6 Gb/s; as well as NGFF. Kingston didn't reveal launch details.

Here's the first picture of Intel's next-generation Core i7 HEDT (high-end desktop) processor, codenamed "Haswell-E." Based on Intel's latest "Haswell" micro-architecture, the chip will be Intel's first HEDT processor to ship with eight cores, and the first client CPU to ship with next-generation DDR4 memory interface. In addition to IPC improvements over "Ivy Bridge" that come with "Haswell," the chip integrates a quad-channel DDR4 integrated memory controller, with native memory speeds of DDR4-2133 MHz; a PCI-Express gen 3.0 root complex with a total of 40 PCI-Express lanes, and yet the same DMI 2.0 (4 GB/s) chipset bus.

Built into the LGA2011-3 socket, "Haswell-E" will be incompatible with current LGA2011 motherboards, as the notches of the package will vary from LGA2011 "Ivy Bridge-E." Intel will introduce the new X99 Express chipset, featuring all 6 Gb/s SATA ports, integrated USB 3.0 controllers, and a PCI-Express gen 2.0 root complex for third-party onboard controllers. Interestingly, there's no mention of SATA-Express, which Intel's next-generation 9-series chipset for Core "Broadwell" platforms reportedly ships with; and X99 isn't looking too different from today's Z87 chipset. With engineering samples already out, it wouldn't surprise us if Intel launches "Haswell-E" along the sidelines of any of next year's big-three trade-shows (CES, CeBIT, and Computex).

ASUS today announced Xonar D-KARAX, a professional-grade sound card designed for singing enthusiasts that like to sing and share their songs online.

Designed by leading music-industry engineers, Xonar D-KARAX helps eager amateur singers shape their voice and indulge in the latest trend of sharing personal songs online. Xonar D-KARAX is a PCI-Express sound card offers 96KHz/24-bit playback, real-time audio processing, 7.1 audio and a 106dB SNR (signal-to-noise ratio). Singers can apply and hear audio effects in real-time with no playback lag, a sophisticated feature previously the preserve of professional recording studios.

One month ago, Enermax informed about the introduction of a new product line which is specially designed for the requirements of modern gaming machines. "Ahead of the Game" covers different PC areas. "The models of our new series allow for a game play on the highest level. They are the perfect choice for high-end systems and provide leading technology for the pure joy of gaming", explains Benjamin Schäfer, PR/Marketing Team Leader of Enermax Europe. With the midi tower iVektor, the first gaming series from Enermax made a perfect market debut. The racing-style chassis with the soft-grip coating offers a variety of functions and many possibilities for system upgrades. But for a steady flow of game at highest resolution, the hardware inside is the crucial factor.

Schäfer: "We offer users the perfect starter set to build up a performance-capable and at the same time durable gaming system. Most often, people focus on the graphics card or CPU only. But at the end, the power supply decides how stable a PC runs. If your system is crashing down regularly, the PSU might be a possible source of trouble. Therefore, it is worthwhile to spend more money in a quality brand product instead of buying the cheapest of the cheap models. And if you consider about an efficient cooling system, you need to know that you can not only prolong the lifetime of the installed components, but you can also draw the ultimate performance out of your hardware. You will only achieve the highest clock rates if you rely on the best cooling solution."

How many times did you get angry, cause computer works too slow and hard drive reads data so loud, that you cant really focus anymore? Starting even simple program takes so much time, that you can already go for another cup of coffe. Later working in the program with countinous lags and unexpected pauses, so system could read bytes from slow hdd, all this gives you chest pains. Today you can get rid of all this and do everything much faster and really smoothly. You can finish your work sooner and go to your family or meet with friends. Today new era starts, cause Mach Xtreme Express drives enters the european market with speed from the future. Even the latest SATA III standard (up to 6 Gbps) is too slow for them, so the disks can be only connected directly to mainboard through PCI-Express 2.0 x2 type.

Sapphire's Radeon HD 7990 Atomic made its first appearance at Computex, early last month. While launch of the card itself is less than a few weeks away, pictures of its PCB and cooling solution made it to the web. Its PCB, pictured below, features a pair of 28 nm "Tahiti XT2" GPUs, a total of 6 GB of GDDR5 memory, and a PLX PEX8747 PCI-Express gen 3.0 x48 bridge chip, powered by a gargantuan 18-phase VRM that draws power from three 8-pin PCI-Express power connectors.

Each GPU system hence gets a 6+2+1 phase power supply (Vcc+VDDCI+MVDD). The Vcc phases appear to consist of two 50A chokes per phase, and driver-MOSFETs; while the ancillary phases use more conventional LFPAK MOSFETs. Tantalum capacitors handle most electricals on this 12-layer PCB. The PCB features two sets of video BIOS for each GPU. Display outputs include six mini-DisplayPort connectors. The card can pair with any other Radeon HD 7900 series card using CrossFireX.

HighPoint, an industry leading Storage HBA and solutions manufacturer, has launched the industry's fastest 4-Port USB 3.0 HBA - the RocketU 1144C. Powered by four dedicated 5 Gb/s USB 3.0 ports, a PCI-E 2.0 x4 host interface, plus UASP (USB-attached SCSI protocol) performance-enhancement boost, HighPoint's RocketU 1144C is the industry's fastest USB 3.0 storage controller. The RocketU 1144C is optimized for today's fastest USB 3.0 devices, and is well suited for a wide-range of applications including portable/removable storage, storage expansion, personal media libraries, and backup solutions.

RocketU HBA's can deliver even higher levels of performance when paired with UAS capable storage devices, such as RocketStor USB 3.0 Storage Docks. UASP (USB-attached SCSI protocol) enables USB 3.0 devices to store and process multiple commands in parallel; significantly reducing wait time and streamlining data transfers. The RocketU 1144C's UAS capabilities allow it to fully utilize the PCI-E 2.0 x4 host bus interface and deliver uncompromised transfer bandwidth for UAS capable devices such as USB 3.0 SSD's, hard drives, and enclosures. The speed and efficiency advantages provided by UAS capable devices are ideal for multi-tasking and performance-hungry applications.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, announced today that it has begun mass producing the industry's first PCI-Express (PCIe) solid state drive (SSD) for next-generation ultra-slim notebook PCs.

"With the Samsung XP941, we have become the first to provide the highest performance PCIe SSD to global PC makers so that they can launch leading-edge ultra-slim notebook PCs this year," said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. "Samsung plans to continue timely delivery of the most advanced PCIe SSD solutions with higher density and performance, and support global IT companies providing an extremely robust computing environment to consumers." Samsung started providing the new SSD to major notebook PC makers earlier this quarter. The XP941 lineup consists of 512, 256 and 128GB SSDs.

Impressed with the SX2000 enterprise SSD? Wish you could have those speeds on a consumer device? The AXNP280E from ADATA could soon become an option. This NGFF (next-generation form-factor) SSD is based on a client variant of the LSI-Sandforce SF-8639 controller, which interfaces with the system over PCI-Express 2.0 x4, and offers sequential transfer rates as high as 1,800 MB/s reads and writes, with up to 200,000 IOPS 4K random access, and features essential to client SSDs, such as TRIM and NCQ. Unlike the 2.5-inch SX2000, the AXNP280E is a little constrained with space, and comes in just 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB variants. The latter was on display.

ADATA showed off a new high-performance server-grade SSD, the SX2000. Built in the 2.5-inch form-factor, this drive features a PCI-Express 2.0 x4 interface (a cable runs to a PCIe riser card). It is driven by an LSI-SandForce SF-8639 controller, which is a single-chip solution that connects to the host over PCI-Express, and appears to the operating system as ATA AHCI controller, with one drive connected to it. The chip features nearly more than double the ONFI channels as an SF-2281, which reflects on the drive's advertise performance numbers: up to 1,800 MB/s reads with up to 1,800 MB/s writes; up to 200,000 IOPS 4K random reads. The controller supports all modern enterprise SSD features, including TRIM, DEVSLP support, and SMART. It ships in 100 GB, 200 GB, 400 GB, 800 GB, and 1,600 GB variants. The latter was up on display.

ADATA also showed off its SX1000 enterprise SSD, which features a more modest SATA 6 Gb/s interface, an LSI SandForce SF-2500 or SF-2600 series controller, sequential performance numbers of up to 550 MB/s reads with up to 500 MB/s writes, up to 75,000 IOPS 4K random reads/writes, can work as DAS, and most modern enterprise features. This drive will be available in 100 GB, 200 GB, and 400 GB capacities, the 200 GB variant was on display. It's unclear which kind of NAND flash the two drives use, but we're guessing it's high-endurance MLC NAND. Both offer 5-year warranties.

While Sapphire's LGA1150 motherboard lineup came across as a little lukewarm, the company more than made up for that with its fleet of motherboards that take advantage of AMD's newest A-series and E-series APUs and SoCs. First, there's the PGS A320M, a micro-ATX motherboard that ships with a FirePro A320 socket FM2 APU pre-installed. Largely identical to an A10-5800K, and based on the "Trinity" micro-architecture, the A320 features FirePro-branded professional graphics that's certified for most modern 3D productivity applications, and can give display output at resolutions as high as 4096 x 2160. The board features one each of DisplayPort 1.2, dual-link DVI-I, and D-Sub display outputs. Other features include eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports, four USB 3.0, gigabit Ethernet (Broadcom controller), and 8-channel HD audio.

Things get interesting with a contraption called IPC-FS1r2A75. This board comes in a proprietary IPC form-factor, features an FS1 rev 2.0 socket, which seats R-series APUs, an embedded AMD Radeon E6000 series GPU based on the Graphics CoreNext arhitecture, with its own dedicated GDDR5 memory on-package, and AMD A75 FCH chipset. The board offers six mini-DisplayPort and four HDMI outputs, two DDR3 SO-DIMM slots, an open-ended PCI-Express 2.0 x4 slot, four mPCIe slots (in stacks of two), five SATA 6 Gb/s ports, six USB 3.0 ports, two gigabit Ethernet connections, and 6-channel audio.

Graphics card maker Triplex, which is more prevalent in the Greater China region, unveiled a new single-slot Radeon HD 7850 2GB graphics card that relies on the PCI-Express slot entirely, for power. It lacks any kind of power input. The card is based on an alternate (more expensive to implement) reference design by AMD, which has been sporadically implemented by other AMD partners. An example is this card by AFOX. Unlike AFOX' card, Triplex' lacks power connectors. The card comes with reference clock speeds of 860 MHz core, and 4.80 GHz memory. It packs 1024 stream processors, 64 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 2 GB of memory. Sadly, even for buyers in this part of the world, Triplex' card will be sold only in the OEM channel.

First shown to crowds at this year's International CES event in January, ASUS' first enthusiast SSD, the ROG RAIDR, is heading toward a mid-May launch. A few more of its pictures and specs sheets were posted by SweClockers. As detailed earlier, the RAIDR is a compound SSD in the PCI-Express add-on card form-factor, with PCI-Express 2.0 x2 interface (supports x4, x8, and x16 slots). It uses two SandForce SF2281-driven SSD subunits striped in a hardware-abstract RAID 0 configuration. The subunits use Toshiba-made 19 nm MLC NAND flash chips, with 16 KB page size.

The ROG RAIDR supports TRIM command, NCQ and SMART, despite being a RAID 0-based SSD. It is bootable, and supports Windows 8 Secure Boot. Installing an operating system on the drive doesn't require any F6 drivers, as the controller masquerades as a standard AHCI controller and a single disk, with the subunits and their RAID 0 stripe completely abstract. This way, the drive can accept TRIM commands from the OS.

In addition to its 2.5-inch SATA 6 Gb/s TLC NAND flash SSD, Plextor showed off its upcoming SSD in the NGFF form-factor, designed for next-generation Ultrabooks. Based on the same Marvell 88SS9189 processor and triple-level cell (TLC) NAND flash memory as its 2.5-inch cousin, the drive differs in being a 42 x 22 mm (LxW) NGFF module, with PCI-Express 2.0 x2 interface. The drives will be sold in 128 GB and 256 GB capacities, featuring 256 MB and 512 MB DDR3 DRAM caches, respectively. On offer are read speeds of up to 700 MB/s, writes of up to 550 MB/s, and maximum 4K random write performance of 100,000 IOPS. The NGFF drives should arrive around the same time as Ultrabooks based on 4th generation Core "Haswell" processors.