The launch of Intel's Alder Lake processsors has opened an exciting chapter for team blue and motherboard makers who are finally transitioning to new technologies like DDR5 and PCIe Gen5 standards. Today, GIGABYTE AORUS has prepared a complete lineup of motherboards designed to satisfy all kinds of workloads powered by Alder Lake processors as these AORUS Z690 motherboards are about to hit the market. These new boards include an upgraded feature set like 16+ phases power delivery on all boards, upgraded heatsinks to keep VRM temperatures under control, and built-in DDR5 overclocking features.

The event will be live-streamed on YouTube, so tune in to the First Look Event as the AORUS team gives an in-depth overview and cover the performance increase you can experience with Intel 12th gen CPU and DDR5 memory on the AORUS Z690 platform. They will be going over the new platform's entire lineup and feature set, so make sure you get to the event on time. It will start at 18:00 UTC zone, and you can tune in to watch here: AORUS Z690 First Look Event.

As business professionals continue to navigate new work environments - in an office, at home, or a mix of both - having proper technology and display tools are essential for maintaining team productivity and collaboration. Dedicated to delivering top-quality projection that is also versatile for a range of professional environments, today Epson introduced the new Epson 880X 3LCD 1080p smart portable projector. Compact and equipped with a convenient carrying case, the 880X meets a variety of on-the-go business display needs. Additionally, with Android TV and built-in Chromecast, users can easily switch it into a streaming machine for epic entertainment virtually anywhere.

"As the dynamics of work environments continue to shift, it's important that business professionals have the proper tools to set them up for success in any space," said Kenny Tang, product manager, projectors, Epson America, Inc. "The demand for bigger displays has continued throughout the pandemic for both business and home entertainment. The 880X smart projector is ideal for video conferencing and presentations with the added versatility to transform spaces into entertainment hubs."

The upcoming Update 5 for the Asobo Studio-developed Microsoft Flight Simulator will be a welcome boon to any and all players of the simulator. The development studio has issued an update via YouTube describing the performance improvements they've seen with their latest work into the game engine, which has integrated DX 12 capability - taking advantage of its "closer to the metal" capabilities so as to improve performance.

The update is dropping on July 27th, the same time that the game will be made available on the Xbox family of consoles. One can easily construe a scenario where Update 5's DX 12 and performance optimizations were made mostly as a way to make the game perform better on Xbox console hardware - the game is absolutely capable of bringing the most powerful graphics cards in the world to their knees at high resolutions and highest quality settings. With the same hardware, quality settings and playable scenario, average performance went from 32-40 FPS before the update up to the 55-60 interval post Update 5 optimizations. The update sees CPU utilization dropping by 25%; memory usage drop by 50%; and GPU utilization climbs from 75% up to 100%. Look for the break for a video showcasing the latest version of Microsoft Flight Simulator - with Update 5 applied.

For professionals with specific needs, using a NAS will improve your productivity and protect you better from data loss and avoid costly data recovery services. For small office and home office setups, the TerraMaster 2-bay and 4-bay NAS models are perfect and below $300. Professionals working at home or in a small office need reliable storage to store data. Whether you are a content creator such as YouTubers, photographers, and videographers, or professionals doing remote work at home due to the pandemic, data storage must have reliable with adequate protection against data loss. Furthermore, data storage should not hinder productivity and creativity.

For professional individuals, a typical computer setup would suffice their needs. However, traditional data storage options such as HDD/SSD and portable storage drives come with limitations and vulnerabilities. This is where Network-Attached Storage, popularly known as NAS, come into play. NAS devices offer robust protection plus a few extras that traditional storage drives don't offer. NAS can be tailored to a user's specific needs that will help improve workflow and productivity.

Video streaming is looking a bit like magic. The uploader sends a video to one platform in one resolution and encoding format, while the viewer requests a video in a specific resolution and encoding format used by the device the video is streamed on. YouTube knows this best, as it represents the world's largest video platform with over 2 billion users visiting the platform each month. That takes a massive load on the server infrastructure over at Google's data centers that host the service. There is about 500 hours worth of video content uploaded to the platform every minute, and regular hardware isn't being enough anymore to handle everything.

That is why YouTube has developed custom chips, ASICs, that are called VCUs or Video (trans)Coding Units. In Google data centers, there is a large problem with transcoding. Each video needs to adapt to the streaming platform and desired specifications, and doing that on regular hardware is a problem. By using ASIC devices, such as VCUs, Google can keep up with the demand and deliver the best possible quality. Codenamed Argos, the chip can deliver 20-33x improvement in efficiency compared to the regular server platform. In data centers, the VCU is implemented as a regular PCIe card, with two chips under the heatsinks.

LIAN LI Industrial Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of aluminium chassis and PC accessories, hosts its second online event with the LIAN LI 2021 DIGITAL EXPO, which premiers February 18th, 9 am EST on YouTube (here). The 2021 DIGITAL EXPO unveils soon to be launched products, with new editions of the O11D MINI and UNI FANS, as well as exclusive looks at four prototypes. Each prototype will receive an in-depth look from case reviewers.

Q58: The Q58, a 14.3L SFF case, is equipped with split hinged panels made of tempered glass and aluminium mesh, and a dual-tone front solid aluminium panel. With support for MINI-ITX, 320 mm long GPUs, and up to 280 mm radiators, the Q58 is capable of supporting a variety of configurations with SFX PSUs or ATX PSUs due to an adjustable motherboard tray that can be moved for more clearance.

CORSAIR, a world leader in high-performance gear for gamers and creators, is pleased to announce it has acquired Visuals by Impulse, the world's premium design platform for creators, which will join CORSAIR under its existing Elgato brand.

Founded in 2015, Visuals by Impulse (VBI) provides professional design for creators on Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook Gaming. Streamers around the world use VBI overlays, alerts, and widgets to customize their broadcasts and grow their fanbases. Thanks to VBI technology and design, anyone can create stylish, personalized live-streaming content — from first-time creators to streaming superstars.

CD Projekt RED today published an official gameplay trailer of its upcoming triple-A title called Cyberpunk 2077. Coming on December 10th, today we got a preview of how the gameplay works and what are the objectives in the game. The game is set in an open-world North America after a nuclear crisis. You are located in a place called Night City, one of the last megalopolises, where you fill the gap between the streets and corporate mafia. As a paid urban mercenary, you use your cyber-enhanced body to get the job done and be the best you can. The trailer video is available to watch on YouTube, which you can check out below and see for yourself the first gameplay of the Cyberpunk 2077 game.

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, made October 10, 2020 a day to remember for the global gaming community. Fans across the world tuned in to the inaugural RazerCon to watch Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan's live mixed-reality keynote - a one-of-a-kind interactive session hosted against the iconic Singapore skyline. This was followed by Razer panels on new and unannounced products, and exclusive content showcases and giveaways from game studios such as Romero Games, Perfect World Entertainment, Paradox Interactive and technology partners such as Intel, NVIDIA and Western Digital.

The event was a huge hit with the fans, peaking at over 1 million concurrent viewers with a total of more than 250,000 hours viewed and 175 million impressions across Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch. In a true celebration of all things gaming, highly decorated veterans of the industry, including Brenda and John Romero, and Haz Dullul, presented their newest projects, whilst leading gaming celebrities CloakZy, CourageJD, PaladinAmber and many others engaged with the community during their sessions.

LG UltraGear partners with TechPowerUp to present the LG UltraGear Face-Off, an online Valorant tournament roping in 20 big-ticket e-sports athletes such as xQcOW, ChicaLive, and Wardell, forming into four teams who will battle for glory on October 3, 16:00 Eastern, for the ultimate Valorant glory and hardware from LG UltraGear. Among the 20 athletes are stars from various popular FPS e-sports disciplines, including Overwatch, Apex Legends, Fortnite, and CS:GO. Find out which of these games are best suited to dominate Valorant. While they slug it out, TechPowerUp readers have a chance to win from a 100 Steam Gift Cards valued at $20 each. There are three ways to participate: by simply watching a tournament video, following LG UltraGear on Twitch so you can watch the tournament, or subscribing to the LG UltraGear channel on YouTube. Entries close 40 hours from now, and 100 lucky winners are randomly selected and announced on October 15.

The LG UltraGear 27GN950-B gaming monitor is the choice of e-sports champions. As the pioneer of IPS, the leading modern display technology, LG UltraGear designs some of the most advanced gaming monitors optimized not just for bleeding-edge, tournament-winning performance, but also top-notch display quality. LG Display has perfected a new generation of IPS panels, called Nano IPS, geared for gaming, with fast 1 ms response-time, and 144 Hz refresh-rates, making them perfect for e-sports. The LG UltraGear 27GN950-B is a 27-inch 16:9 flatscreen with 4K Ultra HD resolution, 144 Hz refresh-rate, 1 ms response time, meeting DisplayHDR 600 standards, and supporting both NVIDIA G-SYNC (compatibility) and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro.

To participate, visit this page.

Don't forget to follow LG UltraGear on Twitch, where the tournament will be streamed.

AMD today posted the Radeon Software Adrenalin 20.8.3 WHQL drivers. This was earlier released as a beta in late-August. Besides the WHQL certification, nothing appears to have changed since 20.8.3 beta. The drivers come with optimization for "Marvel's Avengers" (the game), "Project CARS 3," and "Fortnite" (specific to DirectX 12 model in "Epic" setting). Other changes over the previous 20.8.2 drivers include new Vulkan API extensions, a number of game-specific fixes, improved compatibility of YouTube playback on certain browsers when paired with AMD Ryzen processors, and more. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 20.8.3 WHQL

EA and Crytek have been preparing to remaster the popular Crysis game for some time. And finally, we know the dates when we can see some gameplay as well as when we can get the game to play it. On the official Crysis YouTube channel, there is a video titled "Crysis Remastered - Official Gameplay Trailer Premiere", which is premiering on July 1st at 12 PM ET / 9 AM PST time. After the July 1st premiere, the full game will be available on July 23rd. You can set a reminder on YouTube so you get a notification when the premiere starts. Below we have put the YouTube link so you can check it out and join others in waiting.

Cyberpunk 2077 is the year's most awaited game release, and has been met with not one, but two delays already. Originally expected to ship in April of this year, it has since been postponed to September, and now to November 19th on account of extra optimization and bug quashing from developer CD Projekt Red. However, the recent gameplay videos released for the game by the developer showcase the amount of work that has gone into the engine since 2018, when we were first treated to a gameplay video.

The video after the break comes courtesy of YouTube user 'Cycu1', who set up the 2018 and 2020 trailers side by side. In it, you can see extreme improvements to overall level and character detail (some of this can certainly be attributed to a lower-quality 2018 video compression). However, the video also showcases some lighting differences (I guess it's subjective whether this has worked out for better or worse, but the new videos supposedly make use of ray tracing). Another point that I'd like to call your attention to is that there seem to be some environment differences between the two versions - it seems that some environments were simplified compared to their 2018 version, such as the "Going Pro" mission - the chair and panels were removed from the environment and replaced by what looks like a garage door. Whether this was done as a way to improve performance is on CD Projekt Red's purview.

Intel CEO Bob Swan, in his Virtual Computex YouTube stream, advocated that the industry should focus less on benchmarks, and more on the benefits of technology, a line of thought strongly advocated by rival AMD in its pre-Ryzen era, before the company began getting competitive with Intel again. "We should see this moment as an opportunity to shift our focus as an industry from benchmarks to the benefits and impacts of the technology we create," he said, referring to technology keeping civilization and economies afloat during the COVID-19 global pandemic, which has thrown Computex among practically every other public gathering out of order.

"The pandemic has underscored the need for technology to be purpose-built so it can meet these evolving business and consumer needs. And this requires a customer-obsessed mindset to stay close, anticipate those needs, and develop solutions. In this mindset, the goal is to ensure we are optimizing for a stronger impact that will support and accelerate positive business and societal benefits around the globe," he added. An example of what Swan is trying to say is visible with Intel's 10th generation Core "Cascade Lake XE" and "Ice Lake" processors, which feature AVX-512 and DL-Boost, accelerating deep learning neural nets; but lose to AMD's flagship offerings on the vast majority of benchmarks. Swan also confirmed that the company's "Tiger Lake" processors will launch this Summer.The Computex video address by CEO Bob Swan can be watched below.

In a recent Microsoft blog post, Mojang Studios announced that Minecraft has sold over 200 million copies to date, with 126 million active monthly players. This achievement comes 11 years after the game was originally released in May 2009 as a Java applet on an online forum. To this day Minecraft has remained as one of the world's most popular games from being the most-watched game on YouTube in 2019 to getting released on almost every device imaginable and still actively receiving updates.

NVIDIA is rumored to introduce their next-generation Ampere architecture very soon, at its GTC event happening on May 14th. We're expecting to see an announcement for the successor to the company's DGX lineup of pre-built compute systems—using the upcoming Ampere architecture of course. At the heart of these machines, will be a new GA100 GPU, that's rumored to be very fast. A while ago, we've seen NVIDIA register a trademark for "DGX A100", which seems to be a credible name for these systems featuring the new Tesla A100 graphics cards.

Today, NVIDIA's CEO was spotted in an unlisted video that's published on the official NVIDIA YouTube channel. It shows him pulling out of the oven what he calls "world's largest GPU", that he has been cooking all the time. Featuring eight Tesla A100 GPUs, this DGX A100 system appears to be based on a similar platform design as previous DGX systems, where the GPU is a socketed SXM2 design. This looks like a viable upgrade path for owners of previous DGX systems—just swap out the GPUs and enjoy higher performance. It's been a while since we have seen Mr. Huang appear with his leather jacket, and in the video, he isn't wearing one, is this the real Jensen? Jokes aside, you can check out the video below, if it is not taken down soon.Update May 12th, 5 pm UTC: NVIDIA has listed the video and it is not unlisted anymore.

Microsoft has just announced that we will finally get a glimpse (here's hoping it's more than just a glimpse) at their next-generation Xbox Series X gameplay. The event, scheduled for May 7th at 11 am ET / 8 am PT. To be transmitted on YouTube, the Inside Xbox event will be essentially a "global partner event", which means that we should see gameplay for a variety of franchises from AAA developers and publishers. And looking at today's announcement of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, which featured Xbox marketing prominently, I'll wager that's just one of the games we'll get to see more of at the event.

Microsoft's general manager of Xbox games marketing Aaron Greenberg also said that "Xbox Games Studios teams are hard at work on some big summer plans". It remains to be seen whether that means another event will be taking place at a later date, focused solely on Microsoft's first-party studios, but I'd wager we'll be seeing most of the presentation focusing on Xbox's own development studios. Finally, we'll be getting a look at what "gaming revolution" next-gen consoles will really bring - and set a standard for future games development.

Google Stadia is set to hold their first Stadia Connect event in over 8 months tomorrow the 28th April at 9 AM PT / 6 PM CET / 5 PM BST. Google has announced that several new games coming to the platform will be revealed at the event, whether these games will be from existing third parties or new Stadia exclusives is yet to be known. Google has not announced any exclusives for the platform this far, making it possible that Google might have some games lined up to announce. The stream can be viewed live on the Google Stadia YouTube channel and will be available to watch on-demand after the event. W̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶s̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶u̶p̶d̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶p̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶d̶e̶t̶a̶i̶l̶s̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶n̶o̶u̶n̶c̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶m̶o̶r̶r̶o̶w̶.̶ Google has unveiled 11 new games for the platform, full details can be viewed here.

Popular video streaming sites YouTube and Netflix have reportedly started rationing their bandwidth by limiting video quality, as online traffic to their services surge to record levels. With COVID-19 lockdowns forcing people to take to online entertainment, the sites are reporting an unprecedented strain on their finite Internet bandwidth. In Europe, the two sites have capped their video quality to 480p, or slightly worse than DVD quality.

Despite the mighty backing of AWS, the world's largest CDN, Amazon's Prime Video is also finding itself having to cap quality based on regional bandwidth constraints. Google is already engaging with governments and ISPs to minimize strain on available Internet bandwidth. Streaming video remains the number one bandwidth consumer. Governments would want to prioritize bandwidth for companies operating remote- or virtual desktops for their employees working from home. Perhaps there's no better time to upgrade online video codecs to newer bandwidth-efficient ones like AV1.

Elgato, the leading provider of hardware and software for content creators, today announced the launch of HD60 S+, an external video capture card that lets content creators play high-fidelity console games in stunning 4K60 HDR10 while simultaneously streaming or recording gameplay in 1080p60 HDR10. It's easy to get set up and streaming with HD60 S+ thanks to a simple USB 3.0 connection and full compatibility with today's most prominent streaming applications including OBS Studio, Streamlabs OBS, and XSplit. Accompanied by powerful Elgato 4KCU recording software, HD60 S+ is ideal for content creators looking to grow audiences on Twitch, YouTube, and Mixer.

Building upon the original hugely popular HD60 S, HD60 S+ allows 4K60 HDR10 zero-lag passthrough, with onboard video downscaling to enable streaming to any platform in industry standard full HD 1080p60 quality and recording unlimited 1080p60 HDR10 footage to your hard drive. HD60 S+ also benefits from ultra-low latency Instant Gameview technology, keeping gameplay, mic, webcam, and other sources perfectly synched.

Blue, a 20-year leading innovator in audio technology and design, today announced the new Yeti X USB microphone for gaming, streaming and podcasting. Yeti X features new Blue VO!CE technology, which enables content creators to dial up professional vocal effects and custom presets at the push of a button. A four capsule condenser microphone array delivers exceptional focus and clarity, high-res LED metering provides visual, real-time feedback for vocal levels, and a multi-function smart knob provides instant control over essential mic functions. Combining legendary Blue audio quality with innovative new features, Yeti X is the ultimate tool for creators who want to deliver professional content and build their audience.

Intel Graphics switched gears from being integrated graphics solutions for basic 2D desktop and video, to something that could appeal to gamers. The change appears to have been brought about by hiring of Raja Koduri, who led graphics teams at AMD and Apple. Intel discovered that its iGPUs can play many e-Sports games such as PUBG, World of Tanks, Warhammer: Vermitide 2, etc., and so, the company decided to do more for this segment of PC gamers that still games on iGPUs, beginning with regular driver updates that pack game-optimizations, the switch to the new DCH driver model for Windows 10, and apparently, a new Control Panel app designed for gamers.

Teased in a YouTube presentation by Intel Graphics, the Control Panel appears to show a game launcher and settings optimization tool modeled along the lines of GeForce Experience. Intel has also made big changes to the functional bits of the Control Panel, which deal with global display settings, monitor setup, etc. The new Control Panel gives us a direction of where Intel Graphics is headed: it doesn't want to leave behind gamers. The Gen11 iGPU which will be part of the company's 10 nm "Ice Lake" processors already spark rumors of massive 3D performance improvements over current Gen9.5, and reportedly have over 1 TFLOP/s of raw compute power. The company is also working on a discrete GPU lineup under the Xe brand, targeting a variety of market segments, including gamers.The video presentation by Intel Graphics follows.

Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), the global leading motherboard, Mini-PC, Notebooks, mobile device and smart city solutions provider, is pleased to announce the LIVA Q2 - the silent, energy efficient multi-functional mini PC designed for various smart solutions such as home entertainment, smart offices, and modern classroom. It can also be used with digital signage and successfully used in smart retail solutions. Ultra-mini body design, but the applications are beyond imagination.

With the beautifully designed LIVA Q2 mini PC can meet all the device connections you need by providing full I / O support. The mini PC support for Microsoft's latest Windows 10 operating system. The LIVA Q2 is integrated with Intel Pentium Silver/Celeron processor. Simply by using the Intel Unite application on client's device, which clients can easily integrate participants, solutions and platforms into one.

Neil Blomkamp is one of today's most well-regarded sci-fi filmmakers - and for good reason. While you may know him for his feature-length films (such as the legendary District 9 and the even more legendary, for me, Elysium), he has been making forays into conceptual filmmaking ever since he set up Oats Studios. The goal for Oats Studios was to create cinematographic thought-experiments with a sci-fi twist, and the studios have released a number of great works that you can follow on their YouTube (such as Zygote, Firebase, and Rakka), even going so far as to fully experiment with the power of Unity in the making of some seriously impressive pieces in their Adam series. If you don't know the studio's work yet, do yourself a favor and take a look.

That said, EA and Bioware have clearly picked up on the potential for Oats Studios, and ordered a cinematic, live-action story set on the Anthem universe. Named Conviction, the short serves as a teaser for the games' release, and showcases the impressive world of Anthem being brought to life with real people and settings. I won't dive into much detail here; I've given you the background. Suffice it to say that I am left even more wanting in regards to Neil Blomkamp's canceled Halo project after watching this. I bet you'd love to see something such as this brought to life in more detail and depth than a short three minutes and forty-five seconds allow for.

YouTube began posting its first test videos that implement the AV1 video CODEC, which aims to significantly reduce video stream bandwidths without sacrificing quality, exceeding the compression standards set by even HEVC. AV1 provides an architecture for both moving and still images, and Google, which is partly funding its development, foresees a future in which it replaces entrenched standards such as JPEG and H.264. Besides better compression, its key USP is its royalty-free license, which could translate to tangible operating-cost savings for YouTube and other video streaming services.

YouTube developers posted this playlist with a selection of videos that are encoded in AV1. You may not notice a reduction in your data consumption just yet, because the first batch of videos have been encoded at a very high bitrate to test performance. Future playlists (which will pop up on YouTube Developers channel), could test the CODEC's other more important aspects, such as data savings. To watch them, and test YouTube's AV1 player for them, you'll either need Chrome 70 beta or the latest nightly-build of Firefox (64.0a1), which pack AV1 support.