ZOTAC is preparing to launch another tier to its GeForce RTX 20-series graphics cards lineup with the AMP Extreme series. Sitting above their now historic AMP Series (at least in computer hardware terms, it's already historic), the new lineup will bring much improved factory overclocking numbers, so these are certainly part of those cherry-picked chips for maximum performance. Core clocks aren't known at the time, but memory clocks have been upped to 14.4 Gbps, some 400 MHz above the factory specifications for the RTX 2080 - the only confirmed card until now.

The rest of the design is relatively straightforward, with a metallic backplate, a tri-90 mm fan design, 2x 8-pin power connectors, a 16+4 phases power delivery system, and a much increased TDP of 280 W (over the reference 215 W). Of course, there's RGB lighting as well, but that's not the important thing here: the cherry-picked chips are. It's unclear os of yet when this series will hit the market, but expect them sooner rather than later. ZOTAC is apparently also working on a AMP Core series, which should find its differentiation over the factory overclocking specifics.

AMD today announced the much-awaited 2nd generation Ryzen quad-core socket AM4 processors, in addition to two new E-series (energy-efficient) variants of its existing processor models. To begin with, the company announced the 4-core/8-thread Ryzen 5 2500X and the 4-core/4-thread Ryzen 3 2300X.

Unlike their predecessors that are carved out of the "Summit Ridge" silicon by disabling 2 cores per compute complex or CCX (2+2 CCX config), the 2500X and 2300X feature a 4+0 config, or an entire CCX in the "Pinnacle Ridge" silicon being disabled. This also means that the 2500X has just 8 MB of L3 cache (its predecessor has 16 MB). The 2300X is clocked at 3.50 GHz with 4.00 GHz boost, while the 2500X ticks at 3.60 GHz with 4.00 GHz boost. The TDP of both chips is rated at 65W.

AMD also released the "E" brand extension for its 2nd generation Ryzen series, with the new Ryzen 5 2600E, and the Ryzen 7 2700E. Both these chips sacrifice clock speeds for an impressive 45W TDP. The 2600E is clocked at 3.10 GHz, with 4.00 GHz (compared to 3.60 GHz ~ 4.20 GHz of the 2600X); while the 2700E ticks at 2.80 GHz, with 4.00 GHz boost (compared to 3.70 GHz ~ 4.30 GHz of the 2700X). The company didn't reveal pricing of the four chips.

AMD is readying its second generation Ryzen Pro socket AM4 processors targeted at commercial desktops in a corporate environment, with additional management and security features. These chips are based on the company's new 12 nm "Pinnacle Ridge" silicon. Its biggest differentiator from the other Ryzen SKUs is the GuardMI feature, which is a collective of Secure Memory Encryption, a hardened Secure Boot feature, Secure Production Environment (useful for big organizations that oversee the manufacturing of their hardware, and fTPM.

AMD's 2nd gen Ryzen Pro lineup initially includes three models: the 8-core/16-thread Ryzen 7 Pro 2700X, the Ryzen 7 Pro 2700, and the 6-core/12-thread Ryzen 5 Pro 2600. Some of these chips are clocked marginally lower than their non-Pro siblings. The Pro 2700X ticks at 3.60 GHz, with 4.10 GHz (vs. 3.70 to 4.30 GHz of the 2700X); while the Pro 2700 and Pro 2600 are clocked on par with its non-Pro counterparts. The decision behind clocking the Pro 2700X lower could have something to do with TDP, which is now 95W, compared to the 105W of the normal 2700X.

The GeForce GTX 1080 set high standards for efficiency. Launched as a high-end product that was faster than any other client-segment graphics card at the time, the GTX 1080 made do with just a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, and had a TDP of just 180W. The reference-design PCB, accordingly, has a rather simple VRM setup. The alleged GTX 1080-successor, called either GTX 1180 or GTX 2080 depending on who you ask, could deviate from its ideology of extreme efficiency. There were telltale signs of this departure on the first bare PCB shots.

The PCB pictures revealed preparation for an unusually strong VRM design, given that this is an NVIDIA reference board. It draws power from a combination of 6-pin and 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and features a 10+2 phase setup, with up to 10 vGPU and 2 vMem phases. The size of the pads for the ASIC and no more than 8 memory chips confirmed that the board is meant for the GTX 1080-successor. Adding to the theory of this board being unusually hot is an article by Chinese publication Benchlife.info, which mentions that the reference design (Founders Edition) cooling solution does away with a single lateral blower, and features a strong aluminium fin-stack heatsink ventilated by two top-flow fans (like most custom-design cards). Given that NVIDIA avoided such a design for even big-chip cards such as the GTX 1080 Ti FE or the TITAN V, the GTX 1080-successor is proving to be an interesting card to look forward to. But then what if this is the fabled GTX 1180+ / GTX 2080+, slated for late-September?

Lenovo put up an updated specs sheet of its ThinkCentre M725 small form-factor desktop, with more processor options. Notable additions to these include the upcoming AMD Ryzen 3 2300X and Ryzen 5 2500X quad-core socket AM4 processors. The two chips succeed the 1300X and 1500X, respectively, and are designed to capture sub-$150 price-points, competing with Intel's Core i3 "Coffee Lake" quad-core processor series. It's rumored that the 2300X could even be priced close to the $100-mark, making it competitive with the i3-8100, while the 2500X could be priced competitively with the i3-8300.

AMD is giving these quad-core chips all its innovations it can muster to make them competitive with Intel's chips - the two feature unlocked base-clock multipliers, Precision Boost (Intel's Core i3 chips lack Turbo Boost), and XFR 2.0, which automatically overclock beyond the max boost frequencies. You also get the latest Precision Boost 2.0 algorithm that ensures each of the four cores gets varying degrees of boost clocks. Based on the 12 nm "Pinnacle Ridge" die, the two chips feature a 2+2 CCX configuration. The 2300X has 4 MB of L3 cache enabled per CCX (8 MB total), while the 2500X gives you the full 8 MB per CCX L3 cache, for a total of 16 MB. TDP of both chips are rated at 65W, and AMD could bundle the Wraith Stealth cooler with the two.

AMD announced its second-generation Ryzen Threadripper high-end desktop (HEDT) processor series, succeeding its lean and successful first-generation that disrupted much of Intel's Core X HEDT series, forcing Intel to open up new high-core-count (HCC) market segments beyond its traditional $1000 price-point. AMD's 16-core $999 1950X proved competitive with even Intel's 12-core and 14-core SKUs priced well above the $1200-mark; and now AMD looks to beat Intel at its game, with the introduction of new 24-core and 32-core SKUs at prices that are sure to spell trouble for Intel's Core X HCC lineup. The lineup is partially open to pre-orders, with two SKUs launching within August (including the 32-core one), and two others in October.

At the heart of AMD's second-generation Ryzen Threadripper is the new 12 nm "Pinnacle Ridge" die, which made its debut with the 2nd Generation Ryzen AM4 family. This die proved to introduce 3-5 percent IPC improvements in single-threaded tasks, and multi-threaded improvements with an improved Precision Boost II algorithm, which boosted frequencies of each of 8 cores on-die. The Threadripper is still a multi-chip module, with 2 to 4 of these dies, depending on the SKU. There are four of these - the 12-core/24-thread Threadripper 2920X, the 16-core/32-thread Threadripper 2950X; the 24-core/48-thread Threadripper 2970WX, and the flagship 32-core/64-thread Threadripper 2990WX.

Intel is ready with pre-built NUC desktops based on its 8th generation "Coffee Lake" SoCs. The cases of these NUCs are mosty similar to those the company debuted its low-power "Gemini Lake" based NUCs with, this March. The NUC8i3BEH, NUC8i5BEH and NUC8i7BEH, differentiated by Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 chips, respectively; come in larger cases to cope with the 28-Watt TDP. In addition to a bigger heatsink, these three serve up a 2.5-inch drive bay with SATA 6 Gbps back-plane, in addition to an M.2-2280 slot that has both SATA and PCIe 3.0 x4 wiring. The slimmer NUC8i3BEK and NUC8i5BEK, differentiated by lower TDP (15 W) SoCs, lack 2.5-inch drive bays. You still get a full-featured M.2-2280 slot. Retailers hint at availability from the first week of August.

Back in 2011, a team of engineers with the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, proposed an audacious new chip air-cooling concept called simply the Sandia CPU cooler. Its design involved a chunky metallic fan not just ventilating the cooler, but also dissipating heat by itself, conveyed through a thin layer of conductive lubricant between the fan and the static heatsink below it. The concept itself never made it to commercial production, but Thermaltake brought something closely resembling it to the market in 2016, with the Engine 27. The company is giving this cooler an even smaller sibling, with the new Engine 17. The number in the model name refers to its Z-height of just 17 mm, making it comfortable for 1U builds.

Besides its reduced Z-height, the design is practically unchanged from the Engine 27 - a round, nickel-plated copper base-plate draws heat from the CPU, which is mated with a 60 mm diameter metallic fan that not just dissipates heat by itself, but also passes air through a ring of aluminium fin channels projecting radially. The reduced height means that this cooler can only handle thermal loads of up to 35W TDP. It only supports Intel LGA115x sockets. Despite its weight, the fan spins between 1,500 to 2,500 RPM, pushing about 9 CFM of air, with a noise output ranging between 11 to 23 dBA. Measuring 91.5 mm x 91.5 mm x 17 mm, it weighs 205 g. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Ahead of their unveiling later this week, four Intel Core i5 and Core i7 U-series (ultra-low power) mobile processor SKUs surfaced in Intel's public price-lists. The prices in the list are meant for notebook manufacturers, for each chip purchased in 1,000-unit tray quantities. The specifications of these SKUs put out in the price-list indicate that Intel is keeping up with its drive to increase core-counts across its product-stack, even with TDP as tight as 15W (that's 15W for quad-core chips). The nominal clock speeds of these chips are kept very low, and their Turbo Boost frequencies are kept high, so there's tighter control over when the processor wants to spend power on performance.

The lineup is led by the Core i7-8650U, which is a 4-core/8-thread SKU with a clock speed of 1.90 GHz, and max Turbo Boost over 4.00 GHz; 8 MB of L3 cache, and a price of USD $409. Selling at the same exact price is the i7-8550U, with a slightly lower clock speed of 1.80 GHz, and 4.00 GHz Turbo Boost. The Core i5 lineup, interestingly, is 4-core/8-thread (includes HyperThreading support), even through its L3 cache amount is 6 MB. The i5-8350U ticks at 1.70 GHz, and an unknown Turbo Boost clock, and is priced at $297; while at the same price, the i5-8520U is clocked at 1.60 GHz, with 3.40 GHz Turbo Boost. The four chips will already be up for order in August 2017, and the first finished-products based on these chips could launch by Holiday.

It turns out that the Core i3-8300 isn't the only upcoming quad-core processor bearing the value-segment Core i3 badge; with Intel planning two other quad-core SKUs, according to leaked company documents that surfaced on the forumscape. The two other SKUs are the Core i3-8350K and the Core i3-8100. While the specs-sheet puts out only a limited number of specifications, it confirms that both the SKUs are quad-core, and that the i3-8350K features an unlocked multiplier. It also confirms that Core i3 quad-core chips (including the i3-8300) lack HyperThreading.

The Core i3-8100 could position itself at the lower-end of the value-segment, below the Core i3-8300. The Core i3-8350K could be a logical successor to the unlocked i3-7350K, which is being sold at $189. One can expect a pricing overlap between this unlocked quad-core SKU, and the cheapest "locked" six-core SKU bearing the Core i5 badge, such as the Core i5-8400. The i3-8350K is clocked at 4.00 GHz out of the box, and the i3-8300 at 3.60 GHz. Both chips lack Turbo Boost. The i3-8350K has a TDP rated at 91W, which is marginally below the 95W rating of its six-core siblings. The i3-8100 has its TDP rated at 65W.

AMD has announced full and immediate retail availability of their Wraith Max cooler through retail channels. The 140 W TDP Wraith Max cooler was previously only available through a bundle with AMD's top of the line Ryzen 7 1700X and 1800X. However, through popular demand, AMD have decided to make that cooler available solo. Ease of installation through AMD's Spring-Screw mechanism, jolly good looks, LED lighting, relatively silent performance (38 dBa) and respectable performance seem to have been enough to convince AMD users.

The Wraith Max cooler is compatible with AMD AM4, AM3+, and FM2 motherboards. The RGB ring's color can be customized through a myriad of RGB control apps from various manufacturers, such as Asus' Aura Sync, Gigabyte's RGB Fusion, MSI's Mystic Light, Biostar's Vivid LED DJ, and ASRock's RGB LED tools. AMD also offers the AMD Wraith Max RGB lighting control software (powered by Cooler Master) as a free download. The Wraith Max comes with both a USB header cable and an RGB LED header to control the lighting feature. A copper base plate and heatpipes, along with pre-applied thermal paste and a 92mm Cooler Master fan. The down-blowing fan also provides an extra bit of cooling for the socket area and VRMs. Perhaps the $59 price-tag will turn some prospective buyers off, but still, this remains the best stock cooler option in the market, and for someone who wants to keep an AMD cooling identity, is the best available option.

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.

AMD today announced its Ryzen 3 series value desktop processors in the socket AM4 package. The lineup consists of the Ryzen 3 1200 priced at $109, and the faster Ryzen 3 1300X priced at $129; and compete with Intel Core i3 dual-core SKUs, such as the i3-7100 and the i3-7300, respectively. What AMD has going for these chips is that they are quad-core, even if they lack SMT featured on Ryzen 5 series quad-core parts. Both are endowed with 8 MB of shared L3 cache, and unlocked base-clock multipliers.

The Ryzen 3 1200 is clocked at 3.10 GHz, with 3.40 GHz boost, and XFR (extended frequency range) adding another 50 MHz; while the Ryzen 3 1300X is clocked at 3.40 GHz, with 3.70 GHz boost, and XFR adding a further 200 MHz. In most scenarios, the chip should boost up to 3.90 GHz. AMD carved the two Ryzen 3 series parts out of its 14 nm "Summit Ridge" silicon, by disabling two cores and 4 MB L3 cache per CCX, resulting in 4 cores and 8 MB of total L3 cache. Both chips feature TDP ratings of 65W, and include AMD Wraith Stealth cooling solutions.

The liquid-cooled variant of AMD Radeon Pro Vega Frontier Edition has some very lofty power requirements. Although it draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors, which along with the PCI-Express slot total a power output of 375W, the card was tested by PC Perspective, to be overdrawing power from the power connectors, with a peak power draw of a staggering 440W, with its power limit raised by 25% to stabilize a 7% overclock. At its stock clock speeds, however, the card remains well under the 375W limit, drawing around 350W of power.

The liquid-cooled Radeon Pro Vega Frontier Edition has its TDP rated at 375W, compared to 300W of the air-cooled variant. Given its performance being somewhere between the GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti, these figures don't bode particularly well for the upcoming Radeon RX Vega family of consumer graphics cards, unless AMD pulls a rabbit out of its hat with pricing. The RX Vega series is expected to be announced on July 27.

In what could be a decisive response from Intel towards AMD's recent Ryzen success and core count democratization, reports are making the rounds that Intel is preparing for a shakedown of sorts of its i7 and i5 CPU line-up under the upcoming Coffee Lake architecture. We recently saw (and continue to see) AMD deliver much more interesting propositions than Intel in a pure power/performance/core ratio. And Intel seems to know that its lineup is in dire need of revision, if it wants to stop its market dominant position from bleeding too much.

A report from Canard PC claims that Intel will thoroughly revise its CPU lineup for the Coffee Lake architecture, with an i7-8700K six-core, 12-thread processor being the top offering. This 8700K is reported to deliver its 12 threads at a 3.7 GHz base clock, and a 95 W TDP. These are comparable to AMD's Ryzen 5 1600X processor, which ships with the same six cores and 12 threads under the same TDP, though it has 100 MHz less in base clock speed. However, AMD's Ryzen 5 1600X does retail for about $249 - and you can go even lower to Ryzen 5 1600's $219 - which probably won't happen with Intel's top of the line i7 offering. A slight mention towards the Ryzen 7's 95 W TDP - the same as this reported i7 8700K - even though it has 2 more physical cores, and 4 extra threads.

Intel has recently updated documentation on their available list of processors based on the 7th generation of the Core Family. These new Kaby Lake-based CPUs will further flesh-out Intel's offerings in both the desktop, laptop, and professional segments with new entries in the Core i3, Kaby Lake-U, and Xeon E3 lines of processors.

The new Core i3 processors make use of the S-0 stepping, instead of the B-0 stepping of previously-released processors. The additions are comprised of the i3-7340 (4.2 GHz, 4 MB cache, 51 W TDP); i3-7320T (3.6 GHz, 4MB cache, 35 W TDP); i3-7120 (4 GHz, 3 MB cache, 51 W TDP); and the i3-7120T (3.5 GHz, 3 MB cache, 35 W TDP.) On the laptop side of the equation, Intel is introducing four new processors: the Core i3-7007U (2 cores, 4 threads, 2.1 GHz, 3 MB cache); the Core i3-7110U (2 cores, 4 threads, 2.6 GHz, 3 MB cache); the Core i5-7210U (2 cores, 4 threads, 2.5 GHz base, 3.3 GHz Turbo, 3 MB cache); and the Core i7-7510U (2 cores, 4 threads, 2.7 GHz base, 3.7 GHz Turbo, 4 MB cache.) Lastly, Intel is adding the new E3-1285 v6 Xeon to its lineup. This one brings increased clock speeds (4.1 GHz base, 4.5 GHz Turbo) with Intel's HD P630 integrated graphics, increasing the TDP by 19 W ( to 91 W) compared to the already existing Xeon E3-1275 v6 - for a 300 MHz clock speed increase. This Xeon should be the new highest-end processor for the iMac, which should place its pricing above the $612 mark previously held by the Xeon E3-1280 v6.

The liquid cooled version of AMD's latest graphics card meant for the "pioneering crowd" of prosumers has been made available over at SabrePC. It sports the exact same GPU you'd find on the air-cooled version, featuring all the same 4096 Stream Processors and 16 GB of HBM2 memory. The only differences are, and you guessed it, the higher cooling capacity afforded by the AIO solution, and the therefore increased TDP from the 300 W of the air-cooled version to a eyebrow-raising 375 W. That increase in TDP must come partially from the employed cooling solution, but also from an (for now, anecdotal) ability for the card to more easily sustain higher clocks, closer to its AMD-rated 1,630 MHz peak core clock.

You can nab one right now in that rather striking gold and blue color scheme, and have it shipped to you in 24H. Hit the source link for the SabrePC page.

GIGABYTE today announced its latest generation of servers based on Intel's Skylake Purley architecture. This new generation brings a wealth of new options in scalability - across compute, network and storage - to deliver solutions for any application, from the enterprise to the data center to HPC. (Jump ahead to system introductions).

This server series adopts Intel's new product family - officially named the 'Intel Xeon Scalable family' and utilizes its ability to meet the increasingly diverse requirements of the industry, from entry-level HPC to large scale clusters.. The major development in this platform is around the improved features and functionality at both the host and fabric levels. These enable performance improvements - both natively on chip and for future extensibility through compute, network and storage peripherals. In practical terms, these new CPUs will offer up to 28 cores, and 48 PCIe lanes per socket.

Reeven may be a relatively little-known company, but I know for a fact they are one of the PC cooling companies offering one of the highest bang-for-buck ratio products in the Reeven Justice II (it's actually better than some AIOs; you should check the out.) The company makes use of a pretty distinct design language with their yellow-bladed fans (which they have recently built upon with the RGB Kiran.)

The coolers showcased by the company include the tower coolers Reeven Hans, a slim 120 mm cooler which includes a RGB Kiran fan and the Justice II, which builds upon the company's Justice while improving thermal characteristics. This is a high TDP design, black coated product, which looks gorgeous next to the yellow fans. The six heatpipe design helps this be one of the most effective tower air coolers in the market. Finally, the Ouranos Aero ends the scale on the tower coolers, being a 140 mm tower cooler (bigger than both the Hans and the Justice), and is especially designed for overclockers. The dual fan design ensures a greater airflow (and thus, higher heat dissipation capability.)

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.

Ahead of its launch on 17th May, specifications of NVIDIA's entry-level implementation of the "Pascal" GPU architecture, the GeForce GT 1030, were leaked to the web. This tiny GPU, with a TDP of just 35W, will power entry-level graphics cards of all shapes and sizes, including half-height (low profile) cards with passive cooling. NVIDIA could set the baseline price of the SKU as low as USD $59.99, given that in China, it is expected to start at RMB ¥450.

Based on the GP108 silicon, the GT 1030 will be endowed with 384 CUDA cores across three streaming multiprocessors holding 128 CUDA cores, each. In essence, the GP108 is half the chip the GP107 is, which powers the GTX 1050 Ti. With its three SM units, the GP108 features 24 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. It features a 64-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 2 GB of memory. The host interface is narrow, too, with the chip featuring a PCI-Express 3.0 x8 bus (cards will fit in x16 slots). The chip will be clocked at 1227 MHz core, 1468 MHz GPU Boost, and 6.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective) memory, working out to a memory bandwidth of 48 GB/s. Below is a quick block diagram we made.

Today is an eventful day in the tech world, with two high-impact leaks already offering themselves up to our scrutiny. We had previously covered AMD's upcoming HEDT platform, based on the company's new X399 chipset, as having a quite distinctive lineup of processors, with not only 16 and 12-core offerings hot on foundries presses', but also some 14-core, 28-thread chips as well. Now, a leak has apparently revealed the entire Ryzen HEDT platform, whose processor marketing name, Ryzen 9, sounds really close to Intel's Core i9.

AMD's offerings look to offer an edge at least on core-count, with the Red team's top offerings, the Ryzen 9 1998X and Ryzen 9 1998, bringing in a game-changer 16 cores and 32 threads to the table. Perhaps even more importantly, we have to mention that the 1998X (these names, if true, are quite a mouthful, though) achieves a 3.5 GHz base, 3.9 GHz boost clock, which owes nothing to AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X consumer flagship CPUs. Rumors of AMD's frequency demise on higher core-count Ryzen CPUs have been greatly exaggerated, it would seem. And did I mention that these chips are coming with a TDP of 155 W - 5 W lower than Intel's purported 12-core, i9-7920X offering? Consider that for a moment.

NVIDIA is apparently working on some new iterations of the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 GPUs for the mobile market. These new parts should come with lower clocks than the parts that are currently on the market, as a means for system builders to be able to reduce the profile and overall thickness of their laptops whilst still being able to keep a powerful graphics card at their heart.

The new GTX 1080 is the chip more details are floating about, with some captures from NotebookCheck showing all 2560 CUDA cores enabled, but lower clocks making up a much restrained power consumption. The 1290 MHz base clock (with an unknown boost value as of this point) points to a power consumption of just 110 W (compared to 165 W on the 1556 MHz base-clock GTX 1080; the new GTX 1070 should feature a TDP of 90 W compared to its previous 120 W fully-powered variant.) This naturally means a slower GPU - the new, revised GTX 1080 scored 17000 points on 3D Mark whereas usual implementations of the card score on the vicinity of 21,000. The change in power envelope, however, would enable new notebooks, such as the showcased Acer Predator 700, to deliver more performance than some of last gen's comparable thickness laptops. Its GTX 1080-powered 18.9 mm thickness in the leaked images allows for 600 points more than some previous-generation, 29 mm laptops.

AMD launched the retail versions of its flagship Ryzen 7 1800X and second-best Ryzen 7 1700X processors in WOF (without fan-heatsink) boxed packages, similar to how Intel sells unlocked "K" and "X" series processors, such as the Core i5-7600K and Core i7-7700K. The company is giving final touches to newer packages of the two chips that include a stock cooling solution, probably addressing markets in which socket AM4-compatible aftermarket cooling solutions aren't easily available. These packages will include AMD's largest Wraith-series cooler, the Wraith Max.

Wraith Max is the company's largest stock cooling solution, and is a slight upscale of the original Wraith cooler AMD introduced with the FX-8370. It is rated for CPUs with TDP of up to 140W, and so it could make short work of the 95W Ryzen 7 1800X and 1700X chips. It consists of a dense aluminium fin-stack heatsink to which heat drawn from a copper base is conveyed by heat pipes, and ventilated by a large fan. PIB (processor in a box) retail packages of the two chips with Wraith Max will have clear markings on the box, including stylized artwork of the cooler, besides being noticeably heavier. According to ComputerBase.de, the Ryzen 7 1800X Wraith Max is priced at 579€, compared to the WOF (without fan-heatsink) package's 537€ price; while the Ryzen 7 1700X Wraith Max is priced at 460€, compared to the WOF package's 396€ price (all prices include taxes).

At a press event by AMD, company CEO Lisa Su unveiled the first three AMD Ryzen desktop processor models, the top-dog Ryzen 7-1800X, the Ryzen 7-1700X, and the Ryzen 7-1700. The R7-1800X is priced at USD $499, followed by the R7-1700X at $399, and the R7-1700 at $329. The three chips will be available for purchase on the 2nd of March, 2017. The R7-1800X is clocked at 3.60 GHz, with a TurboCore frequency of 4.00 GHz, and the XFR (extended frequency range) feature, which further overclocks the chip, depending on the effectiveness of your CPU cooler.

The Ryzen 7-1700X ships with 3.40 GHz clocks, with 3.80 GHz TurboCore frequency, and the XFR feature. The Ryzen 7-1700 lacks XFR, and comes with slightly lower clocks, at 3.00 GHz core, and 3.70 GHz TurboCore. All three are true 8-core chips, with 512 KB of dedicated L2 cache per core, and 16 MB of shared L3 cache. Also featured are dual-channel DDR4 integrated memory controllers, and an integrated PCI-Express gen 3.0 root complex. The Ryzen 7-1700 has a TDP of just 65W (for a performance 8-core chip that's a kick in the butts of Intel's engineers), and will include an AMD Wraith Max cooling solution, while the 1700X and 1800X have TDP rated at 95W, and will come without coolers. At its media event, CEO Lisa Su stated that at $499, the Ryzen 7-1800X "smokes" the Intel Core i7-6900K eight-core processor. The company also unveiled the branding of its Radeon Vega enthusiast graphics family. Lastly, feast your eyes on the beautiful, 14 nm, Made-in-USA die-shot of Ryzen.