Thermal Solutions specialist GELID Solutions unveils the latest cooling kit for the M.2 Type 22110 Solid State Drives. The SubZero M.2 XL is a product of GELID Solution Gamer product line. The SubZero M.2 XL is designed to cool down the M.2 Type 22110 SSD efficiently and prevents thermal throttling. It helps to improve performance, increase durability and enhance data integrity of the M.2 solid-state drives.

The SubZero M.2 XL uses the ultra-slim aluminium heatsink and the specially crafted thermal pads to deliver the best heat transfer and maintain significantly lowered operating temperatures for memory ICs and other electronic components of the M.2 Type SSD. Additionally, the set of 3 ultra-durable silicone ring fixtures is supplied with the SubZero M.2 XL to ensure safe mounting of the heatsink. The SubZero M.2 XL features quick installation and fits all standard M.2 Type 22110 SSD designed for laptops or desktops.

The leading global motherboard & graphics card manufacturer, ASRock, a pleasure to launch brand new compact Mini PC - Mars Series. Supports up to Intel Core i5 Quad-Core processor, 32 GB DDR4-2666 MHz, PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD, 2.5-inch hard drive, and wireless connectivity; all implies into 0.7-liter chassis with 26 mm height.

ASRock Mars offers abundant USB devices connectivity, features a total of 7 USB ports, including one Type-C port; In addition, the native SD card reader and dual display outputs to provide more productive and convenience.

The add-in board market increased in Q3'19 by 42% from last quarter, with over $2.8 billion dollars of AIBs shipped. Nvidia increased its market share to 73% in Q3. The last fiscal quarter was transitional for Nvidia as older products made their way through the channel allowing the company to ramp up production and ship more new products at the end of the quarter. Nvidia not only boosted their market share but they raised the overall AIB market. Their channel inventory is now reported as healthy says the company. Nvidia's RTX line is doing well and represents 66% of its gaming revenue.

Quarter-to-quarter graphics add-in board shipments increased by 42.2% and increased by 6.2% year-to-year. The market shares for the desktop discrete GPU suppliers shifted in the quarter, Nvidia significantly increased market share from last quarter, while AMD increased share year-over-year.

According to a source cited by China's Ithome, AMD has contacted AIB with regards to launch plans for the company's RX 5500, the mainstream graphics cards based on Navi 14. For now, there are still no news on any RX 5500 XT graphics cards from the company - whether or not there is such as SKU being prepared for later launch is still unclear. The launch date of December 12th is in line with previous release expectations, and should be a full launch with multiple AIB partners releasing their solutions.

The RX 5500 has been tested to be acompetitor to NVIDIA's GTX 1660 graphics card, replacing AMD's RX 570, RX 580 and RX 590 graphics cards from the product stack. The Navi 14 chip that the RX 5500 is based on TSMC's 7 nm manufacturing technology, is configured with 22 RDNA compute units (1,408 stream processors), and features a 128-bit wide GDDR6 memory bus. VRAM-wise it will be available in either 4 GB or 8 GB of memory running at 14 Gbps data-rate, yielding 224 GB/s of memory bandwidth. GPU clocks are listed as 1670 MHz "Boost," and 1845 MHz "Gaming". Typical board power is rated at 110 W, with a single 8-pin PCIe power input being enough to deliver required power save for some more exotic AIB designs.

Samsung has reportedly secured a "PC CPU" manufacturing order from Intel. This would entail Intel using Samsung's fabs to manufacture its processors. "PC CPU" is a broad term, interchangeable with "client CPU," and could include both notebook and desktop processors, spanning the "S," "H," "U," and "Y" silicon variants (mainstream desktop, mainstream notebook, ultrabook, and ultra low-power, respectively). Samsung's bouquet of contract-manufacturing covers not just silicon fabrication across 14 nm, but also sub 10 nm nodes, but also provides other key stages of processor manufacturing, including bumping and packaging. Intel would want minimal expenditure in adapting its chip designs to Samsung's nodes

In her November 20 letter addressed to Intel's customers, executive V-P and GM for sales, marketing, and communications, Michelle Johnston Holthaus, mentioned that in addition to Intel's own manufacturing facilities, the company is roping in "foundries" (third-party silicon fabrication companies) to meet demand. Samsung and TSMC lead the foundry business, followed by the likes of GlobalFoundries, UMC, etc.Many Thanks to biffzinker for the tip.

ASUS formally launched the Republic of Gamers (ROG) Strix GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics card, which was pictured yesterday. The White Edition features a whitewashing of the cooler shroud, the back-plate, secondary base-plate underneath the cooler shroud, internal cables, and white Axial Tech fans. These fans feature webbed fan blades that direct all their airflow axially, onto the heatisink below.

The heatsink and the black PCB underneath are identical to that of the ROG Strix RTX 2080 Ti O11G, but what's changed are clock speeds. It turns out that the 1770 MHz GPU Boost previously reported referred to the software-activated "OC mode." Out of the box, this card comes with 1740 MHz GPU Boost, which is still a step up from the 1650 MHz that the O11G ships with. The card draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Display outputs include two each of DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0b, and one VirtualLink. We know from the older report that this card is selling in the EU for 1,600€ (including VAT).

Gryphon Online Safety, Inc. today announced the commercial launch of its new product the Gryphon Guardian, the lowest known entry cost in the market at $119 for an all-in-one mesh WiFi security router and parental control system, making online security and digital parenting accessible to all. Gryphon Guardian is mesh compatible with the original Gryphon. The company is offering an early bird 30% off special between November 28-December 31 2019 direct from Gryphon Online Safety.

Gryphon Online Safety wants to help families protect all of their homes' devices from hacker intrusions, malware threats, to prevent kids from being exposed to inappropriate content, and to equip parents with tools to promote healthy screen time for their children. The company's purpose is to help each person reach their full potential by creating an online environment that is safe, reliable, and enjoyable.

AMD's relentless CPU design and release cadence have been totally overturning the consumer mindset regarding whose CPU manufacturer they should choose to populate their builds, and it shows in the top sellers for numerous retailers. Amazon US, for example, lists only two Intel CPUs in the top ten of its CPU sales, with the 6-core/6-thread Core i5-9600K in fourth position, and the 8-core/16-thread Core i9-9900K in sixth. AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X is the top seller (not at all strange, considering the ludicrously low Black Friday sale price of $159, with the Ryzen 5 2600 in second place and the Ryzen 5 3600 in third.

In the UK, Amazon's top sellers in the CPU department count with 10 AMD entries against three from Intel, with the three top spots being taken by AMD's Ryzen 5 3600, Ryzen 7 3700X, and finally the Intel i7 9700K. Change your country to Germany, and you'll find the same distribution of top sellers, with Intel claiming only three CPUs in the top ten, but managing to snag the top seller position with the i7-9700K CPU. AMD has been increasing its market share in the CPU space for some reason, and we all know what it is - incredible performance/price and price/core ratios have given the blue team something to think about. What about you? Are you thinking of buying a new CPU this Black Friday?

We live in strange times, with GALAX releasing HOF Black Edition graphics cards, and now ASUS dishing out an ROG Strix White Edition. Unlike GALAX, ASUS limited its whitewash to the cooler shroud, the fan impellers, the back-plate, and even the various internal cables (fans, lighting, etc.,) while leaving the PCB black. The cooler shroud has RGB LED embellishments at the same spots as the original ROG Strix RTX 2080 Ti, so you can play with color.

The card ships with 1770 MHz GPU Boost frequency, and an untouched 14 Gbps (GDDR6-effective) memory. The GPU Boost frequency in particular is significantly higher than the 1650 MHz of the ROG Strix RTX 2080 Ti O11G, and closer to the 1800 MHz that the ROG MATRIX RTX 2080 Ti ships with. The ROG Strix RTX 2080 Ti White Edition is priced at 1,600€ (including taxes).

Gigabyte has announced and released a new PCIe Expansion card which will allow users to add a 20 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (such a mouthful) connector to their PC. This solution lacks any sort of hub, and it's a single-connector affair, which limits its usefulness by a fair share. According to Gigabyte, this solution has been thought-up for users who are satisfied with their current systems but were left in the cold when it comes to supporting the latest standard - eliminating the need to upgrade their motherboard before its time. Users will have to sacrifice a PCIe x4 slot for this expansion, though. No pricing is available at time of writing.

Panasonic, an electronics manufacturing giant, has today sold its silicon manufacturing business, marking the end of an era of Japanese semiconductor manufacturing. Once a big player in silicon manufacturing scene, particularly in the '80s and '90s era when Japan's silicon output was huge, Panasonic was considered one of the main players in the silicon manufacturing business. However, due to some difficulties like operating a business with a loss of over $215 million yearly, and having to compete with Chinese and Taiwanese silicon manufacturing firms, Panasonic is selling its silicon production lines.

The subsidiary of Panasonic called "Semiconductors Solutions" is being sold to Nuvoton Technology Corporation, a semiconductor company that spun-off from Winbond Electronics Corporation in 2008, where Winbond still owns 61% stake in Nuvoton despite the spinoff. Additionally, Panasonic forecasts a 27% drop in operating profit for this physical year, with the declining semiconductor manufacturing business counted. The reasoning behind this sale is that the company plans to exit all declining businesses that also include LCD manufacturing, as Chinese alternative manufacturers are stiff competition for Panasonic when it comes to pricing and panel output.

Intel's 11th generation Core "Rocket Lake-S" desktop processor will come in core-counts only up to 8, even as its predecessor, "Comet Lake-S," goes up to 10. Platform descriptors for Intel's next four microarchitectures surfaced on the web, detailing maximum values of their "S" (mainsteam desktop), "H" (mainstream notebook), "U" (ultrabook), and "Y" (low power portable) flavors. Both "Comet Lake-S" and "Rocket Lake-S" are 14 nm chips. "Comet Lake-S" comes with core counts of up to 10, a TDP of up to 125 Watts, Gen 9LP iGPU with 48 execution units, and native support for up to 128 GB of DDR4-2667.

The "Rocket Lake-S" silicon is interesting. Rumored to be yet another derivative of "Skylake," it features up to 8 CPU cores, the same 125 W maximum TDP, but swanky Gen12 iGPU with 32 execution units. The memory controller is also upgraded, which supports DDR4-2933 natively. There is no "Ice Lake-H" or "Ice Lake-S" in sight (no mainstream notebook or mainstream desktop implementations), ditto "Tiger Lake." For the foreseeable future, Intel will only make quad-core designs of the two 10 nm microarchitectures. "Rocket Lake-S" is slated for 2021 when, hopefully, we'll see Intel escape the 14 nm black hole.

What happens when GoodOffer24, an online retailer that specializes is the lowest prices on genuine software year-round, decides to do a Black Friday sale? The lowest prices ever! Genuine, globally-valid licenses to popular operating systems, productivity suites, games, DLCs, in-game currency, and more, are listed with unprecedented discounts at GoodOffer24. Windows 10 Pro, the recommended operating system for PC enthusiasts and power-users, is priced at US $10.62 after applying a TechPowerUp-exclusive discount. Office 2019 Professional Plus, the most powerful workplace productivity software, is going for $46.10. Find combos of the two and more in the links below.

Apply the code JGBF30 at checkout on the following items to avail the prices you see here.
Buy Windows 10 Pro for $10.62 | Buy Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC for $12.40 | Buy Windows 10 Pro 2-pack for $18.20 | Buy Windows 10 Home for $11.08 | Buy Office 2016 Professional Plus for $26.31 | Buy Office 2016 Home and Student for $22.34 | Buy Windows 10 Pro + Office 2016 Professional Bundle for $31.44 | Buy Windows 10 Home + Office 2016 Profesional for $29.79

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Will Intel even make client-segment gaming discrete GPUs now? Because the GPU marketing gurus Intel snatched from AMD to sell them, Chris Hook and Heather Lennon, are reportedly no longer with the company. The two are on their way to an unnamed startup. This, according to a sensational Charlie Demerjian report citing company sources. These exits closely follow that of another valuable chip marketing honcho, John Carvill, who joined Austin-based startup Nuvia, which is designing ASICs and SoCs for the data-center of the future.

Hook and Lennon were responsible for the PR dexterity AMD RTG enjoyed through its ups and downs this decade. With RTG head Raja Koduri leaving for Intel to head its GPU development project, his former comrades at RTG soon followed. The flight of GPU marketing talent out of Intel at this stage could be the first of many hints that Intel has made a big decision with regards to how it plans to monetize Raja's work. "Ponte Vecchio" is Intel's ambitious GPU compute processor designed primarily for HPC and AI workloads. There's tumbleweed coming out of Intel on "Arctic Sound" since Q2-2019, a contraption that more closely resembles graphics cards as you know it.

A bug with the Radeon RX 5700-series "Navi" OpenCL compute API ICD (installable client driver) is causing the GPUs to crunch incorrect results for distributed compute project SETI@Home. Since there are "many" Navi GPUs crunching the project cross-validating each others' incorrect results, the large volume of incorrect results are able to beat the platform's algorithm and passing statistical validation, "polluting" the SETI@Home database. Some volunteers at the SETI@Home forums, where the the issue is being discussed, advocate banning or limiting results from contributors using these GPUs, until AMD comes out with a fix for its OpenCL driver. SETI@Home is a distributed computing project run by SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), tapping into volunteers' compute power to make sense of radio waves from space.

PC major Dell in its quarterly results call blamed Intel for cuts in its revenue forecast for 2019 (full year) sales. "Intel CPU shortages have worsened qtr-over-qtr, impacting our commercial PC and premium consumer PC Q4 forecasted shipments," said Dell COO Jeffrey Clarke. Intel's CPU shortages are caused due to demand in the PC and server markets significantly outpacing supply, and not because Intel is supplying below its capacity. The company increased its capex toward manufacturer by $1 billion YoY, retrofitting its manufacturing facilities to make 14 nm processors, all while juggling resources to execute its 10 nm rollout for high-volume mobile and high-margin server processors.

The company hasn't launched 10 nm desktop or HEDT processors, yet, and is reportedly preparing yet another 14 nm line of processors for these platforms, codenamed "Comet Lake." This microarchitecture has also seen a mobile rollout for mainstream mobile form-factors, while Intel focused 10 nm "Ice Lake" for ultraportables and ultra low-power form-factors. Intel executive VP for sales Michelle Johnston Holthaus recently wrote a letter to its customers (primarily companies like Dell,) informing them that despite their best efforts, demand continues to beat supply, and that they hadn't managed to solve their supply issues.

Wrap your head around a 32-core/64-thread HEDT processor with a mental 5.752 GHz overclock. That's what TSAIK achieved, by with 58.0X multiplier (pulling a 99.12 MHz base-clock), 1.1 V core voltage, and other clock domains kept stable. This amounts to a staggering 55 percent overclock over the 3.70 GHz nominal clock for the 3970X. The motherboard used is an MSI Creator TRX40, while the memory was 16 GB, defaulting at 2133 MHz DDR. A liquid nitrogen evaporator was used to cool the chip. The overclock was validated to CPU-Z database.

Steam may be losing some luster in the digital game distribution arena with the quantity and quality of heavy players that have appeared since its inception - I'm looking at GOG and the EPIC Games Store especially. However, Steam continues to be the service that offers the largest library of purchasable titles. As such, if you don't have a backlog of games to play already (don't lie, you do have them, but we won't judge if you buy some more), now is the time to make the jump.

The biggest discount percentage I've seen, so far, is that for Rise of the Tomb Raider, which cuts a total of 85% from its listing price. Discounts range from 20% through to that (apparent) ceiling, with franchises such as the Dark Souls Series (Dark Souls 3 for $15 (75% off), Dark Souls 2 for $9.99 (75% off), and Dark Souls Remastered going for $23.99 (40% off). The Dishonored franchise also sees massive cuts from their list prices, at 70% for the original and 75% for Dishonored 2 and its Death of the Outsider expansion (how I love these games). The Master Chief Collection, however, isn't on sale - it's still in pre order, you know how it is. But maybe one of these days you'll get that one (though it already is a steal at its launch price for the quality of games you're getting). Go on, feast your eyes and murder your wallet. We're cheering for you.

TechPowerUp and Seagate partner to bring you the IronWolf Black Friday Giveaway. The IronWolf line of storage solutions from Seagate are targeted at NAS, DAS, and other high-uptime, quasi-enterprise environments, spanning both HDDs and SSDs. Two lucky winners stand to bring home IronWolf gear. The first lucky winner receives a 14 TB IronWolf internal SATA HDD and an IronWolf 110 SSD 480 GB (one of each). The second lucky winner gets an IronWolf 110 SSD 480 GB. The Giveaway is open worldwide (wherever legal), till December 4th. Do check out great Black Friday deals on Seagate IronWolf storage products at your favorite retailer.

For more details, and to participate, visit this page.

CHERRY, the specialist in computer input peripherals, announces the SECURE BOARD 1.0 with keystroke encryption. The keyboard also features an integrated reader for smartcards and RF/NFC-compatible cards or tags. Integrated in SECURE BOARD 1.0 is a terminal for PC/SC smart cards and cards or tags with a RF/NFC interface. The Class 2 reader enables reading and writing of ISO 7816 and ISO 14443 A/B compliant cards. They numeric keypad allows for secure, alphanumeric PIN entry.

Secure Mode provides extra security: the authenticity of the keyboard is verified with a certificate and keystrokes are encrypted. This makes it impossible for hardware keyloggers to access sensitive data and passwords. By blocking the standard keyboard channel "Bad USB" attacks are prevented: USB devices that are recognized by the operating system as keyboards can no longer inject unauthorized code. Secure Mode is particularly useful with thin clients running Linux, which supports this functionality. A solution for Windows is currently under development.

Intel is readying a microcode update specially for its X299 Express chipset, to enhance the overclocking capabilities of its 10th generation Core i9 XE "Cascade Lake-X" processors. News of the update was put out in an MSI press release that speaks of the company encapsulating the new microcode in BIOS updates for its entire socket LGA2066 motherboard lineup.

"To enhance the overclocking capability for the newly launched Intel Core X-series Processors (Intel Core i9-10980XE, 10940X, 10920X, 10900X), Intel will provide a new microcode update," the statement from MSI reads. Besides "overclocking capability," the new microcode also helps to "maximize the overall performance" of "Cascade Lake-X" processors," says MSI. The company does not describe what specifically these changes are. The microcode update will be released to end-users as BIOS updates by motherboard manufacturers, so be on the lookout for one, if you're using "Cascade Lake-X."

Intel is reportedly looking to sell its connected home devices division, a company unit used for designing semiconductors that enable WiFi connection in all kinds of devices and SoCs made for managing network devices like WiFi routers. Following a previous deal, where Intel sold its modem division to Apple for 1 billion USD, Intel is now looking to "get rid of" another unit that is not doing any data-centric design workload.

The Connected Home division had around 450 million USD last year in annual sales, but it seems that competition is getting good with competing offers from Broadcom Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. If the unit is potentially sold to another company, Intel could rewire its R&D funds to other groups inside the company. Additionally, it is worth to mention that a financial advisor has reportedly been hired to evaluate any possible offers that Intel receives.

Overclocking the memory clock of a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti to 2000 MHz (16 Gbps) isn't difficult, but most custom-design RTX 2080 Ti cards cap out at that, and so the enthusiasts over at TecLab took matters into their own hands by pulling off a daring memory chip replacement mod, by installing 16 Gbps-rated memory chips onto a Galax RTX 2080 Ti HOF graphics card. In a 16-minute video presentation, they detail the process of soldering a component as delicate and sensitive as GDDR6 memory chips, and 45 times over. The team had to sacrifice not one, but two Galax GeForce RTX 2080 Super graphics cards, which feature 16 Gbps-rated memory chips to support the SKU's 15.5 Gbps memory clock. A total of 33 manual solder operations had to be performed (removing the 15 stock chips from the RTX 2080 Ti, removing 11 chips from the two RTX 2080 Super cards, and soldering them onto the RTX 2080 Ti).

The group detailed the process of removing the memory chips under hot air, giving the extracted chips fresh ball-grids, and placing the chips onto the RTX 2080 Ti PCB. No BIOS modding was required, as the RTX 2080 Ti card's video BIOS was able to auto-detect the chips and run them at 14 Gbps. From here on, manual overclocking easily runs the card at 2000 MHz (16 Gbps) memory, with overclocking headroom to spare. The memory clock could now be dialed all the way up to 2150 MHz (17.2 Gbps), something that's close to impossible with 14 Gbps chips. TecLab is calling their creation the world's first RTX 2080 Ti Super, which could very well be true. Last we heard, the RTX 2080 Ti Super could get more CUDA cores, and not just faster memory. Nevertheless, this mod blew our minds, and provides valuable pointers on how to solder dense BGA components without a multi million-dollar placer. We tip our hats to TecLab.Watch the TechLab video presentation here.

Scythe unveiled the SCY-920S, an entry-level tower-type CPU cooler meant as a quieter substitute to your stock CPU cooler, with a thermal load capacity of 95 W. Its design involves an aluminium heatsink base through which two 6 mm thick copper heat pipes pass, making direct contact with the CPU, which then fan out through the fin-stack. A 92 mm fan ventilates the fin-stack. Spinning between 500 to 2,000 RPM, this fan pushes 7.1 to 48.2 CFM of air, with 8.3 to 28.3 dBA noise output. Measuring 87 mm x 62 mm x 127 mm (DxWxH), the SCY-920S weighs about 280 g. Among the CPU socket types supported are AM4 and LGA115x. The cooler goes on sale around mid-December.

HP issued a warning to its customers that some of its SAS SSDs come with a bug that causes them to fail at exactly 32,768 hours of use. For an always-on or high-uptime server, this translates to 3 years, 270 days and 8 hours of usage. The affected models of SSDs are shipped in many of HP's flagship server and storage products, spanning its HPE ProLiant, Synergy, Apollo, JBOD D3xxx, D6xxx, D8xxx, MSA, StoreVirtual 4335 and StoreVirtual 3200 product-lines.

HP has released an SSD firmware update that fixes this bug and cannot stress the importance of deploying the update enough. This is because once a drive hits the 32,768-hour literal deadline and breaks down, both the drive and the data on it become unrecoverable. There is no other mitigation to this bug than the firmware update. HP released easy to use online firmware update tools that let admins update firmware of their drivers from within their OS. The online firmware update tools support Linux, Windows, and VMWare. Below is a list of affected drives. Get the appropriate firmware update from this page.

Quite a few cases have a pair of vertical expansion slots that let you show off your graphics card through the glass side-panel, but don't include a PCIe riser cable. ASUS swooped in with a solution, the ROG Strix Riser Cable. Possibly the first ROG Strix product in years without any RGB LED illumination, the Riser features of a thick base plate that doubles up as PCB, with a metal reinforced PCI-Express x16 slot, dubbed Safe Slot. ASUS uses this slot in many of its premium ROG-branded motherboards. It offers up to 1.8x shearing force endurance compared to a traditional unshielded plastic slot. The baseplate is connected to a thick ribbon cable with rubber outer insulation, which connects to the PCIe x16 gold fingers. ASUS did not mention the length of the cable, but states the total dimensions of the accessory as 240 mm x 127 mm x 10 mm (LxWxH), so the cable should probably be 18-20 cm in length, if not more. The company didn't reveal pricing or availability information.

There has always been something to be said about single-player experiences - most players just seem to prefer a strong single-player game to full-on multiplayer games. EA, LucasArts and Respawn Entertainment have now come out of the woodwork regarding the latest Star Wars release in the form of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen order, and it seems the game is shipping in no small amounts worldwide. The partners announced that this game has cemented itself as the fastest-selling digital launch for a Star Wars game in its first two weeks. And concurrently, EA has said this is the fastest selling PC-game for the company (in all distribution formats) in these same two weeks.

Of course, one needs to remember that fastest, highest-selling doesn't automatically make the game the most grossing Star Wars release. It's likely that Star Wars games with a more multiplayer-focused DNA (such as Battlefront I and Battlefront II from DICE) will gross more in their lifetime than Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order ever will. That said, it goes to show what an original storytelling experience set in a beloved franchise can achieve. Read on after the break for the comments from all developing parties.

A Reddit user reported on a recent CD Projekt Red community event held in Warsaw, where the developer of the highly expected Cyberpunk 2077 (and highly acclaimed The Witcher 3) expanded on their latest cyberpunk game's story. According to CD Projekt Red, Cyberpunk 2077 will have a shorter main storyline than that of The Witcher 3, albeit its sidequests will be much more complex and impactful regarding the entire experience. With the Witcher 3 and its numerous sidequests taking north of 120 hours to fully complete (at least at this editor's pace), this might still place the game's playtime above that of The Witcher 3, depending on the number and complexity of said sidequests.

According to the user, CD Projekt Red in the community event said that The Witcher 3 sidequests were designed as branching events from the main storyline, which would then, sometimes, make it back onto the main storyline with some repercussions. However, Cyberpunk 2077 sidequests are being developed so as to then enable more of them to be generated upon completion, depending on choices made during that slight deviation from the main story, with most of them having some kind of impact on one another.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of NVCleanstall, our free lightweight utility that gives you greater control over your NVIDIA GeForce driver installation, by letting you select from a more detailed list of components to install than the NVIDIA installer. You can prevent installation of components you don't need, such as telemetry. With version 1.2.0, we've improved in three key areas. To begin with, the driver version selection page loads faster, and consumes 95 percent less bandwidth.

NVCleanstall v1.2.0 also introduces two new features. The first one is the ability to periodically check for driver updates. By default, this feature is turned off — you opt to enable it. When enabled, you can tell the app just how frequently you want it to check for updates. It's optimized to generate as little Internet traffic as possible (800 bytes per check), it does not permanently run in the background, and thus has no additional CPU or memory footprint. No information is transmitted when checking for driver updates. The app merely looks up what's the latest driver version on our server, and if it's newer than what you have, a notification pops up. This notification gives you the option to download and install it, seek more details (change-log), or choose to skip the version altogether. Lastly, we've added a feature that looks for updates to NVCleanstall itself, to ensure you're always up-to-date. Grab NVCleanstall from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.2.0The change-log follows.

NVIDIA today released a major update to Quake II RTX that add even more eye-candy to the game, leveraging RTX. Quake II RTX, promoted by NVIDIA, is a playable tech-demo for its RTX real-time ray-tracing technology that's based on a classic 3D game so it runs on nearly all DXR-compatible graphics cards (GeForce GTX 10-series, 16-series, and RTX 20-series). It comes with id Software's shareware 1st episode content, although you can add your own licensed game data for the full game.

With version 1.2, NVIDIA added support for a boatload of modern technology, beginning with support for dynamic resolution scaling. Much like watching online videos with resolution toggle set to "auto" (which adjusts resolution based on your Internet bandwidth), dynamic resolution scaling adjusts the rendering resolution of your game on the fly in pursuit of a frames-per-second target. NVIDIA also remastered several textures of the game, increasing texture detail. Over 400 textures have been redone by NVIDIA, adding detail. Support is added for multiple reflection/refraction bounces, which makes it possible to create a "hall of mirrors" effect. NVIDIA implemented light shafts or god rays throughout the game, including underwater light shafts. Light shafts also get reflected off certain metal or glass surfaces. NVIDIA also improved the AI denoiser for the game. Metal and glass surfaces are made to appear more photo-real thanks to denoiser improvements. Find many other technical changes in the official change-log below.DOWNLOAD: Quake II RTX v1.2

NVIDIA today released the latest version of GeForce software. Version 441.41 WHQL comes game-ready for "Halo: Reach," which includes performance optimization and bug fixes specific to the game. The drivers also include optimization for "Quake II RTX v1.2" update, which includes higher-resolution textures and more lighting content. With GeForce 441.41, NVIDIA has also added OpenGL and Vulkan API support for Image Sharpening. With this, NVIDIA's implementation of Image Sharpening beats AMD's by supporting two APIs AMD doesn't yet: DirectX 11 and OpenGL. Both AMD and NVIDIA support DirectX 9, DirectX 12, and Vulkan.

GeForce 441.41 also address a handful bugs, beginning with "Red Dead Redemption 2." A bug has been fixed, which was causing RDR2 benchmark to crash on systems with SLI playing the game with its Vulkan renderer. Another bug that caused stalling on machines with certain 4-core and 6-core CPUs has been fixed. A "Shadow of the Tomb Raider" game crash at startup in DirectX 12 mode has been fixed. Also fixed is a "low streaming bandwidth" error in "Forza Horizon 4" after extended periods of gameplay. Grab the driver from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 441.41 WHQL

MediaTek today unveiled Dimensity, MediaTek's family of powerful 5G system-on-chips (SoCs) offering an unrivaled combination of connectivity, multimedia, AI and imaging innovations for premium and flagship smartphones.

The MediaTek Dimensity 5G chipset family brings smart and fast together to power the world's most capable 5G devices. Dimensity represents a step toward a new era of mobility - the fifth dimension - to spur industry innovation and let consumers unlock the possibilities of 5G connectivity.

The European cooling and PC Case brand SilentiumPC presents the improved version of its Fortis 3 CPU cooler. For the Fortis 3 RGB HE1425, SilentiumPC has applied nickel-plating of the whole heat sink, which on the one hand visually enhances the tower cooler and on the other hand protects the material from corrosion. The tower cooler is also equipped with the brand-new Stella HP RGB 140 mm SE PWM fan, which not only enables modern RGB lighting, but is also more powerful at the same time. SilentiumPC is able to enrich the market with an improved and powerful tower cooler, which is particularly suitable for PC upgrades as well as new PC systems with modern RGB lighting.

In the course of the modernization of the Fortis 3, SilentiumPC gives the Fortis 3 RGB a finishing touch. The difference to the predecessor model can be seen right away, due to the fact that the Fortis 3 RGB has all copper elements as well as the aluminium fins carefully nickel-plated. This gives the tower cooler a uniform, high-quality look and protects the material from corrosion. The black coated top plate features covers for the heatpipe end pieces and the embossed SilentiumPC logo. Thanks to the five 6 mm copper heat pipes that form the base plate contact surface on the Fortis 3 RGB and the large cooling surface, the tower cooler is capable of effectively cooling modern high-end processors.

ASUS today announced ZenWiFi, a new series of mesh WiFi systems that deliver extremely fast and reliable whole-home WiFi and offer easy, flexible and powerful configurability. ASUS Zen series products are known for their balance of premium design and ultimate performance, and ZenWiFi continues this tradition with a beautiful, low-profile design that blends perfectly with any décor and ultrafast, seamless and WiFi coverage for the entire home. The ZenWiFi series offers two models: ZenWiFi AX with the latest WiFi 6 (802.11ax) and ZenWiFi AC with WiFi 5 (802.11ac).

The ZenWiFi system offers an intuitive setup process with upgraded AiMesh technology that makes getting a whole-home mesh network up and running fast and easy. For users who prefer more hands-on control, ZenWiFi offers advanced configuration options that lets them fine-tune every aspect of their network. To ensure a safe and enjoyable home-networking experience, ZenWiFi also comes with AiProtection Pro, built-in network security with free lifetime signature updates from Trend Micro for ongoing protection. AiProtection also includes advanced parental controls to keep kids safe online.

NVIDIA updated its compute accelerator product stack with the new Tesla V100s. Available only in the PCIe add-in card (AIC) form-factor for now, the V100s is positioned above the V100 PCIe, and is equipped with faster memory, besides a few silicon-level changes (possibly higher clock-speeds), to facilitate significant increases in throughput. To begin with, the V100s is equipped with 32 GB of HBM2 memory across a 4096-bit memory interface, with higher 553 MHz (1106 MHz effective) memory clock, compared to the 876 MHz memory clock of the V100. This yields a memory bandwidth of roughly 1,134 GB/s compared to 900 GB/s of the V100 PCIe.

NVIDIA did not detail changes to the GPU's core clock-speed, but mentioned the performance throughput numbers on offer: 8.2 TFLOP/s double-precision floating-point performance versus 7 TFLOP/s on the original V100 PCIe; 16.4 TFLOP/s single-precision compared to 14 TFLOP/s on the V100 PCIe; and 130 TFLOP/s deep-learning ops versus 112 TFLOP/s on the V100 PCIe. Company-rated power figures remain unchanged at 250 W typical board power. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Intel late Monday released its SSD 665p "Neptune Harbor Refresh" line of client-segment M.2 NVMe SSDs. The series was announced in September at the company's Storage Day event in South Korea. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor, the drives feature PCI-Express 3.0 x4 host interface. They combine a Silicon Motion SMI2263 series controller with Intel's new 96-layer 3D QLC NAND flash memory. The previous-generation SSD 660p series use 64-layer chips. The SMI2263 controller is cushioned by an LPDDR3 DRAM cache.

Intel is debuting the SSD 665p series with just two models, 1 TB and 2 TB, skipping sub-terabyte capacities such as 500 GB. The 2 TB variant offers sequential transfer speeds of up to 2000 MB/s reads and up to 2000 MB/s writes; and random access speeds of up to 250,000 IOPS on both reads and writes. The 1 TB variant offers up to 2000 MB/s sequential reads, up to 1925 MB/s sequential writes, up to 160,000 IOPS random reads, and up to 200,000 IOPS random writes. The company didn't reveal endurance ratings for the drives. The 1 TB variant is priced at USD $125, while the 2 TB variant hasn't yet been priced. Both drives are backed by 5-year warranties.

FinalWire Ltd. today announced the immediate availability of AIDA64 Extreme 6.20 software, a streamlined diagnostic and benchmarking tool for home users; the immediate availability of AIDA64 Engineer 6.20 software, a professional diagnostic and benchmarking solution for corporate IT technicians and engineers; the immediate availability of AIDA64 Business 6.20 software, an essential network management solution for small and medium scale enterprises; and the immediate availability of AIDA64 Network Audit 6.20 software, a dedicated network audit toolset to collect and manage corporate network inventories.

The latest AIDA64 update introduces optimized benchmarks for AMD Renoir and Intel Ice Lake processors, monitoring of sensor values on EVGA Z10 RGB displays, and supports the latest AMD and Intel CPU platforms as well as the new graphics and GPGPU computing technologies by both AMD and NVIDIA.DOWNLOAD: FinalWire AIDA64 Extreme v6.20

In the wars of variable refresh rates, much ink has already been spilled regarding the open, AMD FreeSync approach and NVIDIA's proprietary G-Sync modules. The war started to give its first signs of abatement once NVIDIA seemed to throw in the towel by officially supporting VESA's VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) technology on its graphics cards, basically opening the way for NVIDIA graphics cards to correctly operate with previously AMD FreeSync-branded monitors. Now, it seems one more step will be taken on that road which should be G-Sync's proprietary approach final whiff, since according to a report from TFT Central, confirmed by NVIDIA, the company will enable VRR support for next releases of monitors equipped with the company's G-Sync module. This will essentially enable AMD graphics cards to work with NVIDIA-branded G-Sync monitors.

G.SKILL, the world's leading manufacturer of extreme performance memory and gaming peripherals, is pleased to announce the release of new high-performance and high-capacity quad-channel memory kits for the latest Intel X299 and AMD TRX40 high-end desktop (HEDT) platforms, including the high-capacity DDR4-3600 CL16-19-19-39 256 GB (32 GB x8), DDR4-4000 CL18-22-22-42 256 GB (32 GB x8), and the high-speed, low-latency DDR4-4000 CL15-16-16-36 64 GB (8 GB x8) specifications. By bringing ultra-high 32 GB memory module capacity into the realm of HEDT computing, powerful workstations are now truly able to achieve a complete combination of high core count processor with high-speed, high-capacity memory for heavy workloads or for running more virtual machines than ever.

Club 3D is proud to announce its next generation Multi Stream Transport (MST) Hub models CSV-7300 (DisplayPort 1.4 Triple Monitor 4K60Hz) and CSV-1550 (USB Type C 3.2 Gen 1 DisplayPort 1.4 Triple Monitor 4K60Hz) which will be available in the market from beginning of December.

Since Multi-Monitor-Solutions are part of Club 3D's DNA for many years, we have taken the time to develop the best available solutions with those two new MST Hubs. They both can provide 2x 4K60Hz when the source device is not supporting DSC 1.2 (Display Stream Compression). In case the source device supports DSC 1.2 all three outputs can deliver 4K60Hz. Detailed Display/Resolution charts can be found in the respective specification sheet.

CORSAIR, a world leader in PC gaming peripherals and enthusiast components, today announced a range of products including liquid CPU coolers, high-frequency DRAM, and efficient power supplies fully tested and validated for compatibility with the new 3rd Generation AMD Ryzen Threadripper high-end desktop processors. With the highest core and thread count on the HEDT market, combined with the lightning-fast PCI-Express 4.0 platform, AMD's most powerful desktop processor can create, composite, render, encode, and deliver with unprecedented multitasking power - and CORSAIR is ready with the widest range of guaranteed-compatible products to help get the best performance out of a new Ryzen Threadripper-based PC.

EK Water Blocks, the Europe-based water cooling gear manufacturer, is proud to announce the launch of a product which is a result of a successful collaboration between EK and InWin, the renowned case manufacturer. The product belongs to the EK Classic Line of products, hence the full name of the product is EK-Classic InWin 303EK - Black.

EK-Classic InWin 303EK
The EK-Classic InWin 303EK case is a unique version of the popular In Win 303 case. It features an integrated distribution plate and this makes it really special as there is no similar product on the market. This is the only mass-produced case that is specifically re-designed and modified to seamlessly integrate the coolant distribution plate equipped with a powerful DDC pump. The 303 is one of InWin's most popular cases which has been on the market for quite a while now. It is a tested, market-proven case with interesting fan and radiator layout options. The 303EK version brings this a new level, wherewith the purchase of the case, the customer will get a fully integrated coolant reservoir and a pump in the form of a distribution plate.

HyperX, the gaming division of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., today introduced a new addition to its award-winning lineup of gaming keyboards - HyperX Alloy Origins Core. Featuring HyperX Red mechanical switches, the new keyboard is built for performance and longevity with a shorter actuation point and 80 million click rating.

Alloy Origins Core maximizes desktop real estate with a space-saving tenkeyless layout for ultimate mouse movement. The keyboard features RGB exposed backlit keys for brighter illumination with radiant lighting effects and five adjustable brightness levels to enhance gaming, day or night. For added durability, stability and flexibility, Alloy Origins Core is built with a full aircraft-grade aluminium body and the USB Type-C to USB Type-A keyboard cable is detachable.

Intel is partnering with MediaTek on the development, certification and support of 5G modem solutions for the next generation of PC experiences. As part of the partnership, Intel will define a 5G solution specification, including a 5G modem to be developed and delivered by MediaTek. Intel will also provide optimization and validation across the platform and lend system integration and co-engineering support to further enable its OEM partners.

"5G is poised to unleash a new level of computing and connectivity that will transform the way we interact with the world. This partnership with MediaTek brings together industry leaders with deep engineering, system integration and connectivity expertise to deliver 5G experiences on the next generation of the world's best PCs." -Gregory Bryant, Intel executive vice president and general manager of the Client Computing Group.

Intel has today launched a new product called Data Streaming Accelerator known as Intel DSA shortly. The new device is going to be present inside every future Intel processor with a goal of "optimizing streaming data movement and transformation operations common with applications for high-performance storage, networking, persistent memory, and various data processing applications."

The DSA processor will replace an existing solution that is Intel QuickData Technology, which was previously used for data movement. This new dedicated processor has a much-needed purpose to free up CPU cycles from doing IO work like moving data to/from volatile memory, persistent memory, memory-mapped I/O, and through a Non-Transparent Bridge (NTB) device to/from remote volatile and persistent memory inside a chip. In addition to the usual data movement operations, the DSA processor can create and test CRC checksums for any errors in storage and networking applications.

The HEDT or high-end desktop platform occupies the gray area between desktops and workstations. It has been originally meant for power-users, enthusiasts, and creative professionals. Over the years, with ballooning core-counts, memory bandwidth, and I/O connectivity, the target-audience of the HEDT evolved. Now these processors are useful for people who need a lot of multi-threaded CPU performance with more I/O connectivity than what traditional desktop platforms offer; and who have not use for "workstation" features such as ECC memory, or simply don't want to spend the money.

AMD doubled CPU core counts for its traditional Ryzen desktop platform this year with the introduction of 12-core and 16-core parts; forcing its 3rd gen Threadripper family to begin with even higher core-counts, starting with the 3960X 24-core part at $1,399. Intel, on the other hand, is in a bit of a pickle. Intel's 10 nm silicon fabrication node development isn't benefiting its desktop or HEDT platforms. Allocations of its 10 nm node are mopped up by its high-volume mobile processor and high-margin enterprise processor businesses, leaving too little allocation to roll out desktop or HEDT 10 nm chips at scale.

AMD is hours away from market-availability and reviews of its 3rd generation Ryzen Threadripper HEDT processors, which includes two models at launch, the 24-core 3960X, and the 32-core 3970X, with prices starting at USD $1,399. The two are closely related to the 2nd generation EPYC "Rome" server processor family, which we know includes core-counts going all the way up to 64. It was hence obvious that a 64-core Threadripper will launch at some point, and that point is 2020, and the part goes by the name 3990X.

The slide detailing the 3990X mentions its core count of 64-core/128-thread, total cache (L2 + L3), which is a staggering 288 MB, and TDP of "just" 280 W. There is no mention of the chip's clock-speeds, and with the 3970X already priced close to $2,000, one can expect even higher prices for a chip with double the core count. At some point these products stop being HEDT and enter the realm of workstations. Intel's short-term response to even the 3970X could be limited to somehow sell the 28-core "Cascade Lake-SP" with quasi-HEDT branding the way it sells the Xeon W-3175X, and on a different platform than the X299.

TechPowerUp and TerraMaster brought you the TerraMaster NAS Giveaway, with two of our lucky readers standing a chance to welcome home a TerraMaster F2-210 NAS. The F2-210 is a high price-performance 2-bay NAS server with a powerful application processor for the highest data throughput and multi-layer security. It comes with the TNAS management software, which is a powerful web-browser based suite of data-management applications. Entries for the giveaway are closed and the results are in. Without further ado, the winners:

• Tia from Florida, USA
• Stephen from New Mexico, USA

A huge Congratulations, Tia and Stephen! TechPowerUp and TerraMaster will return with more such interesting Giveaways.

At its recent SC19 talk, AMD touched upon its upcoming "Zen 3" CPU microarchitecture. Designed for the 7 nm EUV silicon fabrication process that significantly increases transistor densities, "Zen 3" could post performance gains "right in line with what you would expect from an entirely new architecture," states AMD, referring to the roughly 15 percent IPC gains that were expected of "Zen 2" prior to its launch. "Zen 2" IPC ended up slightly over 15 percent higher than that of the original "Zen" microarchitecture. AMD's SC19 comments need not be a guidance on the IPC itself, but rather performance gains of end-products versus their predecessors.

The 7 nm EUV process, with its 20 percent transistor-density increase could give AMD designers significant headroom to increase clock speeds to meet the company's generational performance improvement targets. Another direction in which "Zen 3" could go is utilizing the additional transistor density to bolster its core components to support demanding instruction-sets such as AVX-512. The company's microarchitecture is also missing something analogous to Intel's DLBoost, an instruction-set that leverages fixed-function hardware to accelerate AI-DNN building and training. Even VIA announced an x86 microarchitecture with AI hardware and AVX-512 support. In either case, the design of "Zen 3" is complete. We'll have to wait until 2020 to find out how fast "Zen 3" is, and the route taken to get there.

Forge is defined as the process of shaping a metal object through heating and hammering, a magical event that turns something ordinary into something phenomenal. Introducing the MSI MAG Forge 100 series, gaming computers made to perform and serve. Made to look sturdy and robust, the Forge 100 series took design cues from smith anvils as a constant reminder. It reminds us that no matter what, the Forge 100 series will always sit as your foundation in turning anything into something extraordinary. The Forge 100 series has three esteemed members: Forge 100R, Forge 100M, and Forge 101M. Decide what gear fits you best in the heat of battle, and you're sure to win. As shown by the photo, users can choose between having 2 or 3 pre-installed front fans depending on the product SKU.

Leaving some decision making to our users, the Forge 100 series supports multiple easy installation mechanisms and can accommodate up to the ATX motherboard that provides peak performance depending on what our users need. Thanks to the Mystic Light software, the MAG Forge 100R can cast millions of colors and special effects. The Mystic Light software can even further enhance your build personalization through synchronization with a huge variety of components. Pressing the LED switch button for three seconds also grants users the ability to sync the lighting effects with the motherboard through the MSI Mystic Light App.

EK Water Blocks, the Europe-based water cooling gear manufacturer, is introducing its new generation of high-performance water blocks specially designed for ASUS DUAL GeForce RTX EVO series graphics cards, based on Turing graphics processor. The EK-Quantum Vector Dual Evo series water blocks feature addressable D-RGB implementation in the stick out as well as the GPU terminal.

The EK-Quantum Vector Dual Evo RTX 2070/2080 D-RGB water blocks are specifically engineered for ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 2070, 2080, 2070 SUPER and 2080 SUPER graphics cards. The water block itself uses the signature EK single slot slim look, and it covers the entire PCB length. This sophisticated cooling solution will transform your powerful ASUS graphics card into a minimalist, elegant piece of hardware with accented D-RGB LED lighting. The block also features a unique aesthetic cover over the block Terminal which is designed to showcase the graphics card model via addressable LEDs, visible from the side.

NZXT has today launched a new update to its CAM software made for PC monitoring. The latest 4.0 version bring many features to CAM with better application performance and UI design. The software has been redesigned from the ground up with a goal of improving overall user experience, with better features like nicer overall UI to prioritize showing only the most important aspects of your PC's health. There are new sections like bandwidth and resource per-process tabs that let users see where is their PC spending its resources.

The application has also seen major "under the hood" redesign as well. It is now optimized for better performance and uses less system resources. This is also important when using CAM's built-in overlay during gaming sessions as it will leave more CPU time available for the game instead of using it up. The overlay also got some enhancements like customization of what is displayed during its use for less intrusive experience. Additionally, all peripherals that were compatible with previous versions of CAM software will continue to be supported during this 4.0 release, giving users more options to control their fans, coolers and RGB lighting setups. In addition to a bright UI, there is also a choice of dark mode to blend in with your Windows theme. NZXT CAM 4.0 software is available for free download here.

Valve has taken the proverbial wraps off the already-teased, and now revealed, Half Life: Alyx. The latest installment in the Half-Life universe, again, isn't a sequel to the narrative that has been left midway with the ending of Half-Life 2: Episode Two. Instead, it's a prequel of sorts, situated in the 20-year time gap between the original Half-Life and Half-Life 2. It's at this point in the timeline that players will accompany Alyx and her father, Elias, in their fight against the Combine.

Engine-wise, the game will make use of the Source 2 engine, and will be released with accompanying Source 2 tools for worldbuilding, allowing players to design and distribute their own worlds set in this universe. The game will be a single-player, story-driven FPS affair, and will make heavy use of Half-Life's physics interactions. The game is being announced as a full-length game release built from the ground-up for VR - it's not just a VR adventure the development team embarked on, though it did start that way. But let that be for a while: go after the break to watch the game's trailer. I dare you to say this doesn't quite look like your Half-Life dream game.

BZFuture is a small-business focused discount genuine software digital retailer with an irresistible Black Friday deal: pick up the Antivirus or Security Software Suite of your choice, and get a lifetime-valid Windows 10 Pro license for free. This is a boon for small businesses especially, as they can not only renew the annual licenses of their preferred security software, but also freely upgrade any Windows 7-powered machines they may have over to Windows 10 Pro. That's not all, the security software on sale is going for half the prevalent prices. All big popular security software brands are covered, including Kaspersky, Bitdefender, ESET, Avira, and McAfee. Don't need security software at this time? No worries, browse through other useful system software on offer, such as AOMEI, Flexepin, etc., and get your Windows 10 Pro license as well. Two popular deals are recommended below.

Buy McAfee Antivirus 1-PC, 1-year + Windows 10 Pro from BZFuture for $10.96 | Buy Kaspersky Internet Security 1-PC, 1-year + Windows 10 Pro from BZFuture for $23.24 | Check Out Other Stunning Deals

Thermaltake, a leading premium gaming tower manufacturer, is thrilled to announce a new compact design case line up- the H550 TG ARGB Edition Mid-Tower Chassis from H Series chassis which is famous for its eye-catching RGB light strip incorporated at the front. The H550 TG ARGB's dedicated diamond cut angles around the 2 mm aluminium front panel makes this case unique and incomparable. The front ARGB light strip and one preinstalled rear 120 mm ARGB fan can be controlled via motherboard synchronization software or the RGB switch on the top I/O port for ultimate lighting effects. Other outstanding features include a 4 mm tempered glass panel, a riser GPU support bracket, and removable magnetic filters for overall exceptional PC performance which is the ideal PC case for both gamers and enthusiasts.

EK, the premium water cooling gear manufacturer, is introducing its new D-RGB versions of high-performance water blocks specially designed for EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti FTW3 series graphics cards, based on the Turing graphics processor. The new EK-Quantum Vector water blocks bring addressable D-RGB LED functionality for even greater customization of your lighting solution.

The EK-Quantum Vector FTW3 RTX D-RGB series high-performance water blocks are specially designed for EVGA FTW3 versions of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti graphics cards. The water blocks use the signature EK single slot slim look, and they cover the entire PCB length. This sophisticated cooling solution will transform your powerful EVGA graphics card into a minimalistic, elegant piece of hardware with accented D-RGB (addressable) LED lighting. The block also features a unique aesthetic cover over the block Terminal which is designed to showcase the graphics card model via addressable LEDs, visible from the side.

AMD in a blog post earlier today explained that there is no 1:1 correlation between the "best core" grading system displayed in Ryzen Master, and the "preferred cores" addressed by the Windows 10 Scheduler using CPPC2 (Collaborative Power and Performance Control 2). Deployed through BIOS and AMD chipset drivers, CPPC2 forms a middleware between OS and processor, communicating the system's performance demands at a high frequency of 1 ms (Microsoft's default speed for reporting performance states to processors is 15 ms). Ryzen Master, on the other hand, has had the ability to reveal the "best" cores in a Ryzen processor by ranking them across the package, on a CCD (die), and within a CCX. The best core in a CCX is typically marked with a "star" symbol on the software's UI. The fastest core on the package gets a gold star. Dots denote second fastest cores in a CCX.

Over the past couple of months we've posted several investigative reports by our Ryzen memory overclocking guru Yuri "1usmus" Bubly, and a recurring theme with our articles has been to highlight the discrepancy between the highest performing cores as tested by us not corresponding to those highlighted in Ryzen Master. Our definition of "highest performing cores" has been one that's able to reach and sustain the highest boost states, and has the best electrical properties. AMD elaborates that the CPPC2 works independently from the SMU API Ryzen Master uses, and the best cores mapped by Ryzen Master shouldn't correspond with preferred cores reported by CPPC2 to the OS scheduler, so it could send more workload to these cores, benefiting from their higher boosting headroom.

ASUS- upcoming ROG Strix Go 2.4 headset may well grab more headlines than this one here at TechPowerUp, since the company has decided to integrate the latest buzzword in their upcoming product (missing is a "Gaming" addition). According to ASUS, the ROG Strix Go 2.4-s bi-directional boom-mic uses a noise-cancelling algorithm to block out up to 95% of unwanted noise, ranging from rage-induced keyboard mash-ups through nagging significant others (just kidding, they never nag). ASUS says that the algorithm they've deployed in these noise-cancellation features has been trained on a database of over 50 million records for tens of thousands of hours. But noise-cancellation with no discernible output sound quality wouldn't a driving product make, and so ASUS has included their 40 mm Asus Essence drivers on these headphones, which ASUS says have a penchant for Bass, and have been conditioned in an airtight chamber for reduction of any parasitic sounds.

German publication Heise.de got its hands on a Radeon RX 5500 (OEM) graphics card and put it through their test bench. The numbers yielded show exactly what caused NVIDIA to refresh its entry-level with the GeForce GTX 1650 Super and the GTX 1660 Super. The RX 5500, in Heise's testing was found matching the previous-generation RX 580, and NVIDIA's current-gen GTX 1660 (non-Super). When compared to factory-overclocked RX 580 NITRO+ and GTX 1660 OC, the RX 5500 yielded similar 3DMark Firestrike performance, with 12,111 points, compared to 12,744 points of the RX 580 NITRO+, and 12,525 points of the GTX 1660 OC.

The card was put through two other game tests at 1080p, "Shadow of the Tomb Raider," and "Far Cry 5." In SoTR, the RX 5500 put out 59 fps, which was slightly behind the 65 fps of the RX 580 NITRO+, and 69 fps of the GTX 1660 OC. In "Far Cry 5," it scored 72 fps, which again is within reach of the 75 fps of the RX 580 NITRO+, and 85 fps of the GTX 1660 OC. It's important to once again note that the RX 580 and GTX 1660 in this comparison are factory-overclocked cards, while the RX 5500 is ticking a stock speeds. Heise also did some power testing, and found the RX 5500 to have a lower idle power-draw than the GTX 1660 OC, at 7 W compared to 10 W of the NVIDIA card; and 12 W of the RX 580 NITRO+. Gaming power-draw is also similar to the GTX 1660, with the RX 5500 pulling 133 W compared to 128 W of the GTX 1660. This short test shows that the RX 5500 is in the same league as the RX 580 and GTX 1660, and explains how NVIDIA had to make its recent product-stack changes.

CORSAIR, a world leader in PC gaming peripherals and enthusiast components, today announced that its industry-leading CORSAIR iCUE software is now available for macOS, unlocking the full potential of CORSAIR mice, keyboards, headsets, and more for Mac users. Available as a free download, iCUE enables users to completely personalize their peripherals - increasing productivity, customizing aesthetics, improving gaming performance, and more.

iCUE for macOS features support for CORSAIR RGB keyboards, mice, headsets, and accessories when used on Mac, such as the award-winning K70 RGB MK.2 mechanical keyboard and the iconic M65 RGB ELITE optical gaming mouse. CORSAIR iCUE for macOS also supports all currently shipping CORSAIR headsets, including the newly released VIRTUOSO RGB Wireless, as well as accessories such as the MM800 RGB POLARIS RGB mouse pad and ST100 RGB premium headset stand.

Intel is set to become the world's largest semiconductor supplier of 2019, according to the research from IC Insights. Intel held a crown for the largest semiconductor supplier since 1992, until 2018 when Samsung overtook it because of the booming DRAM business driven by high demand and not enough supply. Being Samsung's main business, any DRAM price/demand fluctuation was having a massive impact on its business. Due to high demand and high pricing, Samsung saw a massive revenue jump which resulted in a new king of the world's largest semiconductor supplier.

However, having seen predictions for a fall of 34% for this year, the decrease in demand will result in lower revenue for all DRAM market suppliers. SK Hynix, Micron and Samsung are expecting their revenues to decline around 29% on a year-over-year basis given the situation. This is resulting in lower revenue for Samsung than Intel has, and makes Intel the king of semiconductors once more. Intel's revenue is expected to reach around 70 billion USD, which is similar to last year's numbers.

With its "Skylake" microarchitecture, Intel significantly re-balanced the cache hierarchy of its HEDT and enterprise multi-core processors to equip CPU cores with larger amounts of faster L2 caches, and lesser amounts on slower shared L3 cache. The company retained its traditional cache balance for its mobile and desktop processor derivatives. This could change with the company's "Tiger Lake" microarchitecture, particularly the "Willow Cove" CPU cores they use, according to a Geekbench online database listing for a prototype quad-core "Tiger Lake-Y" mobile processor.

According to this listing, assuming Geekbench is reading the platform correctly; the "Tiger Lake-Y" processor features a 4-core/8-thread CPU, with a massive 1,280 KB (1.25 MB) of L2 cache per core, and 12 MB of L3 cache. Intel also enlarged the L1D (data) cache to be 48 KB in size, while the L1I (instruction) cache remains 32 KB. This amounts to a 400% increase in L2 cache size, and a 50% increase in L3 cache size. Unlike with "Skylake-X," the increase in L2 cache size doesn't come with a decrease in shared L3 cache size (per core). The "Tiger Lake-Y" processor is being tested on a "Corktown" prototyping platform (a specialized motherboard that has all possible I/O connectivity available with the platform, for testing. "Tiger Lake" is expected to make its debut some time in 2020-21 as a successor to "Ice Lake," and will be built on Intel's refined 10 nm++ silicon fabrication node. Find the Geekbench entry in the source link below.

LIAN LI Industrial Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of aluminum chassis and PC accessories, is proud to announce the LANCOOL II, a revised and improved version of its popular LANCOOL ONE. Available in black and white, the LANCOOL II is packed with features designed to make the user's building experience as pleasant as possible, such as four flip panels, modular cable cover plates, and an adjustable drive bay, all the while providing a clean and modern look with front panel RGB effect and tempered glass on both sides of the case.

When building a PC, easy access to all the compartments is key. Not losing or breaking the thread of important screws is also a good advantage. That is why the LANCOOL II is equipped with hinged tempered glass panels as well as two metallic shroud panels on both the right side and left side of the case, all magnetic, eliminating the need for unnecessary screws. While the tempered glass panels provide a great view to the piece of art that is your PC, the shroud panels provide easy access to the PSU's cable for easier management without having to remove any parts to get to it. It also provides quick access to your HDD cage, and for an added benefit, the glass panels can easily be lifted off their hinges to prevent any damage while building the PC.

NVIDIA is invested in the development of multi-GPU, specifically SLI over NVLink, and has developed a new multi-GPU rendering technique that appears to be inspired by tile-based rendering. Implemented at a single-GPU level, tile-based rendering has been one of NVIDIA's many secret sauces that improved performance since its "Maxwell" family of GPUs. 3DCenter.org discovered that NVIDIA is working on its multi-GPU avatar, called CFR, which could be short for "checkerboard frame rendering," or "checkered frame rendering." The method is already secretly deployed on current NVIDIA drivers, although not documented for developers to implement.

In CFR, the frame is divided into tiny square tiles, like a checkerboard. Odd-numbered tiles are rendered by one GPU, and even-numbered ones by the other. Unlike AFR (alternate frame rendering), in which each GPU's dedicated memory has a copy of all of the resources needed to render the frame, methods like CFR and SFR (split frame rendering) optimize resource allocation. CFR also purportedly offers lesser micro-stutter than AFR. 3DCenter also detailed the features and requirements of CFR. To begin with, the method is only compatible with DirectX (including DirectX 12, 11, and 10), and not OpenGL or Vulkan. For now it's "Turing" exclusive, since NVLink is required (probably its bandwidth is needed to virtualize the tile buffer). Tools like NVIDIA Profile Inspector allow you to force CFR on provided the other hardware and API requirements are met. It still has many compatibility problems, and remains practically undocumented by NVIDIA.

Akasa today rolled out the Cypher MX3, a Thin Mini-ITX case for low-profile, fan-less desktop builds meant as digital signage boxes, thin clients, or low-power desktops that you tuck away behind your monitor. Measuring 208 mm x 203 mm x 45 mm (WxDxH), which amounts to a lunchbox-sized volume of just 2 liters, the Cypher MX3 features a SECC steel construction with a ventilated 3-sided panel covering the top and sides. Its front panel provides two each of USB 3.1 type-A, two USB 2.0/1.1, and HDA jacks. Besides the motherboard, there's room for a 2.5-inch drive inside. The case is designed for external power-bricks that plug in directly to the motherboard, which provides power for your SSD. Available now, the Akasa Cypher MX3 is priced at USD $59.

Colorful Technology Company Limited, professional manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards and high-performance storage solutions is thrilled to announce the latest product to join its CVN class of high-performance motherboards with the new CVN X570M GAMING Pro microATX motherboard. Building on the foundation of the first X570 Gaming Pro V14 motherboard, COLORFUL is offering the same level of quality and feature for those looking for a more compact build and the CVN X570M GAMING Pro makes that possible.

The CVN X570M GAMING Pro is ready for the future with support for AMD's new 7 nm processor based on their Zen 2 architecture while still supporting both 2nd-gen and 3rd-gen Ryzen products. This allows upgraders an easy path to step into modern hardware without spending more. Making its debut is PCIe 4.0 on this motherboard giving it extra bandwidth for high-speed connections with devices. The motherboard also comes rich with USB connectivity including USB 3.1 Gen 2.

Intel executive vice-president and general manager for sales, marketing, and communications, Michelle Johnston Holthaus, in a letter addressing the company's customers and partners, expressed regret that the company hasn't been able to resolve the challenge of PC CPU supply falling behind market growth (demand) despite its "best efforts." She elaborated on these efforts by summarizing additional billions of dollars in capital-expenditure the company spent in retrofitting its facilities to 14 nm fabs. The added capacity increased Intel's output in 2H 2019 by a "double digit" percentage compared to 1H, however, even that proved insufficient to cope with market demand. "Sustained market growth in 2019 has outpaced [Intel's] efforts and exceeded third-party forecasts," she said.

"Supply remains extremely tight in our PC business where we are operating with limited inventory buffers. This makes us less able to absorb the impact of any production variability, which we have experienced in the quarter. This has resulted in the shipment delays you are experiencing, which we appreciate is creating significant challenges for your business," she added, probably referring to the vast portfolio of dozens of SKUs of products that aren't yet EOL, but share the same 14 nm node. Intel deployed its product representatives to proactively reach out to all their customers to "answer their questions." This is probably another way of saying "retaining your businesses." Intel is embattled on two fronts: to make its 14 nm supply keep pace with demand; and to quantitatively transition to the newer 10 nm process.

EK, premium liquid cooling gear manufacturer based in Europe, is launching a new, addressable D-RGB version of EK-Vector Trio high-performance water blocks specially designed for MSI Gaming X Trio GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards. The block also features a D-RGB lit aesthetic cover over the block Terminal which is designed to showcase the graphics card model via addressable LEDs, visible from the side.

The EK-Quantum Vector Trio RTX D-RGB water blocks are specially designed for multiple MSI Trio GeForce RTX Turing based graphics cards. These water blocks use the signature EK single slot slim look and cover the entire PCB length. This sophisticated cooling solution will transform your powerful MSI graphics card into a minimalistic, elegant piece of hardware with accented D-RGB (addressable) LED lighting. The block also features a unique aesthetic cover over the block Terminal which is designed to showcase the graphics card model via addressable LEDs, visible from the side.

NVIDIA could launch a "GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Super" after all, if a tweet from kopite7kimi, an enthusiast with a fairly high hit-rate with NVIDIA rumors is to be believed. The purported SKU could be faster than the RTX 2080 Ti, and yet be somehow differentiated from the TITAN RTX. For starters, NVIDIA could enable all 4,608 CUDA cores, 576 tensor cores, and 72 RT cores, along with 288 TMUs and 96 ROPs. Compared to the current RTX 2080 Ti, the Super could get faster 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory.

It's possible that NVIDIA won't change the 352-bit memory bus width or 11 GB memory amount, as those would be the only things stopping the card from cannibalizing the TITAN RTX, which has the chip's full 384-bit memory bus width, and 24 GB of memory. Interestingly, at 16 Gbps with a 352-bit memory bus width, the RTX 2080 Ti Super would have 704 GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is higher than the 672 GB/s of the TITAN RTX, with its 14 Gbps memory clock. These design choices would ensure NVIDIA has a sufficiently faster product than the RTX 2080 Ti, without an increase in BOM, provided it has enough perfectly-functional "TU102" inventory to go around. There's no word on availability, although WCCFTech predicts a CES 2020 unveiling.

CHERRY, the specialist for computer input devices, presents CHERRY KEYS. This free software tool for straightforward customization of keyboards and mice allows users to configure their input devices according to their individual demands. The software tool works with virtually every keyboard and mouse on the market, although it achieves best results with original CHERRY products.

CHERRY KEYS offers an intuitive user interface for assigning specific tasks to individual keys of the keyboard or mouse. The tool shows the configurable keys or buttons on all available input devices and lets you customize them with the click of a mouse button, using different colours to show which keys have been reprogrammed. CHERRY offers a variety of options to reprogram individual keys, such as opening programs, files, folders or web pages at the touch of a button. System functions (logoff, lock, standby) or multimedia commands are also possible. Complete input sequences — so-called macros — or even recorded texts can be saved as a shortcut and started or inserted as required.

ASUS today announced the new ProArt StudioBook Pro X (W730), which provides a wide range of features designed for professional creators. It's the first Quadro laptop that is powered by 9th Gen Intel Xeon processor with NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 graphics. This combination of cutting edge graphics and portability makes it perfect for creative professionals to achieve their goals on-the-go or in office.

ProArt StudioBook Pro X delivers the needed performance to create, edit, and render multilayered files using the latest NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 graphics. These NVIDIA RTX Studio laptops utilize NVIDIA Turing architecture, allowing creative and technical professionals to take advantage of the power of hardware-accelerated ray tracing, deep learning, and advanced shading techniques when creating amazing content. Intel Xeon processors are designed to handle complex, multithreaded applications, and takes mobile computing to another level by making it incredibly smooth and responsive.

Scythe unveiled the low-profile Shuriken 2 SCSK-2000 CPU cooler (not to be confused with the Big Shuriken series of large top-flow coolers). With a height of 58 mm (with the fan in place), the SCSK-2000 is meant for compact Mini-ITX desktop builds with fairly high thermal loads of around 100 W TDP. Its design consists of a dense aluminium fin-stack arranged along the plane of the motherboard, to which heat drawn indirectly through a nickel-plated copper base-plate is conveyed by four 6 mm-thick heat pipes. The heatsink is ventilated by Kaze Flex 92 Slim PWM fan. This 92 mm spinner takes in 4-pin PWM input, spins between 200 to 2,500 RPM, and pushes 4.96 to 41.30 CFM of air, with a noise output of up to 23.2 dBA. Measuring 94 mm x 93 mm x 58 mm (WxDxH), the SCSK-2000 weighs 350 g. Among the CPU socket types supported are AM4 and LGA115x. The cooler will be available from early-December. The company didn't reveal pricing.

The EVGA NU Audio Card reintroduced the PC world to high-end audio, both stunning the audio world and making new fans along the way. The singular idea of producing Lifelike Audio and Gaming at an affordable price led to an exclusive partnership between one of the world's most recognizable PC hardware manufacturers and one of the true icons of the audio world - Audio Note (UK).

The NU Audio Pro Cards change the game once again. The pursuit of audio perfection on a PC takes another step forward with the introduction of a 7.1 Surround solution by EVGA and Audio Note. We took the solid foundation of the NU Audio Card, improved the component selections throughout, and matched it to a secondary card to provide surround support. The result is an experience where critical listening sessions can yield to enjoyment, and where thinking will surrender to feeling.

Greenliant has expanded its ArmourDrive portfolio with high reliability Secure Digital (SD) and microSD industrial memory cards. Built with advanced 3D NAND in 3-bit-per-cell (TLC) and 1-bit-per-cell (SLC) configurations, SD and microSD ArmourDrive products offer endurance options of 3K (PX Series) and 30K (EX Series) program-erase (P/E) cycles, respectively. See SD and microSD ArmourDrive product information here.

SD and microSD ArmourDrive EX Series cards with SLC configurations are available in capacities from 8 GB to 64 GB, and PX Series cards with TLC configurations are offered from 32 GB to 256 GB. UHS Speed Class 10 and SD Specification 6.10 compliant, SD and microSD ArmourDrive cards reach up to 95/85 MB/s sequential read/write performance. These memory cards provide reliability, stability and removability, making them ideal for a wide range of demanding and space-constrained applications, such as handheld data loggers and scanners, professional video and photo cameras, portable medical diagnostic tools, ticket and vending machines, transportation diagnostics, telematics, test and measurement equipment, surveillance and industrial automation systems.

NVIDIA late Tuesday pushed out a Hotfix to its GeForce Software against glaring bugs that can't wait for the next driver release to be fixed. Hotfix 441.34 fixes a bug with "Red Dead Redemption 2" stalling on machines with 4-core and 6-core CPUs, when the Vulkan API is used. The drivers also fix a game crash with "Shadow of the Tomb Raider" launching in DirectX 12 mode. The rest of the driver's change-log is identical to that of the recent 441.20 WHQL drivers. Grab the hotfix from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce Hotfix 441.34

Well, that headline must've been met with both a warm fuzzy feeling of nostalgia, and a sudden, stab-like wound on the back of many readers. The usage of Valve and Half-Life together in the same sentence has been the victim of multiple memes and disappointments over the years, with the studio being seemingly unable to keep up with the mantle of great games it has released before in the Half-Life universe. Half-Life 3 is already so much of a failed expectation that the game could (likely) never live up to the expectations set on it at this point in time. It seems valve is shrugging the game away with a Half-Life set VR game, though, in the form of Half-Life: Alyx.

Valve itself have posted a teaser image on Twitter, announcing it as a flagship VR game available for SteamVR. To be unveiled on November 21st, nothing much is known about the game by now; but it's expected it will be a VR-exclusive experience. The game started out as a single-player exploration experience for VR, and it seems to have found its way developed into a full-fledged game. Apparently, this Half-Life: Alyx game is the first in Valve's plans of releasing more VR games in the future, which may or may not be set in the Half-Life universe. This could actually be an interesting experience for VR, if you can get beyond the usual betrayal of not seeing an announcement for Half-Life 3. Who knows - this could even be the killer app for VR, or an Half-Life renaissance in the minds of gamers and Valve themselves. At the very least, we know it will induce nostalgia.

Following the success of the 49" (124 cm) format, the Philips 439P9H adds a 43" (110.2 cm) option to the growing ultra-wide family. Equipped with a luxuriously wide workspace and stunning DisplayHDR 400 technology, the 439P9H SuperWide monitor is packed with productivity-enhancing features such as a built-in USB-C docking station, a Windows HelloTM pop-up webcam, and a MultiClient Integrated KVM switch, as well as numerous comfort-boosting features designed to provide an enjoyable experience from beginning to end.

The Philips 439P9H offers professionals working in finance, banking, and other B2B sectors all the scope they need to deliver their best performance every day. With an ample 32:10 SuperWide format (effective viewing area 1052 x 329 mm) and 3840 x 1200 pixel resolution, this model can easily replace two 16:10 high-performance monitors, thereby saving time and space while reducing cable clutter. The 1800R curvature is designed to expand the user's field of view, lessen distortion, and enter their peripheral vision zone, thus providing optimal viewing comfort while generating an engaging, subtly immersive effect that offers the added benefit of enhancing concentration.

Benchmarks have been uploaded to popular benchmarking utility Geekbench's servers, and they seemingly allow us to look into Intel's next-gen Comet Lake-S processors. The results, which have likely been taken from pre-release hardware (which means benchmarks and even proper identification of features on the CPUs shouldn't be taken as guarantees), help paint a picture on Intel's next release all the same.

Processor information for the 10-core, 20-thread CPU gives us a 1.51 GHz base clock and 3.19 GHz boost, with the chip featuring 32 Kb each for L1 instruction and L1 data caches (x10 cores, 640 KB total) 256 KB L2 cache (x10 cores, for a total of 2.5 MB) and 20 MB L3 cache. The six-core part, on the other hand, is reported as featuring a 1.99 GHz base clock and 2.89 GHz boost clock, 384 KB total L1 instruction and data caches (32 KB x 6 cores), 256 KB L2 cache (x6 cores, for a total of 1.5 MB) and 12 MB L3 cache. This means each core is in Comet Lake-S is paired with 2 MB of L3 cache, which is being cut-down alongside cores. Like almost all other Intel desktop CPU releases, these CPU cores will be paired with an IGP in the form of Intel UHD Graphics 630, which features up to 24 Execution Units (EUs). With Intel's 10-core CPU being expected to be the cream of the crop on the company's mainstream CPU lineup come Comet Lake-S, comparisons to AMD's own core density are moot, in that there is no real competition available, should that top core count actually materialize.

Cerebras has introduced the world to its CS-1 system, which will house the company's (and simultaneously, the industry's) most powerful monolithic accelerator.The CS-1 is an integrated solution the size of 15 industry-standard rack units, and packs everything from the Wafer Scale Engine to cooling systems. The CS-1 consumes 20 kW of power, with a full 4 kW dedicated solely to the cooling subsystem, like fans, pumps, and the heat exchanger, 15 kW dedicated to the chip, and 1 kW is totally lost to power supply inefficiencies. Obviously, power supply modules and other cooling subsystems are redundant, and hot-swappable if need be - you can imagine the computational value lost with each millisecond of downtime that were to occur in such a system.

NVIDIA today introduced a reference design platform that enables companies to quickly build GPU-accelerated Arm -based servers, driving a new era of high performance computing for a growing range of applications in science and industry.

Announced by NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang at the SC19 supercomputing conference, the reference design platform — consisting of hardware and software building blocks — responds to growing demand in the HPC community to harness a broader range of CPU architectures. It allows supercomputing centers, hyperscale-cloud operators and enterprises to combine the advantage of NVIDIA's accelerated computing platform with the latest Arm-based server platforms.

According to the findings of a Chiphell user called "wjm47196", AMD is supposedly going to host an event at CES 2020 to showcase its next generation of Radeon graphics cards. Having seen huge success with its first-generation "RDNA" GPUs, AMD is expected to showcase improved lineup utilizing new and improved RDNA 2 graphics card architecture.

Judging by the previous information, second generation of RDNA graphics cards will get much-needed features like ray tracing, to remain competitive with existing offers from NVIDIA and soon Intel. Supposed to be built using the 7 nm+ manufacturing process, the new GPU architecture will get around 10-15% performance improvement due to the new manufacturing process alone, with possibly higher numbers if there are changes to the GPU core.

AMD today announced the AMD Radeon Pro W5700, the world's first 7 nm professional PC workstation graphics card. It delivers new levels of performance and advanced features that enable 3D designers, architects and engineers to visualize, review and interact with their designs in real time, dramatically accelerating decision-making processes and product development cycles.

The AMD Radeon Pro W5700 workstation graphics card features the high-performance, energy-efficient AMD RDNA architecture and state-of-the-art GDDR6 memory to handle large models and datasets, and is the first PC workstation graphics card to support high-bandwidth PCIe 4.0 technology. It is ideal for professionals who push performance beyond traditional 3D design by generating photorealistic renders of their concepts and reviewing virtual prototypes of their designs in virtual reality (VR) environments.

AMD today released its Athlon 3000G low-cost desktop processor to cap off its entry-level. Based on the 14 nm "Raven Ridge" silicon, the chip combines a 2-core/4-thread CPU based on the original "Zen" microarchitecture, with Radeon Vega 3 integrated graphics based on the "Vega" architecture, and featuring 3 NGCUs (192 stream processors). AMD dialed up the CPU clock speeds to 3.50 GHz, a 300 MHz increase over that of the "previous gen" 200GE, and iGPU engine clock speed by 100 MHz to 1.10 GHz. A unique feature this time around is unlocked base-clock multiplier, enabling CPU overclocking. AMD is pricing the Athlon 3000GE at just $49 (MSRP), it competes with Intel's Pentium Gold G5000 series processors.

Read the TechPowerUp review of the AMD Athlon 3000G here.

TerraMaster, a professional brand that specializes in providing innovative storage products, including network attached storage and direct attached storage, is proud to announce the D8 Thunderbolt 3 storage drive as part of their Thunderbolt 3 family product family. The D8 Thunderbolt 3 leverages the power of Intel Thunderbolt 3 technology to offer incredible speeds while providing large capacities as well as data integrity for demanding, professional work especially for large, mission critical productions. The TerraMaster D8 Thunderbolt 3 has an MSRP of $1,599.99.

Thunderbolt 3 offers 40 Gbps maximum bandwidth which paired with a powerful RAID controller, allows the D8 Thunderbolt 3 to reach performance of up to 1600 MB/s with traditional hard drives under RAID0 array. For maximum balance of data protection and speed, a RAID5 array can still reach 1400 MB/s with the D8 Thunderbolt 3. This allows editors working on large files such as 4K, 6K or 8K footage to strike a balance of capacity and speed and provide the flexibility to allow them to work with files faster so their creativity is not limited.

CORSAIR, a world leader in PC gaming peripherals and enthusiast components, today announced the launch of the new CORSAIR iCUE LS100 Smart Lighting Strips, the first in a new ecosystem of iCUE-powered ambient RGB lighting products that vastly expand the possibilities of synchronized RGB lighting. CORSAIR iCUE software has been at the forefront of some of the world's most ambitious and spectacular-looking system builds, and now extends beyond the PC with lighting that illuminates your entire environment. Available in a comprehensive Starter Kit and two sizes of Expansion Kits, LS100 Smart Lighting Strips transform your room with vivid customizable lighting profiles, game and media integration, and audio visualization.

Experience an unprecedented level of immersion with real-time media integration - CORSAIR iCUE software analyzes your video signal and outputs matching colors from the LS100 Smart Lighting Strips on your screen's edges to the surrounding area, taking the action beyond your screen whether you're leading your team to victory on the battlefield or watching your favorite movie. Your ambient lighting setup can also turn your room into a full-scale audio visualizer that brings every beat of your music to life in real-time.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules, NAND Flash products, and mobile accessories is pleased to announce the launch of the ADATA SC685 external solid state drive (SSD). Featuring a compact and slim form factor, the ADATA SC685 external solid state drive is as small as they come. Despite its portable size, it's big on capacity and will transfer and backup data in no time.

The SC685 weighs only 35 g and is as thin as a smartphone at 9.5 mm thin. Its slim card-like form factor slips easily into back pockets or bags for hassle-free mobility. Despite its portable form factor the SC685 is up to 6.6 times faster than your typical external hard drive, giving users exceptionally speedy data transfers and backups. With this performance, users can transfer a 10 GB 4K movie in just 20 seconds. The SC685 comes with 250 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB, or 2 TB capacities to meet the needs of different users. What's more, users can use their SC685 with peace of mind knowing that it comes backed by a 3-year warranty.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphic cards since 1997, brings out a Navi first with a water cooled RX 5700 XT, the Liquid Devil. A long term AMD partner, PowerColor was one of the original adopters of factory overclocked graphics cards and was the first AMD partner to manufacture a graphics cards with premium performance water blocks. PowerColor once again partner with the liquid cooling industry leader EK to customize a uniquely designed water block for its custom RX 5700 XT for unmatched thermals and performance.

Featuring a nickel plated copper base, the Liquid Devil provides the better heat transfer capabilities of copper with the corrosion protection of the nickel, with the added bonus of making for a clean and sleek aesthetic. In order to maximize the potential of the PowerColor Liquid Devil, only the best 5700 XT GPUs which have been binned specifically for lower temperature and higher clock speeds have been selected for use, making sure that all Liquid Devil cards are the able to hit the highest performance points.

BIOSTAR today rolled out the M700 line of SSDs in the M.2-2280 form-factor with PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface, taking advantage of the NVMe 1.3 protocol. The drive combines a Silicon Motion SM2263XT DRAM-less controller with 3D NAND flash, and comes in 256 GB and 512 GB capacities. The 256 GB model offers sequential transfer speeds of up to 1,850 MB/s reads with up to 950 MB/s writes, while the 512 GB model offers up to 2,000 MB/s reads, with up to 1,600 MB/s writes. The controller features native AES 256-bit encryption. The company didn't reveal pricing.

MSI updated its Cubi line of NUC-like mini-PCs with the new Cubi 5 10M, powered by 10th generation Core "Comet Lake" mobile processors. Measuring 124 mm x 124 mm X 53.7 mm (WxDxH), and weighing 550 g (excluding the power-brick), the Cubi 5 10M is powered by a Core i7 "Comet Lake-U" SoC (either i7-10510U quad-core or i7-10710U six-core), with its integrated UHD Graphics putting out pixels. Two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots let you drop in up to 64 GB of dual-channel memory, while your storage options are an M.2-2280 slot with both PCI-Express 3.0 x4 and SATA 6 Gbps wiring, and a 2.5-inch drive bay with SATA 6 Gbps. Connectivity includes USB 3.2 gen 1 type-C and type-A ports along the front panel, next to the audio jacks; additional type-A gen 1 ports at the rear; DisplayPort and HDMI making up the display outputs; a gigabit Ethernet interface driven by an Intel i219-V controller, and Intel AX201 WLAN card that provides 802.11ax and Bluetooth 5.0. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Tasting Intel's blood in the water with AMD's return to competitiveness, dormant x86 licensee VIA wants to take another swing at the market, this time with a multi-core processor targeted at enterprises and possibly workstations, developed by its subsidiary CenTaur. The company appears to want to cash in on the AI boom, and could develop turnkey facial-recognition CCTV solutions with the chip. CenTaur is ready with a working prototype. It features eight 64-bit x86 CPU cores, and an on-die "AI co-processor" named NCORE. A ringbus connects the eight CPU cores and the NCORE with the processor's other components. The processor features 16 MB of shared L3 cache, a quad-channel DDR4-3200 memory interface, and a 44-lane PCI-Express gen 3.0 root-complex, along with a fully integrated southbridge, making it an SoC. It also appears to be multi-socket capable, although VIA didn't detail the interconnect in use.

The NCORE is a PCI-mapped device to the software, which provides functions such as DNN building and training acceleration. From the looks of it, there's more to NCORE than simply a fixed-function hardware that multiplies matrices. Its developers state that the device accelerates AI at a rate of "20 trillion AI operations/sec with 20 terabytes/sec memory bandwidth." The CPU cores on the processor tick at 2.50 GHz, and while VIA hasn't made any IPC claims, it has mentioned support for the cutting-edge AVX-512 instruction-set, something even "Zen 2" lacks, which possibly indicates a powerful FPU. The silicon measures 195 mm², and has been built on 16 nm FinFET node at TSMC. VIA will demonstrate the unnamed processor and its testbed at ISC East 2019, held on November 20 and 21.The full technology announcement slide-deck follows.

AMD late Monday posted Radeon Software Adrenalin 19.11.3 beta graphics drivers. The drivers add optimization for "Fortnite" in DirectX 12 mode introduced through patch v11.20, which is the only item in the change-log. Besides this, the company has acknowledged just like in the 19.11.2 changelog, that it's firefighting the issue of intermittent display signal loss when gaming with Radeon RX 5700-series graphics cards. Grab the driver from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 19.11.3

DeepCool rolled out the GH-01, a graphics card reinforcement stand that you install inside your tower-type case, to minimize PCB bending over time (a vastly exaggerated phenomenon). But wait, it does more: the stand has an RGB LED embellishment along its length, and has space to route your graphics card's power cables. Up to two 8-pin PCIe power cables can be routed. You use a thumb-screw and notches to adjust the GH-01's VGA support height from 47.2 mm to 154 mm. The stand itself measures 52.6 mm x 60.6 mm x 163.73 mm (WxDxH). It can bear a load of up to 5 kg. There are two sub-variants of the GH-01 based on the illumination type. The GH-01 RGB uses old-school RGB lighting through 12 V 4-pin RGB control. The GH-01 LED, on the other hand, uses more modern 5 V addressable-RGB over a 3-pin connector. The company didn't reveal pricing.

On Sunday, HP Inc. released a letter from its board of directors stating that it rejects acquisition offer from Xerox Corporation pointing out that: "We have great confidence in our strategy and our ability to execute to continue driving sustainable long-term value at HP. In addition, the Board and management team continue to take actions to enhance shareholder value including the deployment of our strong balance sheet for increased repurchases of our significantly undervalued stock and for value-creating M&A."

This decision shows a strong will from the folks over at HP to continue their business in the way they usually done for many years. Additionally, HP stated the following: "We recognize the potential benefits of consolidation, and we are open to exploring whether there is value to be created for HP shareholders through a potential combination with Xerox. However, as we have previously shared in connection with our prior requests for diligence, we have fundamental questions that need to be addressed in our diligence of Xerox. We note the decline of Xerox's revenue from $10.2 billion to $9.2 billion (on a trailing 12-month basis) since June 2018, which raises significant questions for us regarding the trajectory of your business and future prospects.", showing the downsides of the potential merger and questioning abilities of Xerox to manage two companies.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of GPU-Z, the popular standalone graphics sub-system information, diagnostic, and monitoring utility. The new version 2.27.0 adds support for a few new GPUs, and fixes certain bugs, and improves the user experience. To begin with, we've added support for NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Super, TX 1650 Max-Q, GeForce 945A, Tesla V100-SXM2-16 GB, Tesla P4, and Tesla K8; AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 and FirePro A300.

The Advanced tab now shows PCI device location of your graphics processor. An application crash on old CPUs that lack SSE has been fixed. EVGA ICX fan-speed reporting for RTX 20-series graphics cards has been fixed. A sensor error with AMD CrossFire setups has been fixed. Default clock speed reporting on NVIDIA GPUs has been improved, even with no drivers installed. Memory type reporting has been improved on setups with multiple graphics cards that have different memory types from each other. Grab GPU-Z from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z v2.27.0The change-log follows.

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MATLAB is a popular math computing environment in use by engineering firms, universities, and other research institutes. Some of its operations can be made to leverage Intel MKL (Math Kernel Library), which is poorly optimized for, and notoriously slow on AMD Ryzen processors. Reddit user Nedflanders1976 devised a way to restore anywhere between 20 to 300 percent performance on Ryzen and Ryzen Threadripper processors, by forcing MATLAB to use advanced instruction-sets such as AVX2. By default, MKL queries your processor's vendor ID string, and if it sees anything other than "GenuineIntel...," it falls back to SSE, posing a significant performance disadvantage to "AuthenticAMD" Ryzen processors that have a full IA SSE4, AVX, and AVX2 implementation.

The tweak, meant to be manually applied by AMD Ryzen users, forces MKL to use AVX2 regardless of the CPU Vendor ID query result. The tweak is as simple as it is powerful. A simple 4-line Windows batch file with a set of arguments starts MKL in AVX2 mode. You can also make the tweak "permanent" by creating a system environment variable. The environment variable will apply to all instances of MATLAB, and not just those spawned by the batch file. Nedflanders1976 also posted a benchmark script that highlights the performance impact of AVX2, however you can use your own scripts and post results.

The market may be saturated with a number of confusing memory card options, but Silicon Power is releasing a new set of 4 microSD cards that will be sure to meet your expectations, clearly. With each of them geared toward a specific usage, we're making it easy to choose the best card for your needs. So, whether you're a beginner who's just looking to improve your mobile phone performance or a professional who's looking to capture footage in the most stunning 8K Ultra HD quality - or anyone in between - we've got you covered.

UHS-II technology introduces blazingly fast read and write speeds up to 290 and 160 MB/s, respectively, to fully maximize your time. Capture stunning 8K Ultra HD photos and videos quickly, easily, and with smooth playback. Write raw files in nearly half the time compared to UHS-I. Dramatically accelerate post-production transfers with an appropriate card reader. For professional-level performance that you can trust, this card will have your back.

A desktop variant of the AMD Radeon RX 5300 XT graphics card surfaced in a specs sheet of an upcoming HP Pavilion desktop model (TP01-0004ng). The listing describes the RX 5300 XT as featuring 4 GB of GDDR5 memory. This is the first instance of an RX 5300 XT in the wild. An older report citing driver files pointed to there being only two RX 5300-series products, the RX 5300 (desktop), and the mobile RX 5300M. The "XT" brand extension could denote a higher CU count than the RX 5300, although the series is still differentiated from the RX 5500-series with cheaper GDDR5 memory.

The RX 5300 series and RX 5500 series are based on a common silicon, the 7 nm "Navi 14," featuring up to 24 RDNA compute units (up to 1,536 stream processors), and a 128-bit wide memory interface that supports up to 8 GB of GDDR6 or GDDR5 memory. AMD hopes to phase out its 14 nm and 12 nm "Polaris 10" and "Polaris 30" chips with "Navi 14." It's possible that the RX 5300 XT is OEM-only, just like the other key component in this HP desktop, the Ryzen 5 3500 6-core/6-thread processor.

For those wanting 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6 on their desktops without an M.2 E-key slot on their motherboards, ASUS came up with the PCE-AX3000, a low-profile capable (half-height) NIC that provides up to 3000 Mbps (2.4 Gbps over 5 GHz and 600 Mbps over 2.4 GHz) wireless connectivity, and the added convenience of Bluetooth 5.0 for short-range communications. A set of MU-MIMO antennae come included. Besides MU-MIMO, the card supports OFDMA for better collision-prevention with other devices in the same channel, and WPA3 security protocol. The NIC is essentially a PCI-Express 3.0 x1 add-on card with an M.2 E-key slot that holds an Intel AX200 "Cyclone Peak" WLAN card. We expect the AX3000 to be priced well under $50 given that the "Cyclone Peak" card at the heart of it costs just $10-17 in volume pricing.

EK, a premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer is launching a pump-reservoir combo unit belonging to the Classic Line, the EK-XRES 250 SPC PWM Classic RGB - Plexi (incl. pump). These pump-combo units offer a streamlined Classic look and are an entry class combo solution that is able to offer great hydraulic performance complemented with RGB LEDs for modern aesthetics.

EK-XRES 250 SPC PWM Classic RGB - Plexi (incl. pump) comes with a 250 mm tall reservoir with an integrated EK-SPC 60 water pump that offers 4-pin PWM control for allowing the pump to adapt to thermal load. The reservoir is a tube design made of see-through acrylic thus increasing the RGB LED effect. Bellow the reservoir sits the pump-top which is of square design in line with the rest of the EK Classic product portfolio. The mounting is done from the bottom side, utilizing the 120 mm fan mounting holes.

At Supercomputing 2019, Intel unveiled its vision for extending its leadership in the convergence of high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) with new additions to its data-centric silicon portfolio and an ambitious new software initiative that represents a paradigm shift from today's single-architecture, single-vendor programming models.

Addressing the increasing use of heterogeneous architectures in high-performance computing, Intel expanded on its existing technology portfolio to move, store and process data more effectively by announcing a new category of discrete general-purpose GPUs optimized for AI and HPC convergence. Intel also launched the oneAPI industry initiative to deliver a unified and simplified programming model for application development across heterogenous processing architectures, including CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs and other accelerators. The launch of oneAPI represents millions of Intel engineering hours in software development and marks a game-changing evolution from today's limiting, proprietary programming approaches to an open standards-based model for cross-architecture developer engagement and innovation.

NEC today announced the launch of the MultiSync PA311D, a new 31-inch IPS wide color gamut display with a 4K (4096x2160) resolution. "The MultiSync PA311D will take its place as our flagship monitor in the PA Series of professional desktop displays," said Kevin Christopherson, Director of Product Marketing at NEC Display Solutions. "It provides higher resolution, along with better black levels and contrast. Further, the PA311D includes USB-C connectivity with 65 W charging and several new cutting-edge features to meet the color-critical needs of professional graphic designers, photographers and video producers."

While AMD is giving all signs of being preparing to release their latest entries into the midrange graphics card market in the form of theRX 5500 and RX 5300 series of graphics cards based on Navi, AMD's AIB partners are giving the slow burn on existing inventories of AMD's Polaris graphics chips. MSI, in this case, seems to have bet on a slight redesign of their previously-released RX 580 Armor and Armor MK2.

Changed is the color scheme - MSI went full black on this one. There's also a redesigned PCB, a redesigned I/O bracket (which keeps four display connectors), and a new cooler shroud. The heatsink's surface area also seems to have been increased, which should provide lower operating temperatures (anything beyond that, such as higher overclockability and longer lifespan, are speculations). The redesigned Armor keeps the single 8-pin PCIe power connector. No other details are available at time of writing.

A Geekbench database submission from an HP "17-ca2xxx" laptop (likely a prototype), spilled the beans on an upcoming AMD Athlon Gold 3150U processor, with nomenclature that looks inspired from the Pentium Gold. Intel uses the "Gold" and "Silver" brand extensions to distinguish processors based on its performance microarchitectures from those based on its low-power microarchitectures (eg: a "Skylake" based Pentium Gold, and a "Goldmont" based Pentium Silver). The addition of "Gold" to the Athlon brand could denote performance rivaling mobile versions of Pentium Gold found in entry-level full-size notebooks.

Moving on to the test itself, and we see the Athlon Gold 3150U being listed as a "Raven Ridge" derivative featuring a 2-core/4-thread CPU and Radeon graphics (likely "Vega 3" as with its desktop counterpart). The CPU is shown having a 2.40 GHz base frequency, and 3.30 GHz boost, 512 KB L2 cache per core, and 4 MB shared L3 cache. The chip scores 3,559 single-core points, and 7,336 points multi-core, comparable to entry-level dual-core processors from this generation. This makes us wonder what the Athlon "Silver" could be, and whether AMD is working on a new low-power microarchitecture in the near future.

In September, Sapphire unveiled its most powerful graphics card to date - the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ RX 5700 XT - which delivers amazing 4K and 1440p performance, but also features very advanced RGB customization options. We even created a set of SAPPHIRE ARGB Fans specifically for this card (sold separately), so you could illuminate your system even more. Since then, many of you have asked if we could include the ARGB Fans with the card itself. oday we are ready and excited to announce the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ RX 5700 XT SPECIAL EDITION! Not only does it include the SAPPHIRE ARGB Fans out of the box, but we've increased the card's performance even more.

Thermaltake, a leading premium gaming tower manufacturer, is thrilled to announce a new compact design case line up- the Commander G Series Mid-Tower Chassis including G31, G32, and G33. The Commander G Series Tempered Glass ARGB Edition mid-tower chassis is a brand-new high airflow case designed with a special mesh front panel. This entry-level chassis comes with a preinstalled 200 mm ARGB fan that can be controlled via motherboard synchronization software or the RGB switch on the I/O port. Located at the rear of the chassis is another 120 mm standard fan preinstalled for outstanding ventilation. Other outstanding features include a 4 mm tempered glass panel, a riser GPU support bracket, and removable magnetic filters for an overall exceptional PC performance which is the deal for both gamers and enthusiasts.

GIGABYTE, the world's leading premium water-cooled graphics card manufacturer, today announced the GIGABYTE WATERFORCE graphics cards - GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GAMING OC WATERFORCE WB 8G powered by the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPERTM GPU. Whether users are looking to fulfill the demands of their high-end water-cooled systems, or to enjoy the benefits of water-cooled GPU and CPUs, GIGABYTE WATERFORCE graphics card is the best choice. WATERFORCE WB graphics card is equipped with a top-of-the-line overclocked GPU certified by GIGABYTE GPU Gauntlet sorting technology.

It provides an all-around cooling solution for all key components of the graphics card. It takes care of not only the GPU but also VRAM and MOSFET to ensure stable overclock operation and longer durability. In addition, with excellent RGB lighting effects, protection metal back plate, Ultra-Durable top-grade materials and extended warranty for registered members, etc., GIGABYTE WATERFORCE WB graphics card is the best choice for top players to pursue both quiet operation and performance.

Here's the first picture of the Radeon RX 5700 XT Liquid Devil by PowerColor. This premium graphics card is meant for people with DIY liquid-cooling setups, and comes with a factory-fitted full-coverage water-block. Sourced from EK Water Blocks, the cooling solution features a nickel-plated copper primary material, with an acrylic top and PowerColor-exclusive embellishments, which include a factory-fitted RGB LED setup. The card is 2-slot thick at the rear I/O. Under the block is a PCB similar in design to the air-cooled RX 5700 XT Red Devil graphics card. Its clock speeds and price are still under the wraps. We expect a price that's north of $500 given the cost of the block alone.

GIGABYTE, the world's leading premium gaming hardware manufacturer, today announced the launch of the AORUS Radeon RX 5700 XT 8G, which is built upon the 2nd generation 7 nm processor technology with RDNA architecture. AORUS Radeon RX 5700 XT is equipped with the WINDFORCE 3x cooling system with alternate spinning fans, 6 copper direct touch heat-pipes for the GPU, BIOS switch for silence, RGB Fusion 2.0, protection metal backplate, GIGABYTE certified ultra-durable materials, and supports 6 Displays at once, gamers can experience top computing performance and overwhelming aesthetics smooth working state.

Even though graphics cards can generate strong performance during gaming, the thermal cooling system of graphics cards is an essential factor for many gamers to take into account. From alpha to omega, the tenet of the GIGABYTE WINDFORCE cooling system is to not only keep GPU temperatures lower but just as importantly, to tend to the temperatures of the VRAM and MOSFETs, so that the graphics cards offer more efficient and stable performance. Distinct from other brands' thermal solutions, GIGABYTE allows users to have low-temperature GPU performance and reduces the temperature of components such as the VRAM and MOSFETs to increase the lifespan. You never encounter the risk of damage to components from overheating when your GPU still works well under that scenario. GIGABYTE graphics cards are a good choice for gamers and delivers reliable, powerful performance.

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, introduced today the Razer Kraken Ultimate, a competitive gaming headset featuring THX Spatial Audio technology that delivers pinpoint positional accuracy greater than 7.1 surround sound.

Powered by custom-tuned 50 mm drivers that produce a more natural sound curve, the realistic and immersive soundscape captures every auditory detail, allowing users to pick up even the slightest nuance in sound and use it to their advantage. The Kraken Ultimate's active noise canceling microphone allows for crystal-clear team communication completing a winning combination that gives gamers a competitive edge and the definitive gaming audio experience.

Intel issued a product change notification (PCN) dated November 13, calling for a recall of boxed Xeon E-2274G processors from customers and distributors. The boxed SKU of the E-2274G, which includes a stock cooling solution, has been marked as "discontinued" and "end of life." Intel is offering an E-2274G tray processor (chip-only) as replacement for the returned inventory. The cause for the recall is the cooling solution included in the boxed SKU, which has been found to be insufficient to cool the E-2274G, a 4-core/8-thread processor based on the 14 nm++ "Coffee Lake" microarchitecture, with a rated TDP of 88 W.

The E973708-003 fan-heatsink included with boxed Xeon E-2274G processors is supplied by Foxconn, and has been known to be bundled with Intel's entry-level client-segment processors, such as the Pentium Gold series and Core i3 series (chips with TDP typically rated 65 W or less). It features a thin, circular, all-aluminium heatsink, which lacks a copper core that certain other LGA115x-compatible stock coolers by Intel have. The heatsink makes contact with the CPU over pre-applied TIM on an aluminium surface, with spirally-projecting fins dissipating heat under the fan's airflow. It could be been an oversight bundling such an underpowered cooler with an 88 W TDP processor that's designed for the rigors of mission-critical use-cases such as workstations and small-business servers.Heatsink images courtesy: AndyKingParts (Amazon seller)

NVIDIA has reportedly codenamed a future GPU architecture "Hopper," in honor of Grace Hopper, an eminent computer scientist who invented one of the first linkers, and programmed the Harvard Mark I computer that aided the American war efforts in World War II. This came to light as Twitter user "@kopite7kimi," who's had a fairly high hit-rate with NVIDIA info tweeted not just the codename, but also a key NVIDIA product design change. The tweets were later deleted, but not before 3DCenter.org reported on them. To begin with, "Hopper" is reportedly succeeding the upcoming "Ampere" architecture slated for the first half of 2020.

"Hopper" is also rumored to introduce MCM (multi-chip module) GPU packages, which are packages with multiple GPU dies. Currently, GPU MCMs are packages that have one GPU die surrounded by memory dies or stacks. This combination of GPU dies could make up "giant cores," at least in the higher end of the performance spectrum. NVIDIA reserves MCMs for only its most expensive Tesla family of compute accelerators, or Quadro professional graphics cards, and seldom offers client-segment GeForce products.

AMD Thursday released its latest version of Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition. Version 19.11.2 beta is the second release for the month of November 2019, and comes with optimization for "Star Wars Jedi: The Fallen Order." The driver also addresses a bug with certain map areas or cities in "Player Unknown's Battlegrounds" (PUBG) intermittently experiencing stuttering or performance loss. Grab the drivers from the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 19.11.2

NVIDIA today reported revenue for the third quarter ended Oct. 27, 2019, of $3.01 billion compared with $3.18 billion a year earlier and $2.58 billion in the previous quarter. GAAP earnings per diluted share for the quarter were $1.45, compared with $1.97 a year ago and $0.90 in the previous quarter. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $1.78, compared with $1.84 a year earlier and $1.24 in the previous quarter.

"Our gaming business and demand from hyperscale customers powered Q3's results," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "The realism of computer graphics is taking a giant leap forward with NVIDIA RTX. "This quarter, we have laid the foundation for where AI will ultimately make the greatest impact. We extended our reach beyond the cloud, to the edge, where GPU-accelerated 5G, AI and IoT will revolutionize the world's largest industries. We see strong data center growth ahead, driven by the rise of conversational AI and inference."

According to the sources close to Neowin, Microsoft is expected to launch x86-64 (or x64 in short) emulation support for Windows on ARM (WoA) devices. Expected to arrive in Windows 10 21H1, or around 2020 for all the Windows Insiders, the new feature will enable a vast majority of apps made for Windows OS, currently built for x64 architecture, to run on ARM ISA and all Windows on ARM computers.

So far, only 32-bit x86 applications were able to be emulated, however, if these rumors are to be believed, many users of WoA devices should get a chance to run all of their favorite 64-bit software that was previously unavailable. The launch of this feature will boost the adoption of the WoA ecosystem with benefits reaching all existing laptop models, including Microsoft's newly launched Surface Pro X laptop that utilizes an ARM-based chip called SQ1 (customized Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx processor).

The next generation of automotive systems are hungry for more. More advanced infotainment and ADAS1 systems. More storage for event data recording. Support for more 3D mapping. In a move that makes more a reality, KIOXIA America, Inc. (formerly Toshiba Memory America, Inc.), the U.S.-based subsidiary of KIOXIA Corporation, today announced that it has begun sampling the industry's first 512 gigabyte (GB) Automotive Universal Flash Storage (UFS) JEDEC Version 2.1 embedded memory solution. KIOXIA America's Automotive UFS supports a wide temperature range (-40°C to +105°C), meets AEC-Q100 Grade 2 requirements and offers the extended reliability required by various automotive applications. The 512 GB device joins the company's existing lineup of Automotive UFS, which includes capacities of 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB, 128 GB, and 256 GB.

Innovations such as autonomous vehicles, more advanced infotainment systems, digital clusters, telematics, and ADAS provide not only an elevated driver experience but also a greater demand for storage within vehicles.

Editor's note: Our review is here, for those interested.

CORSAIR, a world leader in PC gaming peripherals and enthusiast components, today announced a new line of PC cooling fans to elevate the aesthetics of any build: CORSAIR iCUE QL RGB PWM fans. Available in 120 mm and 140 mm sizes, every QL RGB fan features quad light loops lit by a total of 34 individually addressable RGB LEDs, creating incredible visuals from either side. Multi-fan kits of QL RGB fans are bundled with a CORSAIR iCUE Lighting Node CORE RGB Lighting Controller, capable of controlling the lighting for up to six CORSAIR RGB fans at once through CORSAIR iCUE software.

No other RGB fan comes close to the brightness and vibrancy of QL RGB. With inner and outer light loops on both the front and back of the fan, it is uniquely capable of intricate, bright, and detailed lighting effects that impress from any angle, regardless of whether it's used for intake or exhaust. A semi-transparent fan blade allows the RGB lighting to shine through, while a durable machined aluminium hub cover on either side completes the QL RGB's stunning look.

Sharkoon Technologies is an international supplier of PC components and peripherals, offering performance at a reasonable price. Now, with the REV200, Sharkoon introduces a real revolution in midi ATX towers. Compared to conventional models, the well thought out construction of the case allows the mainboard to be rotated 90 degrees and the remaining hardware to be installed vertically. This provides an easy and a particularly striking presentation of the components. In addition, the five pre-installed 120-millimeter RGB fans provide the necessary airflow as well as the appropriate illumination to set the scene for the hardware. The cable compartment under the top panel and the multi-functional tunnel on the underside both ensure an especially tidy appearance.

Thanks to the innovative construction, the PC can now be placed on the left side of the desk without foregoing the view into the inside of the case. To make this possible, Sharkoon has positioned the tempered glass side panel onto the right-hand side of the case. If the desk thus has its left side against the wall, the user still has a view into the case interior. And another positive effect of this configuration is that gamers who have their PCs on top of their desk will have more space to move around the mouse. Moreover, in combination with the glass element and triangular, offset surfaces on the front panel, the case is definitely an eye-catcher.

TechPowerUp is partnering with TerraMaster to present the TerraMaster NAS Giveaway. Open for readers from the US and the EU, two randomly selected lucky winners stand a chance to get a TerraMaster F2-210 NAS. The F2-210 is the most powerful 2-bay NAS priced under USD $200, with a performance-optimized SoC for maximum throughput. It offers multiple layers of data-security over your network and the Internet. The TNAS interface is a powerful browser-based user-interface that lets you access your data over the local network and remotely, with a ton of security settings. Find out more about the F2-210 in its product page.

For more information and to participate, visit this page.

Intel's first Xe GPU built on the company's 7 nm silicon fabrication process will be codenamed "Ponte Vecchio," according to a VideoCardz report. These are not gaming GPUs, but rather compute accelerators designed for exascale computing, which leverage the company's CXL (Compute Express Link) interconnect that has bandwidth comparable to PCIe gen 4.0, but with scalability features slated to come out with future generations of PCIe. Intel is preparing its first enterprise compute platform featuring these accelerators codenamed "Project Aurora," in which the company will exert end-to-end control over not just the hardware stack, but also the software.

"Project Aurora" combines up to six "Ponte Vecchio" Xe accelerators with up to two Xeon multi-core processors based on the 7 nm "Sapphire Rapids" microarchitecture, and OneAPI, a unifying API that lets a single kind of machine code address both the CPU and GPU. With Intel owning the x86 machine architecture, it's likely that Xe GPUs will feature, among other things, the ability to process x86 instructions. The API will be able to push scalar workloads to the CPU, and and the GPU's scalar units, and vector workloads to the GPU's vector-optimized SIMD units. Intel's main pitch to the compute market could be significantly lowered software costs from API and machine-code unification between the CPU and GPU.Image Courtesy: Jan Drewes

KIOXIA America, Inc. (formerly Toshiba Memory America, Inc.), the U.S.-based subsidiary of KIOXIA Corporation, today announced that its lineup of PCIe 4.0 NVMeTM enterprise solid state drives (SSDs) has achieved PCI-SIG compliance for PCIe 4.0 and University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) certification. KIOXIA's CM6 Series successfully passed interoperability tests at the August 2019 PCI-SIG Compliance Workshop - the first workshop to include official PCIe 4.0 specification tests. KIOXIA America will be on hand at Supercomputing 2019 later this month to showcase new levels of flash performance enabled by its CM6 Series SSDs.

The first company to publicly demonstrate PCIe 4.0 SSDs, KIOXIA has established itself as a leader in developing PCIe 4.0 NVM Express SSDs and continues to push the limits of flash storage performance. The CM6 Series brings planned performance improvements of 3x over its PCIe 3.0 predecessors and is 12x faster than SATA drives. KIOXIA's lineup of Gen4 PCIe SSDs also includes the CD6 Series, which is targeted to cloud and scale-out environments.

TechPowerUp and Computer Upgrade King brought you a chance to bring home the Continuum Micro-ATX tower chassis, a unique blend of infinite-reflection RGB along the front panel, and all essentials covered from a premium Micro-ATX build on the inside, with room for DIY liquid cooling. The Giveaway closed and the results are in. We have three lucky winners who will each receive the Computer Upgrade King Continuum. Without further ado, here they are:

• John from New Jersey, USA
• Petar from Bulgaria
• Richard from The Netherlands

A huge Congratulations to you three! TechPowerUp will return with more such interesting giveaways.

Well, this is something new. Human Head Studios, who have developed and just released Rune 2 yesterday on the Epic Games Store as an exclusive release, today announced their studio was shutting down. At the same time, Bethesda announced it was founding a new game studio, Roundhouse Studios, which would be fully populated by the Human Head Studios' staff, left unemployed from the closure of that developing label. While it's obviously great that in effect nobody was left unemployed... Does this "make sense much"?

It does. However, there are some interesting tidbits to this story. One of the more pressing questions is: how will Rune 2 be supported in the future? That question wasn't addressed by now Roundhouse Studios Creative Director Chris Rhinehart - we just assume the game has been released in an "as is" state and it doesn't matter whether there are some breaking bugs in that release. Any reported bug will be filed under "no developer found; won't fix". There are also some more interesting nuances to this deal, though. You might remember Human Head Studios previously worked on Prey 2, with Bethesda acting as publisher, but was removed from the project after the studio declined Bethesda's offer to buy Human Head Studios. This action cost the studio the IP, and led them towards development of Rune 2. However, all of that bad blood has seemingly been left behind them, according to press releases from both parties. You can read those after the break.

Crytek today released the final build for their hardware-agnostic raytracing benchmark. Dubbed Neon Noir, the benchmark had already been showcased in video form back in March 2019, but now it's finally available for download for all interested parties from the Crytek Marketplace. The benchmark currently doesn't support any low-level API such as Vulkan or DX 12, but support for those - and the expected performance improvements - will be implemented in the future.

Neon Noir has its raytracing chops added via an extension of CRYENGINE's SVOGI rendering tool that currently Crytek's games use, including Hunt: Showdown, which will make it easier for developers to explore raytracing implementations that don't require a particular hardware implementation (such as RTX). However, the developer has added that they will add hardware acceleration support in the future, which should only improve performance, and will not add any additional rendering features compared to those that can be achieved already. What are you waiting for? Just follow the link below.

AMD today announced that the latest Apple MacBook Pro features the new AMD Radeon Pro 5500M and 5300M mobile GPUs. AMD Radeon Pro 5000M series are the first 7 nm discrete mobile GPUs for professional users, leveraging industry-leading process technology and powerful AMD RDNA architecture to provide groundbreaking levels of graphics performance for video editing, 3D content creation and macOS-based game development.

AMD Radeon Pro 5000M series mobile GPUs are built upon the all-new AMD RDNA architecture, designed from the ground up for superior performance, scalability and power efficiency. The new GPUs include up to 8 GB of high-speed GDDR6 memory with up to 192 GB/s memory bandwidth - double the bandwidth of GDDR5 - and also deliver up to 4.0 TFLOPS of single-precision floating-point (FP32) performance. The GPUs are optimized for today's top professional content creation applications and compute-intensive image rendering workloads, delivering breathtaking, ultra-smooth, high-framerate visuals on the MacBook Pro Retina display.

Apple today unveiled an all-new 16-inch MacBook Pro — the world's best pro notebook — designed for developers, photographers, filmmakers, scientists, music producers and anyone who relies on a Mac to create their life's best work. The all-new MacBook Pro features a brilliant 16-inch Retina Display, the latest 8-core processors, up to 64 GB of memory, next-generation graphics with up to 8 GB of VRAM and a new advanced thermal design, making it the most powerful MacBook Pro ever.

Featuring a new Magic Keyboard with a redesigned scissor mechanism and 1 mm travel for a more satisfying key feel, the 16-inch MacBook Pro delivers the best typing experience ever in a Mac notebook. The 16-inch MacBook Pro also includes a six-speaker sound system, longer battery life, Touch Bar, Touch ID, the Force Touch trackpad and the Apple T2 Security Chip.

Global supercomputer leader Cray, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, and leading Japanese information and communication technology company Fujitsu, today announced a partnership to offer high performance technologies for the Exascale Era. Under the alliance agreement, Cray is developing the first-ever commercial supercomputer powered by the Fujitsu A64FX Arm -based processor with high-memory bandwidth (HBM) and supported on the proven Cray CS500 supercomputer architecture and programming environment. Initial customers include Los Alamos National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, RIKEN Center for Computational Science, Stony Brook University, and University of Bristol. As part of this new partnership, Cray and Fujitsu will explore engineering collaboration, co-development, and joint go-to-market to meet customer demand in the supercomputing space.

"Our partnership with Fujitsu means customers now have a broader choice of processor technology to address their pressing computational needs," said Fred Kohout, senior vice president and CMO at Cray, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. "We are delivering the development-to-deployment experience customers have come to expect from Cray, including exploratory development to the Cray Programming Environment (CPE) for Arm processors to optimize performance and scalability with additional support for Scalable Vector Extensions and high bandwidth memory."

All Intel CPU microarchitectures since 2013 are vulnerable to a new class of "Zombieload," attacks, chronicled under "Zombieload v2" (CVE-2019-11135). This is the fifth kind of microarchitectural data sampling (MDS) vulnerability, besides the four already disclosed and patched against in Q2-2019. The vulnerability was kept secret by the people who discovered it, as Intel was yet to develop a mitigation against it. There is no silicon-level hardening against it, and Intel has released a firmware-level mitigation that will be distributed by motherboard manufacturers as BIOS updates, or perhaps even OS vendors. While Intel's latest enterprise and HEDT microarchitecture, "Cascade Lake" was thought to be immune to "Zombieload," it's being reported that "Zombieload v2" attacks can still compromise a "Cascade Lake" based server or HEDT that isn't patched.

"Zombieload v2" is an exploitation of the Asynchronous Abort operation of Transactional Synchronization Extensions (TSX), which occurs when malware creates read operation conflicts within the CPU. This reportedly leaks data about what else is being processed. "The main advantage of this approach is that it also works on machines with hardware fixes for Meltdown, which we verified on an i9-9900K and Xeon Gold 5218," reads the latest version of the Zombieload whitepaper that's been updated with "Zombieload v2" information. TSX is a requisite for "Zombieload v2," and all Intel microarchitectures since "Haswell" feature it. AMD processors are inherently immune to "Zombieload v2" as they lack TSX. Intel downplayed the severity or prevalence of "Zombieload v2," but dispatched microcode updates flagged "critical" nevertheless.

Here are some of the first pictures of a new "Special Edition" or SE variant of Sapphire's premium Radeon RX 5700 XT NITRO+ graphics card. The card introduces a higher factory-overclock than the original NITRO+, including a memory overclock, and a cosmetic change. To begin with, the NITRO+ SE ships with 14.4 Gbps overclocked GDDR6 memory, whereas the original NITRO+ sticks to the reference 14 Gbps.

Sapphire also dialed up the maximum engine boost frequency to 2035 MHz (vs. 2010 MHz on the original NITRO+). Sapphire also gave the card a cosmetic update. The three fans now come with transparent impellers that are illuminated with their own four RGB LEDs, each. The Special Edition will be a limited SKU, available in select markets from November 15, priced above the original NITRO+, at 520€ (including VAT).

Microsoft late Tuesday released its second major update to Windows 10 for the year, the Windows 10 November 2019 Update (version 1909). This update beats conventions in that is "minor" in comparison to the Windows 10 May 2019 (1903) Update, in that Microsoft didn't change too many under-the-hood components, but updated the operating system's user-interface. For example, the operating system retains the older version's driver model.

The Actions Center received several UI updates such as the ability to add items to your agenda directly from the calendar, improved sorting of notifications, improved accessibility of the Start menu, and the ability to use third-party accessibility software from even the Lock screen. The only notable under-the-hood changes concern the scheduler. Windows 10 now gets the ability to address multiple "favored" cores in a multi-core processor. A favored core is a physically superior core that can sustain higher boost clocks for longer.Microsoft's change-log follows.

No, that's not a typo. AsRock has actually launched an AMD Radeon 550 graphics card this late into the game. There is some sense behind the business decision, though; AMD's Radeon 550 is the company's entry-line offering, which aims only to improve upon the performance of integrated graphics solutions, and no more. In that sense, the Radeon 550 certainly delivers, though it does so in an underwhelming way for any tech enthusiasts. The Radeon 550 2G features 2 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1,750 MHz (7,000 MHz effective) across a 64-bit bus, which feeds a die powered by 512 Stream Processors.

There are three operating modes on offer: Silent, for HTPC environments, which clocks the graphics card at 1,183 MHz boost clock and 7,000 MHz memory clocks. Default mode runs the card at AMD's defaults (1,183 MHz boost, 7,000 MHz memory). The OC mode overclocks the graphics card's boost clock to 1,230 MHz and the memory to 7,038 MHz. I/O stands at 1x dual-link DVI-D connector, 1x HDMI 2.0b port and 1x DisplayPort 1.4. A 50 W TDP should make it easy to cool in cramped spaces, and the graphics card doesn't require any power pins. No pricing was available at time of writing.

(UPDATE: Acer has now launched the monitor) Acer at a special event unveiled their upcoming monitor that blurs the line between a television and a PC monitor. The Predator CG437KP makes use of a 43" VA panel (90% DCI-P3 coverage and low Delta E<1 color accuracy) with a 4K resolution. As if the size wasn't an impressive spec alone, Acer really have gone out of their way to make this a veritable Predator monitor, with 144 Hz refresh rates. The monitor also comes with Adaptive Sync support for both AMD FreeSync and NVIDIA G-Sync and over HDMI for compatibility with current and future consoles. There's a maximum 1000 nits brightness, which brings VESA's DisplayHDR 1000 certification to the table.

I/O stands at 3x HDMI (likely to support all of those consoles users that are looking at this diagonal size might have), 2x DisplayPort 1.4 for actual Active Sync users, 1x USB 3.1-C, 2xUSB 3.0 and 2xUSB 2.0. There's even a remote control. The Acer Predator CG437KP is now available in the US at $1,499.99 MSRP.

EK Water Blocks, the Slovenia based water cooling gear manufacturer, is introducing its new generation of EK-Vector RTX Strix D-RGB water blocks designed for ROG Strix GeForce RTX series graphics cards, based on Turing graphics processor. The EK-Quantum Vector Strix RTX D-RGB series water blocks feature four integrated addressable LED sources, two located in the terminal cover and one digital LED strip on each end of the water block.

EK-Quantum Vector Strix RTX D-RGB
The EK-Quantum Vector Strix RTX water blocks are specially designed for multiple ROG Strix GeForce RTX Turing based graphics cards. The water block itself uses the signature EK single slot slim look, and it covers the entire PCB length. This sophisticated cooling solution will transform your powerful ROG graphics card into a minimalistic, elegant piece of hardware with rich and addressable D-RGB LED lighting.

NVIDIA today posted GeForce 441.20 WHQL software. The drivers come game-ready for "Star Wars Jedi: The Fallen Order," and "Stormland." This includes SLI support for the latest Star Wars game. NVIDIA also introduced support for CUDA 10.2 compute API. The list of G-Sync compatible monitors has been expanded with three more displays. Among the issues addressed with this release are geometry corruption on GTX 900-series "Maxwell" GPUs with "Red Dead Redemption" in Vulkan; G-Sync getting disengaged when V-Sync is disabled in "Red Dead Redemption." Vulkan-related errors with "The Surge" have also been fixed. There's also a surprising bug-fix, "Quake 3 Arena" appearing washed-out when color-depth is set to 16-bit. Performance drops with "CS: GO" have also been addressed. Grab the driver from the link below.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 441.20 WHQL Drivers

Seagate Technology, a world leader in data solutions, today added two new high-performance solutions to its industry-leading line of storage for gamers. The Seagate FireCuda 520 PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD and the FireCuda Gaming Dock featuring 4 TB of HDD storage capacity and an NVMe M.2 expansion slot for an optional ultra-fast SSD upgrade.

Built to deliver the intense speeds needed for the rigor of modern gaming, the FireCuda 520 SSD is the company's fastest solid-state drive and offers plug-and-play compatibility with all PCIe Gen4 motherboards. For laptop PC gamers looking for flexibility, the FireCuda Gaming Dock is an elite 4 TB HDD storage hub with an NVMe M.2 expansion slot for optional SSD upgrade that connects peripherals via a Thunderbolt 3 and offers a slick industrial design with LED illumination pushing your rig over the top.

Noctua today presented new additions to its chromax line of black, colour-customisable cooling fans. The new chromax.black.swap versions of the award-winning NF-A20, NF-A12x15, NF-A9, NF-A9x14 and NF-A8 fans as well as the corresponding NA-SAVP5 and NA-SAVP6 anti-vibration pads now give customers the option to colour-coordinate Noctua 200 mm, slim 120 mm, 92 mm, slim 92 mm and 80 mm fans with individual build designs and popular colour schemes such as all black, black and white or black and red.

"First introduced in 2015, our chromax line is aimed at customers who value individual, focused build aesthetics just as much as class-leading quality and performance," says Roland Mossig (Noctua CEO). "With the new chromax.black.swap models, we're broadening the scope to include fan sizes other than the regular 120 and 140 mm formats, some of which should be particularly attractive for ITX and Small Form Factor builds."

Sharkoon Technologies is an international supplier of PC components and peripherals, offering performance at a reasonable price. Sharkoon introduces the SKILLER SGK5, an RGB illuminated rubber dome keyboard for gamers. The keyboard has n-key rollover support, handy multimedia keys and a detachable wrist rest. The SKILLER SGK5 has an RGB background illumination with six zones and a range of 16.8 million colors. Preconfigured lighting effects are ready to use, and these can be selected, via dedicated keys, even without the use of software. For more personalized effects, a software is available as a free download, which allows the illumination to be modified as desired.

Commonly, rubber dome keyboards only have 2-key rollover, whereby a maximum of two keystrokes will be simultaneously registered. However, thanks to the SKILLER SGK5's n-key rollover, a number of keys can be pressed at the same time, and this will be reliably communicated to the keyboard's system. In combination with anti-ghosting technology, gamers will never lose control of the game, even when things get hectic. The detachable wrist rest of the SKILLER SGK5 can be magnetically fixed onto the keyboard with ease and provides optimal typing comfort. If the wrist rest is not needed, it can be just as easily removed.

Here are some of the first pictures of Intel's new generation "Frost Canyon" NUC based on the company's 10th generation Core "Comet Lake-U" SoC. The top-spec variant, NUC10i7FN, is powered by a Core i7-10710U SoC, which packs a 6-core/12-thread CPU with 12 MB L3 cache, up to 4.70 GHz Turbo Boost, UHD Graphics clocked at 1.15 GHz, and 25 W cTDP (configurable TDP). The middle variant, NUC10i5FN, is powered by the 4-core/8-thread Core i5-10210U (up to 4.20 GHz CPU Turbo Boost, UHD Graphics with up to 1.00 GHz clocks, 8 MB L3 cache, and 25 W cTDP). At the entry level is the NUC10i3FN powered by the Core i3-10110U (2-core/4-thread CPU clocked up to 4.10 GHz, 4 MB L3 cache, UHD Graphics clocked up to 1.00 GHz, and 25 W cTDP).

Physically, these 10th generation NUCs look similar to their "Coffee Lake" powered predecessors codenamed "Bean Canyon," with the exception of just one each type-C and type-A USB 3.2 front panel ports. Other connectivity includes possible Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax WLAN), 1 GbE, HDMI 2.0, Thunderbolt 3 with DP output on the top model, and an additional pair of 10 Gbps USB 3.2 ports. Intel is likely to launch "Frost Canyon" on December 12.

In Win unveiled the 925 full-tower chassis with a unique design that places three 120 mm exhaust fans at the case's rear to match the three 120 mm intake fans at the front. With it, the case achieves a balanced air pressure. A roughly 3.5-inch gap between the rear panel and the rear fan mounts ensures you can have these fans without blocking your expansion cards or the rear I/O. You unfasten four thumb-screws to detach the fan-mount and gain access to the rear I/O. When in place, your I/O cables are routed out through gaps along the sides or bottom of the mount. The left and right side panels are made of tinted tempered glass.

Inside, the In Win 925 features a conventional horizontally partitioned layout, with the upper compartment holding the motherboard tray that has room for an E-ATX (or smaller) motherboard, add-on cards up to 42 cm in length, CPU coolers up to 20 cm in height, and a vertical PCIe riser based mounting area. The bottom compartment has room for a PSU that's up to 20 cm in length. Storage options include two 3.5-inch caddies that can each hold 2.5-inch drives, two 3.5-inch mounts, and three 2.5-inch mounts. Ventilation includes three 120 mm or two 140 mm front intakes; three 120 mm rear exhausts, and three 120 mm top exhausts. Measuring 570 mm x 280 mm x 608 mm (HxWxD), the case dry-weighs 17.8 kg. Front panel connectivity includes a USB 3.1 type-C, two USB 3.1 type-A, and HDA jacks. Available from late-November, the In Win 925 is priced at 499€ (including VAT).

"Shadow of the Tomb Raider" received support for AMD FidelityFX through a patch. The latest Patch 18 update adds the FidelityFX toggle, letting you improve frame-rates by slightly reducing resolution-scale, resulting in higher frame-rates, and compensating for the image quality loss with the image-sharpening feature. NVIDIA GeForce users still have the option to use the Image Sharpening toggle in NVIDIA Control Panel introduced with GeForce R440 drivers. The patch also removes the restriction on character outfits when exploring the Hidden City location in game.

Thermalright rolled out the AXP-90 Full Copper top-flow CPU cooler for low-profile PC builds. A smaller sibling of the AXP-100 Full Copper, and a variant of the aluminium-based original AXP-90, this cooler features a dense copper fin-stack that's arranged along the plane of the motherboard. Four 6 mm-thick copper heat pipes make indirect contact with the CPU over a mirror-finish copper base-plate, pulling heat through the fin-stack. A 15 mm-thick 92 mm TL-9015R fan ventilates the fin-stack. This fan takes in 4-pin PWM input, spins at speeds of up to 2,700 RPM, pushing up to 42.58 CFM of air, with as low as 22.4 dBA of noise output. With the fan in place, the AXP-90 Full Copper measures 97 mm x 92 mm x 47 mm (WxDxH), weighing 490 g. There are two sub-variants of the cooler specific to CPU socket type supported, the AXP-90 Full Copper LGA115X, and AXP-90 Full Copper AM4. Available on Chinese e-tailers such as T-Mall, the AXP-90 Full Copper is priced at RMB 299, or the equivalent of USD $42.70.

EK Water Blocks, the leading premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer, is releasing EK-Quantum Vector Radeon RX 5700 +XT D-RGB water blocks that are compatible with reference design AMD Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT graphics cards. These water blocks are an evolution of the EK-Vector Radeon RX 5700 +XT RGB blocks which featured regular RGB. The new Quantum blocks feature 5 V D-RGB addressable LEDs for even more lighting customization and control of every LED diode separately.

As with its predecessor, this water block directly cools the GPU, 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, and VRM (voltage regulation module) as cooling liquid is channeled directly over these critical areas. The base of the block is made of high-grade copper or nickel-plated electrolytic copper while the top is made of high-quality acrylic material or black POM Acetal material (depending on the variant). The entire plexi covered block is lit up with D-RGB while the acetal version is implementing D-RGB in the aesthetic white corner piece. The top material does not affect the block performance in any way. The block also features a special plastic cover over the block Terminal which is also lit with addressable D-RGB. This add-on is designed to reveal the graphics card model, visible from the side. Sealing is ensured by high-quality EPDM O-Rings.

With NVIDIA and Intel already entrenched in the integer scaling field, which brings improved image quality to upscaled, pixel-art games, AMD was sure to follow. Vacuums in terms of feature set between different manufacturers of the same products aren't well looked at by consumers, and so AMD really has no choice but to advance into the integer scaling game as well. Recent Linux driver patches have been analyzed and found to contain multiple references to an integer scaling feature, which means that AMD is readying it for deployment and already on their way to work on its driver-level implementation.

Integer scaling works by looking at the base image and multiplying each pixel up to your monitor resolution, which brings in added sharpness without a single pixel's color being stretched over others. This way, a base 1080p presentation can easily be upscaled to a 4K resolution simply by syncing a given pixel's color information through 4 pixels - now you have a 4K screen that's rendering the same number of pixels as a 1080p one, with a block of four pixels acting as a single one. With integer scaling being the most requested feature on AMD's Adrenalin feedback page, so it seems pretty guaranteed we'll see the feature adopted eventually - perhaps even in AMD's own yearly big Adrenalin driver release, which could be dropping by this December, should history repeat itself.

MonsterLabo, a team of four people best known for their work on "The First" PC case, are at it again with giant pieces of PC component tech. This time, they took tried and true designs and sizes of CPU and GPU coolers and threw them into an enlargement ray, coming up with what they are calling "The Heart". As it stands, and it stands higher and heavier than all other cooling solutions hitherto, "The Heart" is a cooling solution that extends from your CPU through to your GPU, cooling both with its design of densely stacked fins.

Dimensions is where "The Heart" is bold, with the cooler measuring 200 by 185 mm and 265 mm tall. Adding insult to injury, its weight comes in at 6.6 lbs (3 Kg for us metric system aficionados). MonsterLabo rates the cooler's dissipation capabilities at 100 W CPU load and a 120 W GPU. Adding a 500-RPM 140 mm fan would bump those numbers to 140 W and 160 W, respectively. Mind these numbers apply to cases where "The Heart" is installed into MonsterLabo's own The First case, but differences should be relatively minor in any other case, should you actually be able to install it there. Of course, the combined CPU and GPU design will be very hit or miss - your graphics card will have to be perfectly compatible with the cooler, with its GPU set just right on the PCB for it to be perfectly covered by it. If you want to risk that, you can always drop $200 or €180 for The Heart, in either black or white finishes. Inexpensive for a heart, yes, but extremely expensive as a cooler with expected limited compatibility.

Cooler Master, a global leader in designing and manufacturing innovative gaming peripherals and computer components, introduces new MM710 variations as well as the MM711 Gaming Mouse, an RGB variant of the MM710 that weighs a little less than 60 g. The MM711 takes the foundation of the MM710 and adds vibrant RGB LEDs to the scroll wheel and logo to further enhance its stylish, understated profile. Cooler Master's software enables full customizability of the RGB, allowing users to choose their personal colors and lighting effects.

"The MM711 is the ideal mouse for those who want premium, lightweight performance but with RGB capability," says Bryant Nguyen, Peripheral General Manager. "It adds another layer of personality to a mouse that is already striking in appearance and functionality."

Today, Samsung's foundry division, dedicated to the manufacturing of DRAM chips, is facing challenges from mistakes that happened a few weeks ago. Those mistakes are in the form of contamination of the clean rooms, where all the tools necessary for the manufacturing of DRAM chips on 200 mm wafers got infected, and now Samsung is taking a multi-million dollar loss because the new wafers have to be scrapped.

Clean rooms are essential for the semiconductor manufacturing process, because they keep all the pollutants away from silicon, keeping silicon clean and ready for use. However, Samsung has not managed to keep a clean room for its DRAM manufacturing facility working with 200 mm wafers for 1x nm-class DRAM chips. The tools used for wafer processing have been contaminated and, therefore, the wafers themselves because of their interactions. Samsung has admitted that they have lost around "several billion South Korean won," resulting in millions of US dollars. The re-assuring thing that this will not significantly impact the DRAM market is that production is now going as planned, and the issue is sorted out, so we can hope this doesn't have any big impact on the DRAM prices.

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Antec Inc., leading provider of high-performance computer components and accessories for the gaming, PC upgrade and Do-It-Yourself market, show off the latest model of the renowned Performance Series, the P120 Crystal. The chassis is commercially available from US$99.99.The P120 Crystal is the latest addition to Antec's Performance Elegant Series. This award-winning chassis series is synonymous with performance, silence, and build quality. The new P120 Crystal measures 475 x 232 x 480 mm. This elegant case is expertly combined with 0.8 mm and 1 mm steel and tempered glass front and side panel which enable a sturdy and durable build.

The mid-tower model features large interior space for powerful installations and support E-ATX, ATX, micro-ATX and ITX motherboards. The isolated power supply chamber and drive cages are positioned on top of the chassis. The sleek tower offers space for two 2.5" or 3.5" HDDs and two 2.5" SDDs and seven horizontal and three vertical expansion slots. To keep its cool, the P120 Crystal offers space for three 120 mm or two 140 mm case fans at the bottom, one 120 or 140 mm fan in the rear as well as up to three 120 mm or two 140 mm case fans on the side of the chassis.

Here is the first render of GIGABYTE's premium Radeon RX 5700 Series custom-design graphics card that uses the company's coveted AORUS Gaming branding. This is the company's second custom-design card, after the RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT Gaming OC series, based on a 2-slot thick WindForce 3X cooling solution. The AORUS-branded card uses a thicker triple-slot cooler that has more heatsink surface area for heat-dissipation, a triple-fan setup, more RGB LED embellishments and possibly a more exhaustive set of display outputs. These cards could also ship with the company's highest factory-overclock tuning for the RX 5700 series. GIGABYTE did not reveal pricing or availability information.

Nixeus has made their EDG 34 monitor available for pre-order through several retailers. The EDG 34, like the name not-so-subtly implies, carries a 34" diagonal panel based on VA technology. The resolution available on this panel stands at 3440 x 1440, so it has slightly lesser performance requirements than a 4K solution would, which can, at this point in time, be more of a strength than a handicap. The 4 ms gray-to-gray response is adequate, and the FreeSync support in the range of 48 Hz through 144 Hz, whilst giving pause, should be enough for most gaming scenarios - if you are driving this monitor, you most likely have powerful graphics hardware anyhow.

A 1500R curvature ensures the edges of the monitor are at the same distance from your eyes as the center. Color reproduction stands at a standard 16.7 million colors, and peak brightness is rated at 400 nits. Connectivity-wise, the monitor offers 2x DisplayPort 1.2 and 2x HDMI 2.0 ports (with refresh rates capped at 100 Hz). A 3.5 mm audio connector and VESA support are also part of the package. All of this can be had starting at a very interesting $499 on Newegg.

The leading global motherboard, graphics card and mini PC manufacturer, ASRock, announces their latest Phantom Gaming series graphics cards - the Radeon RX 5700 XT Phantom Gaming D 8G OC, and Radeon RX 5700 Phantom Gaming D 8G OC, which are equipped with AMD's latest generation of 7 nm Radeon RX 5700 series GPUs, with 8 GB GDDR6 video memory, and the latest PCI Express 4.0 support, coupled with outstanding heat dissipation triple-fan design, brilliant ARGB lighting effects, and the stylish metal backplate. With all these advanced specifications and rich features, they are undoubtedly designed for gamers, providing an outstanding 1440p gaming experience.

Razer today announced the launch of the Razer Basilisk Ultimate and the Razer Basilisk X HyperSpeed gaming mice. Both are joining Razer's ever-advancing wireless mouse family and offer the best-in-class wireless technology with Razer HyperSpeed.

Faster and more reliable wireless performance
Both mice are powered by Razer HyperSpeed, a wireless technology that is 25% faster than any other wireless gaming technologies*. It has also been tested and proven by top esports athletes, holding its own in the most intense and unforgiving arenas. With the lowest click latency in any wireless mouse technology, Razer HyperSpeed produces the fastest transmission speed to register swipes and clicks instantaneously. The improved Adaptive Frequency Hopping of Razer HyperSpeed provides a perfectly lag-free wireless connection, constantly scanning frequency channels for any interference and seamlessly switching across channels in real-time.

Marketing material of AMD's upcoming Radeon RX 5500 mid-range graphics cards leaked to the web, providing insights to the product's positioning in AMD's stack. The October 2019 dated document lists out the card's specification, performance relative to a competing NVIDIA product, and a provides a general guidance on what experience to expect form it. To begin with, the RX 5500 desktop graphics card is based on the 7 nm "Navi 14" silicon, and is configured with 22 RDNA compute units, amounting to 1,408 stream processors. The chip features a 128-bit wide GDDR6 memory bus, which is paired with either 4 GB or 8 GB of memory running at 14 Gbps data-rate, yielding 224 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Its GPU clocks are listed as 1670 MHz "gaming," and 1845 MHz boost. The company didn't mention nominal clocks. The typical board power is rated at 110 W, and a single 8-pin PCIe power input is deployed on the reference-design board.

The second slide is where things get very interesting. AMD tabled its product stack, and the RX 570, RX 580, and RX 590 are missing, even as the RX 560 isn't. This is probably a sign of AMD phasing out the Polaris-based 1080p cards in the very near future, and replacing them with the RX 5500, and possibly a better endowed "RX 5500 XT," if rumors of the "Navi 14" featuring more CUs are to be believed. What is surprising about this whole presentation though is that only the "RX 5500" is listed, with the "XT" nowhere in sight. Let's hope the XT version gets released further down the road. In the product stack, the RX 5500 is interestingly still being compared to the GeForce GTX 1650, with no mention of the GTX 1660. This document was probably made when the GTX 1660 Super hadn't launched. A different slide provides some guidance on what kind of experiences to expect from the various cards, rated N/A, good, better, or excellent. According to it, the RX 5500 should provide "excellent" AAA gaming at 1080p, fairly smooth gaming at high settings (graded "better"), "excellent" e-Sports gaming, and "better" 1440p gaming. The card is also "excellent" at all non-gaming graphics, such as watching 4K video, photo/video creator work, game streaming at any resolution, and general desktop use.

Xerox Holdings Corporation, a maker of print and digital document products and services, has reportedly made an offer to buy HP - a maker of wide variety of PCs and printers, for as much as 30 billion USD. The decision for HP takeover came after negotiations between HP Inc. and Xerox Corp. that had a topic of "our multi-year strategy and our ability to position the company for continued success in an evolving industry"

Comparing the two companies, HP Inc. has a much larger market capitalization of over 28 billion USD, while Xerox Corp. has a bit over 8 billion USD. However the underlying reasons for this takeover could be that HP possesses a debt valued at around 20 billion USD, which is quite a lot comparing to market cap. Even with good revenue numbers, HP will remove up to 16% of its workforce by 2022, due to the declining business of selling printers. Xerox plans to take over HP in hope to combine the workforce of two companies and lower their combined expenses by as much as 2 billion USD, that Xerox estimates.

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CORSAIR, a world leader in PC gaming peripherals and enthusiast components, today announced the newest addition to its lineup of premium gaming chairs: the T3 RUSH. Offering contoured comfort with a breathable soft fabric exterior, highly adjustable 4D armrests and seat back, and an immensely durable solid steel frame, the T3 RUSH puts you in the driver's seat of your desktop gaming setup with three colors from which to choose.

The T3 RUSH, like the T1 RACE and T2 ROAD WARRIOR before it, features a striking design inspired by professional motorsports. The T3 RUSH is the first gaming chair from CORSAIR to feature a soft fabric exterior, which retains minimal heat for cool and comfortable gaming all day and night. An adjustable padded neck cushion and memory foam lumbar pillow support the neck and back, both wrapped in plush microfiber.

ASUS today announced its all-new series of TRX40 motherboards, ROG Zenith II Extreme, ROG Strix TRX40-E Gaming and Prime TRX40-Pro, that come loaded with improvements and new features to help professionals, enthusiasts and gamers alike unleash the full potential of 3rd Generation AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors. Teamed up with the TRX40 chipset, 3rd Gen Threadripper CPUs bring PCI Express 4.0 to the high-end desktop for the first time, doubling bandwidth across a total of 64 PCIe 4.0 lanes to allow for even faster SSDs, graphics cards and AV gear. Every PCIe slot and M.2 slot in the ASUS TRX40 lineup is wired with PCIe 4.0 connectivity for maximum bandwidth, meaning any expansion cards slotted into an ASUS TRX40 board will run as fast as they possibly can.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today launched the TRX40 AORUS motherboards which deliver the best performance on the newest 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper Processors. The flagship TRX40 AORUS XTREME packs a beastly direct 16+3 phase digital power design and pairs it with an equally impressive thermal solution consisting of Fins-Array Technology, a Nanocarbon Baseplate, an 8 mm mega heatpipe, aluminium I/O armor, and a 5 cm chipset fan. TRX40 AORUS motherboards are PCIe 4.0 ready and are designed to maximize PCIe 4.0 performance with lower impedance and superior PCIe 4.0 signal quality.

With features such as server-class Intel X550-AT2 Dual GBE LAN, 8DIMM quad-channel DDR4 memory with XMP 4400 MHz+ performance, Intel WIFI 6, 4-way dual width PCIe slots, GC-TITAN RIDGE AIC, and more, the enthusiast-grade TRX40 AORUS motherboards are ideal for content creators looking to build a high-end workstation, hardcore gamers who want a powerful new gaming rig, or even users who want the best of both worlds.

MSI, the most powerful motherboard brand, announces that our brand new AMD high-end motherboards are on a shelf, together with the launch of the new 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors and TRX40 chipset. The new 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors adopt 7 nm architecture which supports the latest PCIe 4.0 technology and provide advanced performance with memory frequency and capacity. It is noticeable that the previous X399 motherboards are not compatible with the 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper processors. Therefore, MSI is well-prepared with three TRX40 motherboards for various use, including Creator TRX40, TRX40 PRO 10G and TRX40 PRO WIFI to satisfy any type of users.

To meet the most demanding requirements for content creation processes, Creator TRX40 motherboard is well-designed in every respect. In terms of design, the concept follows the craft of "crystal." The crystal design reflects the light magically with millions of color effects. Creator TRX40 also features the best hardware design for maximum performance and long-lasting operation.

The leading global motherboard, manufacturer, ASRock, is proud to announce its latest two AMD powered motherboards that are built on the AMD 3rd generation Ryzen Threadripper platform. The ASRock TRX40 comes in two flavors, the TRX40 Creator and the TRX40 Taichi. Both are super cool motherboards that extend the meaning of quality and pushes the boundaries of tech.

Creating content, images or video, requires a stable machine with good specs and reliable components. The TRX40 Creator bears the hallmarks of a sturdy ship powered by AMD's Ryzen chipset and dedicated graphics so all design work flows smoothly without sinking components. Trust ASRock to provide design quality with speed and uncompromising workmanship within a design masterpiece. It stands out in the crowd as it supports NVIDIA's Quadro graphics cards and it fully supports the Quadro SLI which is the best tool for creating VR content.

EK, the European premium liquid cooling gear manufacturer, is releasing a new AMD AM4 socket based monoblock belonging to the Quantum Line of products, the EK-Quantum Momentum ROG Strix X570-E D-RGB. This monoblock is engineered specifically for the ROG Strix X570-E Gaming motherboard from ASUS. The addressable D-RGB LED in the monoblock is compatible with ASUS Aura Sync RGB control and offering a full lighting customization experience for every single diode at any given time.

Thermaltake, the leading PC DIY premium brand for Cooling, Gaming Gear and Enthusiast Memory solutions, today announced the release of the Thermaltake TOUGHRAM RGB DDR4 Memory Series which now comes in a white edition along with new frequencies of 3,200 MHz and 3,600 MHz 2x 8 GB. TOUGHRAM is supported by Intel and AMD platforms and features 10-layer PCB construction, 2oz copper inner layers and 10μ gold fingers, the TOUGHRAM RGB white edition is not only visually appealing, but is also high in performance. The TOUGHRAM RGB White Edition is built with premium fine coating that reveals true elegance from inside out.

The TOUGHRAM RGB DDR4 Memory Series 3,200 MHz and 3,600 MHz white edition is now available for pre-order at the TT Premium website. Please refer to the Thermaltake website or contact your local Thermaltake sales or PR representative for more information on pricing for the Thermaltake TOUGHRAM RGB DDR4 3,200 MHz and 3,600 MHz white edition memory kits.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules, NAND Flash products, and mobile accessories is pleased to announce the launch of the ADATA IM2P33E8 PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 2280 SSD. Designed with 5G networking, cloud computing, AI, and IoT in mind, the SSD sports excellent performance, large storage capacities, wide-temperature resistance (-40°C-85°C), and security features. These capabilities combine to offer an ideal solution for applications such as data centers, surveillance, and transportation.

The IM2P33E8 PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 2280 SSD is NVMe 1.3-compliant and delivers read/write speeds of up to 3500/3200 GB per second, making it up to six times faster than standard SATA III SSDs. It is equipped with 3D NAND Flash memory and comes with storage capacities ranging from 256 GB to 2 TB. It is available in normal-temperature (0°C to 70°C) and wide-temperature (-40°C to 85°C) variants. For enhanced security, integrity, and durability the IM2P33E8 features E2E (End-to-End) Data Protection and RAID Engine. What's more, the IM2P33E8 utilizes AES and TCG Opal encryption to keep confidential data away from prying eyes.

EK, the premium liquid cooling gear manufacturer based in Europe, is releasing a new Quantum Line of reservoirs and pump-reservoir combo units. They come in a completely new shape with straight edges and completely flat. This makes them even easier to fit in tight spaces, as they also utilize standard 120 mm fan mounting holes and take up as much space as a radiator in terms of width and length. The pump-reservoir combos come in both D5 and DDC variants, but either is compatible with both pumps. These EK-Quantum products come with sophisticated 5 V D-RGB addressable LEDs which can be controlled through your motherboard RGB control software.

Renowned for their innovative and high-performance cases, Kolink has now brought the new Ethereal & Refine to the market, representing a feature-rich gaming case that offers an abundance of space beneath its stylish exterior for all the powerful gaming hardware you could want. The tempered glass side door will allow users to enjoy an unobstructed view of their high-end gaming setup complete with compatibility for E-ATX motherboards.

Given the use of tempered glass, aesthetics are important, and a PSU shroud cleverly conceals unsightly cables. The front of the case that consists of brushed aluminium underlines the chic appearance that is also accentuated by the addition of a digitally addressable RGB-LED strip. The lighting can be controlled via a switch on the I/O panel. Alternatively, the strip can also be connected directly to a motherboard and controlled by RGB software. A fine mesh with integrated dust filter on the top ensures proper ventilation. A pre-installed 120 mm fan at the rear provides adequate ventilation. The Kolink Ethereal and Refine chassis are now available from £62.99.

AMD today announced four new desktop processors across three very diverse markets. To begin with, the company crowned its socket AM4 mainstream desktop platform with the mighty new Ryzen 9 3950X processor. Next up, it released its new baseline entry-level APU, the Athlon 3000G. Lastly, it detailed the 3rd generation Ryzen Threadripper HEDT processor family with two initial models, the Ryzen Threadripper 3960X and the flagship Ryzen Threadripper 3970X. The company also formally released its AGESA Combo PI 1.0.0.4B microcode, and with it, introduced a killer new feature for all "Zen 2" based Ryzen processors, called ECO Mode.

The Ryzen 9 3950X is a 16-core/32-thread processor in the AM4 package, compatible with all socket AM4 motherboards, provided they have the latest BIOS update with AGESA Combo PI 1.0.0.4B microcode. The processor comes with clock-speeds of 3.50 GHz base, with 4.70 GHz maximum boost frequency, and the same 105 W TDP as the 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X. With 512 KB of dedicated L2 cache per core, and 64 MB of shared L3 cache, the chip has a mammoth 72 MB of "total cache."

GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF ) and SiFive, Inc. announced today at GLOBALFOUNDRIES Technology Conference (GTC) in Taiwan that they are working to extend high DRAM performance levels with High Bandwidth Memory (HBM2E) on GF's recently announced 12LP+ FinFET solution, with 2.5D packaging design services to enable fast time-to-market for Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications.

In order to achieve the capacity and bandwidth for data-intensive AI training applications, system designers are challenged with squeezing more bandwidth into a smaller area while maintaining a reasonable power profile. SiFive's customizable high bandwidth memory interface on GF's 12LP platform and 12LP+ solution will enable easy integration of high bandwidth memory into a single System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions to deliver fast, power-efficient data processing for AI applications in the computing and wired infrastructure markets.

The XPC slim model series has a new member. With the DS10 range, Shuttle now presents four slender, fanless barebones with a robust steel chassis and a variety of connection options. The available processors can handle different requirements from the energy-saving dual-core Intel Celeron through to the powerful i7 quad-core model.

All DS10 models are completely fanless and operate without any noise. At the same time, they are very low-maintenance, because the passive cooling means that less dust gets inside them. This is why the DS10 range is also particularly suitable for constant 24/7 operation in adverse ambient conditions. The robust steel chassis measuring 20 × 16.5 × 3.95 cm (LWH) provides space for one 2.5-inch drive in the form of a hard disk or SSD as well as two SO-DIMM slots which can accommodate a total of up to 32 GB of DDR4 memory. An M.2-2280 slot is available for fast NVMe drives. The second M.2 slot is equipped with a WLAN/Bluetooth module which transmits and receives data using two external antennas.

Ahead of their launch, low-resolution pictures of two nearly identical MSI TRX40 PRO series motherboards surfaced on the web, the TRX40 PRO 10G, and the TRX40 PRO WiFi. The former is characterized by a 10 GbE wired Ethernet connection through an included add-on card, while the latter features 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6 WLAN. The two appear otherwise identical, with a couple of M.2 slots on the board, four additional M.2 slots on a cooled add-on card, four PCI-Express x16 slots, eight DDR4 DIMM slots, and other storage connectivity that includes four SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and U.2 port. From the looks of it, the new for the 3rd generation Ryzen Threadripper looks identical to TR4, which bodes well for people wanting to use their TR4-compatible CPU coolers or water-blocks on the new platform.

NVIDIA today introduced Jetson Xavier NX, the world's smallest, most powerful AI supercomputer for robotic and embedded computing devices at the edge. With a compact form factor smaller than the size of a credit card, the energy-efficient Jetson Xavier NX module delivers server-class performance up to 21 TOPS for running modern AI workloads, and consumes as little as 10 watts of power.

Jetson Xavier NX opens the door for embedded edge computing devices that demand increased performance but are constrained by size, weight, power budgets or cost. These include small commercial robots, drones, intelligent high-resolution sensors for factory logistics and production lines, optical inspection, network video recorders, portable medical devices and other industrial IoT systems.

Seagate announced its roadmap for the coming years, and the company is naturally fighting tooth and nail for the relevance of HDD technology in the market. While the benefits of SSDs are already well understood by the entire industry, in some scenarios, it makes more sense to make use of high-density HDDs - particularly where deployment space is at a premium, and in scenarios where seek times for information stored on the media aren't all that important. This is why the company is aggressively pushing its new HAMR technology as a way to increase areal density on traditional platter-based media.

Plans to achieve 18 TB and 20 TB density HDDs in the first semester of 2020 seem to be well within reason, considering the company has recently shipped 16 TB HDDs. These HDD solutions will still make use of older technologies such as CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording), for the 18 TB drives) and SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) for their 20 TB 2020 products. The company will later make use of their proprietary HAMR (Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording) technology in order to upgrade their 20 TB, and 20 TB+ HDDs with higher performance (and density) than can be achieved with the tried and true SMR. When it comes to performance improvements, a latent disadvantage in HDDs compared to solid state solutions, the company will eventually deploy HDDs which make use of two sets of read/write heads instead of a single one.

EK Water Blocks, the Slovenia-based premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer, today announces the product launch of EK-Quantum Vector RTX RE D-RGB water blocks, EK-Quantum Vector Upgrade Kits, and EK-D-RGB 6-Way Splitter Cable.

The RE water blocks use the signature EK single slot slim look and cover the entire PCB length. The block also features a unique aesthetic cover over the block Terminal which is designed to showcase the graphics card model via LEDs, visible from the side. The water block comes in 2 different models tailor-made for either reference NVIDIA RTX 2080 or NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti. The water blocks are equipped with 5V D-RGB (addressable) LEDs which are compatible with the motherboard 3-pin 5V D-RGB (addressable) LED header.

NZXT, a leader of gaming hardware, software, and PC building services, today announced its first lineup of audio products for gamers. The full suite includes the AER wired headset with Hi-Res certification, STND headset platform for sleek storage, and MXER audio control station. All are designed with the clean aesthetic NZXT fans love and expect. AER is a comfortable, lightweight gaming headset available in open and closed-back designs which pairs with STND and MXER for automatic audio switching between the headset and external speakers -- a simple solution that feels like magic.

Intel has today announced the Stratix 10 GX 10M - a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) built on 14 nm technology that has an astonishing 43.3 Billion transistors, making it the largest FPGA in the world, dethroning the Xilinx with their previously largest Virtex VU19P FPGA which had a "mere" 35 Billion transistors. The Stratix 10 GX 10M is a home to over 10.2 million logic cells housed inside two large dies, connected by Intel's own Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge (EMIB).

The 10M model is packing four additional dies besides the two for logic, also connected by EMIB, that feature 48 transceivers in total which have a combined bandwidth of up to 4.5Tb/s. If you are wondering about the bandwidth between all dies, then judging by EMIB's 25,920 connections, there is 6.5 Tb/s of inner-die bandwidth, meaning that components will not be starving for additional speeds to transfer the data. Additionally there are 2,304 user I/O pins, allowing for some creative integration solutions that involve plenty of ports for development purposes.

Antec Inc., a leading provider of high-performance computer components and accessories for the gaming, PC upgrade and Do-It-Yourself market, announces a white version of the Dark Phantom DP501. The case delivers a combination of understated Gaming looks, versatile build options with an affordable price. Its aesthetics will appeal to gamers and enthusiasts who prefer a functional appearance.

The DP501 features an understated ARGB blade on the front panel which makes it the perfect choice for Gamers and Enthusiasts who prefer a plain design over flashy elements, while its mesh design provides better systematic airflow. The DP501 White will soon reach store shelves and online retail outlets in Europe with a competitive MSRP of 70,98 Euros.

TechPowerUp and Computer Upgrade King bring you a unique opportunity to bring home a Continuum Micro case. The Continuum Micro is a Micro-ATX tower characterized by an infinite-reflection RGB LED front panel, and a conventional horizontally partitioned interior layout, and plenty of fan mounts to build a powerful and compact desktop with liquid cooling to the boot. In this TechPowerUp Giveaway, three randomly-selected lucky winners get one of these cases, each. Open worldwide (wherever legal), entries for the Giveaway close on November 13, 2019. To drop your hat in, simply fill up a short form that helps us get back to you if you've won. Good Luck!

For more details, and to participate, visit this page.

Jonsbo unveiled the CR-2000, a type-D (double fin-stack) CPU cooler. The cooler's design is characterized by an RGB LED illuminated brushed metal top-plate on both of its fin-stacks, besides two illuminated RGB LED illuminated fans. A single 3-pin 5 V ARGB cable handles lighting for the entire cooler. Six 6 mm-thick copper heat pipes make direct contact with the CPU at the base, and their ends pass through the two aluminium fin-stacks. Two 120 mm fans ventilate the fin-stacks, one through the first stack, and the second in the middle of the two stacks. A third fan can be mounted to pull air from the second stack.

Each of the two included 120 mm fans takes in 4-pin PWM input, spins between 700 to 1,500 RPM, pushing 25.5 to 62.8 CFM of air, with a noise output of 18.1 to 29.5 dBA. The cooler measures 159 mm x 120 mm x 134 mm (LxWxH), weighing 900 g. Among the CPU socket types supported are AM4 and LGA115x, although the manufacturer doesn't mention support for any HEDT sockets such as LGA2066, much less TR4. The company didn't reveal pricing.

NVIDIA today announced that the United States Postal Service - the world's largest postal service, with 485 million mail pieces processed and delivered daily - is adopting end-to-end AI technology from NVIDIA to improve its package data processing efficiency. The new system starts with high-performance servers powered by NVIDIA V100 Tensor Core GPUs and deep learning software to train multiple AI algorithms. The trained models are then deployed to NVIDIA EGX edge computing systems at close to 200 Postal Service facilities throughout the U.S. to enable more efficient package data processing. The NVIDIA-powered systems are being purchased by the Postal Service under contract with Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

"AI is transforming multiple industries, enabling processes, accuracy and efficiency not possible before," said Anthony Robbins, vice president of the Federal Sector Business at NVIDIA. "The U.S. Postal Service's adoption of AI demonstrates how this powerful technology can improve an excellent service that we rely on every day. Benjamin Franklin would be proud." The Postal Service operates the world's highest volume logistics operation, processing and delivering some 146 billion pieces of mail annually, including more than 6 billion packages. The new AI system will process package data 10x faster and with higher accuracy.

AOC today announced two new entries to its monitor line-up, developed in partnership with Porsche's design studios. The U32U1 and Q27T1 are two wholly different beasts, so we'll take them one step at a time. The smaller monitor, the Q27T1, features a 27" IPS panel with a QuadHD (2560 x 1440) resolution, covering 90% of the NTSC color space and 107% of the RGB one. Brightness stands at 350 nits, just shy of an HDR certification, and connectivity is limited to 2x HDMI and 1x DisplayPort. Design-wise, it's a minimalist beauty, with its asymmetrical metal stand and a nice touch on the back of the panel. It won't absolutely break the bank if you're a design-conscious user: at £279, it depends on how much you value aesthetics.

The AOC U32U1, on the other hand, comes packing technology to the brim, and should be considerably more expensive. The 32" IPS panel features a 4K resolution, atop a 10-bit panel which offers 90% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space - a much more interesting proposition for professionals or just the most color-conscious users. There's VESA DisplayHDR 600 certification, and support for HDR10. The trident-like, three-pronged stand is one we haven't seen before, and props up the monitor and its number of display connectors: 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x HDMI 1.4, 1x DisplayPort 1.2, 1x USB-C 3.0 with 65 W output, and 4x USB 3.1 (downstream). Pricing on this piece of tech still hasn't been disclosed, and it will release closer to the end of 2019.

It's sort of a goalpost-moving world, but according to Videocardz, AMD has apparently scrapped plans to announce their new Ryzen Threadripper lineup for today, November 5th, and has since scheduled the announcement for November 7th. The website cites sources close to AMD's plans as a way to add credence to their report. This writer, for one, thinks an announcement on a day other than a 7th would be a missed opportunity, flavor-wise, considering the 7 nm manufacturing process of the new AMD HEDT lineup, but I digress.

As far as is known, all other plans are kept, including the announcement of three new processors: the Threadripper 3960X and 3970X, which will hit shelves come November 19th, when the review embargo lifts; and the Threadripper 3990X, which will only be available come January 2020. The new TRX40 platform and motherboards based on the design will also be showcased, and there should be a myriad of new product announcements on that front to accompany AMD's new products.

MAINGEAR — an award-winning PC system integrator of custom gaming desktops, notebooks, and workstations — today launched the MAINGEAR VECTOR, a sleek and powerful 15" gaming notebook that delivers high-performance functionality for an unbeatable value.

Combining a weight-saving hybrid aluminium and polycarbonate chassis with an Intel 9th Gen Core i7-9750H 6-core mobile processor and new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, the MAINGEAR VECTOR packs considerable power into a stealthy compact black design that's.78" inches thick and weighs just 4.16 lbs. The MAINGEAR VECTOR meets the needs of gamers and content creators on the go, capable of delivering jaw-dropping game experiences and high-quality game streaming via Open Broadcaster Software (OBS). No stone was left unturned in the pursuit of speed; the VECTOR offers incredibly fast storage options with the addition of top-tier NVMe M.2 SSDs and 16 GB of premium DDR4 memory. A vibrant anti-glare 1080p 144hz 15.6" display and back-lit RGB gaming keyboard complete the overall look of the VECTOR, continuing MAINGEAR's tradition of style and substance.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices, is proud to announce it's full support for the newly launched AMD Ryzen 9 3950X processor. The 3950X, a 16-core, 32-thread desktop CPU running at a 4.7GHz boosted clock, has been highly anticipated and BIOSTAR has been well prepared for it. Supported by BIOSTAR X570, X470, B450, X370, B350, and A320 chipset with AM4 socket motherboards, the monster CPU from AMD brings the latest in PC tech with support for dual-channel DDR4 memory at 3200+MHz and PCIe 4.0, a perfect match for the feature-loaded GEN4 RACING X570 and X470 motherboards from BIOSTAR.

By updating the supported motherboards with the latest AGESA 1.0.0.4 Patch B BIOS, the users can unlock support for the new AMD CPU and its benefits, as well as improved system boot time as tested by our engineers. By updating the supported motherboards with the latest AGESA 1.0.0.4 Patch B BIOS, users can unlock support for the new AMD CPU and its benefits, as well as improved system boot time as tested by our engineers.

Dell today announced the Latitude 7220 Rugged Extreme tablet, built to meet the demands of workers in harsh environments; from the factory floor to ambulances, desert sandstorms to Arctic conditions.

The lightest and most powerful rugged 12" tablet on the market today is designed to provide the mobility and connectivity to help field users stay productive; its durability offering peace of mind for those in some of the dirtiest, wettest, most challenging and most critical workplaces. Updated features include an enhanced 1000 NIT FHD display with anti-glare coatings, allowing customers to access and showcase their work even when out in direct sunlight. The screen is also glove responsive and multi-touch capable.

Thermaltake, a leading premium gaming tower manufacturer, is thrilled to announce a new member of the Level 20 collection- the Level 20 HT and the Level 20 HT Snow Edition Full Tower Chassis. Distinctive from most cases on the market, the Level 20 HT/HT Snow Edition full tower chassis is specially constructed to continue the legend of the Level 20 series case family. It features four durable 4 mm thick tempered glass windows, two preinstalled 140 mm standard fans on the top, and is designed with outstanding system ventilation. The chassis is a premium choice that inhabits a vertical mount design and expansion capabilities for massive custom liquid-cooled systems. The Level 20 HT/HT Snow Edition takes our latest case innovations and wraps them in an ultra-modern style that's utterly unique in the case market today. Stand out from the crowd with the Level 20 HT.

Microsoft's cloud computing business unveiled Project Silica, a cold-storage device that's designed to stand the test of time. Essentially an optical storage media, it is a 7.5 cm x 7.5 mm x 2 mm square piece of glass that can store up to 75.6 GB of data (inclusive of error-correction code). Unlike conventional optical media such as CD or Blu-ray, which relies on etching pits of different lengths on a plastic substrate to denote ones and zeros, project silica uses nanoscale gratings and deformations, while AI is used for error-correction to overcome any aging of the media. The company developed a proof-of-concept using quartz glass.

"A laser encodes data in glass by creating layers of three-dimensional nanoscale gratings and deformations at various depths and angles. Machine learning algorithms read the data back by decoding images and patterns that are created as polarized light shines through the glass," writes Microsoft in its description of how Project Silica works. CD can typically hold data for 1-2 centuries provided that the disc is stored properly. After that, the plastic physical layer decays, losing data integrity. Project Silica, on the other hand, is designed to be resilient not just in a box, but also outside it. The media can "withstand being boiled in hot water, baked in an oven, microwaved, flooded, scoured, demagnetized and [withstand] other environmental threats that can destroy priceless historic archives or cultural treasures if things go wrong," says Microsoft.

Intel CFO George Davis in an interview with Barron's commented on the company's financial health, and some of the reasons behind its rather conservative gross margin guidance looking forward to at least 2023. Intel's current product stack is moving on to the company's 10 nm silicon fabrication process in a phased manner. The company is allocating 10 nm to mobile processors and enterprise processors, while brazening it out with 14 nm on the client-desktop and HEDT platforms until they can build 10 nm desktop parts. AMD has deployed its high-IPC "Zen 2" microarchitecture on TSMC's 7 nm DUV process, with plans to go EUV in the coming months.

"We're still keenly focused on gross margin. Everything from capital efficiency to the way we're designing our products. What we've said though, the delay in 10 nanometer means that we're going to be a little bit disadvantaged on unit cost for a period of time. We actually gave guidance for gross margin out in 2021 to help people understand. 2023 is the period that we were ultimately guiding [when] we're going to see very strong revenue growth and margin expansion. We've got to get through this period where we have the 10 nanometer being a little bit late [as] we're not optimized on a node that we're on. But [by] then we're moving to a two to two and a half year cadence on the next nodes. So we're pulling in the spending on 7 nanometer, which will start up in the second half of 2021 because we think it's the right thing to do competitively," he said.

Corsair rolled out the ST50, a "premium headset stand" (model: CA-9011221-NA). It is made of anodized aluminium with a rubberized anti-slip base and diamond-cut edges. The stand has a matte black finish with a silver metallic Corsair logo on the armature. The no-frills stand has no other other functionality that to hold your headset at least 4 inches in the air by its headband, and prevent wear and disfiguring of the earpiece cups over time. Available now, the Corsair ST50 headset is priced at USD $34.99.

Western Digital Monday unveiled the Ultrastar DC SS540, an enterprise SSD with the SAS 12 Gbps interface and the endurance of a tank. Built in the 2.5-inch form-factor with 15 mm thickness, the drive comes in capacities ranging from 800 GB all the way up to 15.36 TB. The 800 GB, 1.6 TB, 3.2 TB, and 6.4 TB variants offer endurance of 3 drive-writes per day (DWPD), while the 960 GB, 1.92 TB, 3.84 TB, 7.68 TB, and 15.36 TB models offer 1 DWPD endurance.

Under the hood, the drive uses 3D TLC NAND flash, and depending on the model, sequential read speeds range between 1,985 MB/s to 2,130 MB/s, sequential writes between 1,024 MB/s to 2,109 MB/s. Random access performance, which is more relevant to enterprise environments, ranges between 237,000 to 470,000 IOPS reads, and 88,133 to 240,000 IOPS writes, depending on the model. MTBF on all models is rated at 2.5 million hours.

Phanteks today announced that they will be changing their Enthoo Luxe 2 product name to "Enthoo 719". Phanteks recently received a letter from Thermaltake suggesting that the Enthoo Luxe 2 product name has similarities to their "Luxa 2" mark, a mobile accessory brand. Phanteks strongly disagrees with this finding as the Luxe 2 is simply an iteration of the original, a computer chassis. Phanteks never had the intent to cause confusion by using the name described. Phanteks says, "We would like to move on and spend less time on this matter and concentrate more on creating innovative products for our users. Thank you for your understanding." The Enthoo 719 will have no changes to the physical product other than its name. Thank you for your understanding.

AMD has today released a new and improved version of their "Adrenalin" graphics card driver with the release of the version 19.11.1. The new release brings many bug fixes and most importantly a support for Red Dead: Redemption II game. Some of the improvements with the 19.11.1 are the fixes for frame rate limit of 60 FPS in some game titles that utilize Vulkan API; OBS streaming now doesn't get a heavy frame drop when using AMF encoding and error when some users try to connect to Twitch from the connect page in Radeon Settings for live streaming is gone.

Download the AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 19.11.1 Driver.

NVIDIA today released GeForce Software version 441.12 WHQL. These drivers come game-ready for "Red Dead Redemption 2," which is going live tomorrow (November 5th). The drivers add or improve optimization for "Need for Speed Heat" and "Borderlands 3." The drivers fix a white-screen game crash associated with "Super Robot Wars V." With these drivers, NVIDIA is also addressing a security vulnerability, which isn't documented publicly yet, but will be released on Nov 6th, as "Security Bulletin 4907". Right now it is only briefly described as "Added security updates for driver components". Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce Software 441.12 WHQLThe change-log follows.

Halloween is just so much fun, and URCDKeys is keeping the spirit alive with an extended sale on genuine, globally-valid software licenses that let you save big on software, so you can spend more on your hardware. Windows 10 Pro is our recommended operating system for PC enthusiasts and pro-users. URCDKeys has genuine, globally-valid Windows 10 Pro licenses on sale for USD $11.59 upon applying a TechPowerUp-exclusive discount code. Office 2019 Professional Plus is the latest and most feature-packed variant of the productivity suite no home desktop is complete without. URCDKeys has it in store for $48.19. URCDKeys is also stocked up on interesting combos of Windows and Office variants, games, DLCs, and in-game content. URCDKeys uses PayPal, so your payment instruments stay secure.

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TechPowerUp today released the latest version of NVCleanstall, our free and handy utility that lets you take greater control over your NVIDIA GeForce software installation by customizing it to a far greater degree than the NVIDIA installer, and disabling features such as Telemetry. Version 1.1.0 introduces a few handy changes, beginning with a now working dependency resolution algorithm, improved error-handling when no Internet connectivity is found, and improvements to the user-interface. Crashes have been fixed when certain very old drivers or incompatible hardware is used. A toggle lets you optionally disable automatic reboot, if needed by the installer. We've added an advanced tweak that lets you disable the sleep timer of the GPU-integrated HD audio device, fixing broken audio on VR headsets.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.1.0

The change-log follows.

According to the information obtained by Statesman, Samsung Electronics is shutting down its custom CPU design group within the company. Known for the designs of mobile SoCs like Exynos 9110, 9810 and 9820 just to name a few, it seems that there will be no more future developments of custom Exynos SoC for Samsung's mobile devices. Instead of designing its own cores, Samsung is now going to use ARM's reference A7x series of CPUs based on ARM v8 instruction set, with A76 or A77 being chosen as likely candidates for the high-performance workloads.

So far it is still unknown what will be inside new processors like the upcoming Exynos 9830 SoC, meant to power the next generation of mobile devices. But if things are like Samsung states, there should be reference ARM cores like A77 inside the new chip. Already announced chips like Exynos 990 are supposed to use a custom CPU core, while all future revisions of any new Exynos SoC will license a design IP from ARM. This decision is supposedly a by-product of being unable to compete with offers from Qualcomm, which offers faster "Snapdragon" SoCs. Samsung already uses the Snapdragon SoCs in its phones for the US and Chinese markets, while the rest of the world is getting an Exynos equivalent with the purchase of the same mobile device.

Intel announced its 10th generation Core i9 XE "Cascade Lake-X" HEDT processor family in October. At the time, market availability of these chips was slated for November 2019, although a date wasn't specified. A report by Chinese tech publication PCDIY sheds more light. According to the report, market availability of these chips could begin from 25th November, 2019, which would be 49 days or 7 weeks following its October 7 product announcement. Intel's lean 10th gen Core HEDT processor lineup includes 10-core, 12-core, 14-core, and 18-core SKUs at price-points ranging from roughly-$600 to $1,000.

Rambus Inc., a premier silicon IP and chip provider making data faster and safer, today announced it has achieved industry-leading 18 Gbps performance with the Rambus GDDR6 Memory PHY. Running at the industry's fastest data rate of 18 Gbps, the Rambus GDDR6 PHY IP delivers peak performance four-to-five times faster than current DDR4 solutions and continues the company's longstanding tradition of developing leading-edge products. The Rambus GDDR6 PHY pairs with the companion GDDR6 memory controller from the recent acquisition of Northwest Logic to provide a complete and optimized memory subsystem solution.

Increased data usage in applications such as AI, ML, data center, networking and automotive systems is driving a need for higher bandwidth memory. The coming introduction of high-bandwidth 5G networks will exacerbate this challenge. Working closely with our memory partners, the Rambus GDDR6 solution gives system designers more options in selecting the memory system that meets both their bandwidth and cost requirements.

TechPowerUp and Cooler Master late-October brought you the Gaming Gear Giveaway, with three randomly selected lucky winners standing to win combinations of the company's latest and greatest pieces of gaming peripherals. Among these is the GS750 smart headset stand that's packed with features beyond its main function, the Cooler Master MK850 premium mechanical gaming keyboard, the MM710 gaming mouse, and the MH751 gaming headset. Without further ado, the winners:

• Matthew from Michigan, USA, wins a Cooler Master GS750 headset stand, an MK850 premium mechanical gaming keyboard, an MH750 gaming headset, and a MM710 gaming mouse (one of each)
• Daniel from Germany, wins a Cooler Master GS750 headset stand and MH751 gaming headset (one of each)
• Panagiotis from Greece, wins a Cooler Master GS750 headset stand

A huge Congratulations to you three! TechPowerUp and Cooler Master will return with more such amazing giveaways.

NVIDIA's add-in card partners are ordering fresh stocks of GeForce RTX 2070 graphics chips even as the performance-segment of the GPU market has changed with AMD's introduction of its Radeon RX 5700 series "Navi," according to a Gamers Nexus report citing sources among NVIDIA partners. NVIDIA partners are expecting a slump in AMD's RX 5700 series graphics card inventories, particularly that of the RX 5700 XT, to create a price-point at which to sell the RTX 2070. NVIDIA partners expect RX 5700 XT inventories to run slim as supply of the 7 nm "Navi 10" chips from foundry-partner TSMC may not satiate the SKU's reportedly high demand.

NVIDIA's current product stack has the original RTX 2060 at $349, the RTX 2060 Super at $399, and the RTX 2070 Super at $499. The RTX 2070, which is outperformed by the $399 Radeon RX 5700 XT, was practically phased out from NVIDIA's product-stack as it was succeeded by the RTX 2070 Super at its $499 price-point. With the RTX 2070 making a comeback, it would be interesting to see what its price-point will be. There is a gap between the $399 RTX 2060 Super, and the $499 RTX 2070 Super, although the performance gap between the RTX 2060 Super and the RTX 2070 is a paltry 4 percent, which is easily closed by moderately overclocking the RTX 2060 Super. As of this writing, both pricing and availability of the RX 5700 XT appear normal.

Early October, we asked our readers what's the fastest persistent storage device on their computer. Over 11,000 entries and close to 4 weeks into the poll we are calling a winner - NVMe SSD. Over 55 percent or 6,229 of the respondents at the time of this writing chose NVMe SSD. Conventional SATA SSDs, which we felt would to win this poll, comes in second, at 39.1 percent, or 4,423 respondents. Hard drives - either standalone or in RAID setups, added up to a negligible 5.8 percent. This doesn't mean that only 5.8 percent of the respondents have an HDD or HDD RAID, it only means that HDD/HDD RAID is the fastest storage device of only 5.8 percent of the respondents.

The poll results establish that the vast majority of our target audience (the PC gaming and overclocking crowd) is aware of the benefits of flash-based storage, with 94.2 percent responding that they use some kind of SSD. NVMe coming up on top is a surprise. NVMe drives typically offer at least 1 GB/s of transfer-rates (typical of PCIe x2 drives), and their rated transfer-rates can exceed 3 GB/s in short bursts. Besides bring faster, NVMe SSDs in the M.2 form-factor contribute greatly to aesthetics as they lack cables. It's only in the past 18 months that prices of NVMe SSDs are dropping to under $0.25/GB, or what performance-segment SATA SSDs commanded in the years prior.

GIGABYTE has filed regulatory filings with the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) for several Radeon RX 5500-series graphics cards, including as many as six models based on the range-topping RX 5500 XT. The filing confirms that the RX 5500 XT is real, and that all six models from GIGABYTE feature 8 GB of GDDR6 memory. The RX 5500 XT, or Navi 10 XTX is rumored to feature 24 RDNA compute units, making up 1,536 stream processors, and a 128-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface, holding 8 GB of memory. AMD possibly hopes to capture sub-$250 price points with this SKU, given that NVIDIA preempted it with the $230 GeForce GTX 1660 Super.

Among the six models, going by GIGABYTE naming conventions, are cards based on the company's WindForce 2X cooler, the Gaming OC SKU that possibly has the larger WindForce 3X cooler, and simpler models that stick to reference clock-speeds. GIGABYTE has been rather restrained with its AMD "Navi" graphics card series, with only two custom-design RX 5700-series graphics cards so far. The same EEC filing also references several additional RX 5700-series SKUs from the company, including some based on its coveted Aorus Gaming brand.

A collaborative effort by several Redditors discovered that AMD could carve as many as five Radeon RX 5000-series SKUs based on its upcoming 7 nm "Navi 14" GPU. They poured through thousands of lines of code in AMD's open-source GPU driver files. Among these are two mobile GPUs, and three desktop. The "Navi 14" silicon allegedly features up to 24 RDNA compute units making up 1,536 stream processors; and possibly a 128-bit wide GDDR6 memory interface. The highest trim based on this silicon is the "Navi 14 XTX" variant, which goes by the commercial name Radeon RX 5500 XT. While it remains to be seen if it maxes out all 24 CUs present on the silicon, it certainly has the highest engine gaming clocks at 1717 MHz.

Next up is the Radeon RX 5500 ("Navi 14 XT"). This SKU is popularized in AMD's October 2019 product announcements. It is known to feature 22 compute units working out to 1,408 stream processors, and up to 8 GB of GDDR6 memory across the chip's 128-bit wide memory interface. Its gaming clocks are rated at 1670 MHz. The other popularized SKU is the Radeon RX 5500M ("Navi 14 XTM"). With the same core-config as the RX 5500, this SKU has slightly lesser clock-speeds contributing to a more aggressive power-management. Its gaming clocks are rated at 1448 MHz. It turns out that AMD is interested in carving out a whole different segment of GPUs based on "Navi 14," the Radeon RX 5300 series.

Blizzard at this year's BlizzCon 2019 in Anaheim, California formally announced Diablo IV to the world, building on the 2012-released Diablo III as promised, after the company announced a refocus on its existing franchises. According to Blizzard, the game's premise stands as "Diablo IV takes place many years after the events of Diablo III, after millions have been slaughtered by the actions of the High Heavens and Burning Hells alike. In the vacuum of power, a legendary name resurfaces."

Blizzard claimed Diablo IV would have darker, grittier overtones such as in the earlier entries in the franchise, a style that was left somewhat in the background for Diablo III. There will be more blood, there will be more gore, and for now, three classes have been announced that will be your avatars in partaking in violence on Diablo IV: the barbarian, sorceress, and druid. Blizzard has also said some words regarding a technological push in the game, claiming that "This technology is at the heart of everything players will see, hear, and feel — delivering much higher fidelity and a more engrossing experience." No details on what exactly this meant were shared by the company, though. Chek out the reveal and gameplay trailers after the break.

Rockstar Games has dropped a launch trailer for their upcoming PC release of the critically-acclaimed Red Dead Redemption 2. Fret not if you're worried about spoilers (though the game has indeed released quite a while ago): the trailer is only one minute long. There are some specific PC improvements to the title, such as support for up to 8K resolutions (good luck on that), support for higher framerates than on consoles, HDR, and support for non-standard monitor ratios.

The PC version of the game will also introduce a new photo mode for all you photography enthusiasts out there - even though it's in-game, it should still count. One of the things the PC version of the game won't ship with - sadly - is support for raytracing. There were some rumors running around the web regarding support for raytracing on the Rockstar Release due to some screenshots outed by NVIDIA that sported an RTX logo on the bottom right corner, but those served only as marketing for their latest 20-series graphics cards. No raytracing will be available in this game - and there is no reason to think it might.

Gigabyte, via its AORUS brand, today launched the eGPU to outclass all other. The new AORUS Gaming Box is an eGPU solution that features a watercooled version of NVIDIA's RTX 2080 Ti graphics card - the current cream of the crop when it comes to raytracing performance. Apparently, and despite being an AORUS-branded product, the AORUS Gaming Box hasn't been overclocked - which makes sense, considering the thermal constraints already in place with such solutions. The RTX 2080 Ti inside the new Gaming Box features an AIO cooling solution with a copper baseplate and two 120 mm fans for airflow.

The enclosure also features two removable dust filters for maintenance purposes. Connectivity-wise, we're talking about 2x USB 3.0, 1x USB Type-C, 1x Thunderbolt, 1x Ethernet, 3x DisplayPort and 1x HDMI. No word on pricing or weight of the solution, but it's likely a heavyweight when it comes to taking punches out of your wallet, as are usually any such external solutions.

Razer has introduced an updated version of their Firefly RGB mouse pad. First introduced in May 2015, the original Firefly carried 15 RGB lighting zones that could be customized via Razer's Chroma software. There are still 16.8 million colors available for user customization, but the number of lighting zones has been increased from 15 (in the May 2015 model) to 19 (in the November 2019 model). Coincidence? I think not.

The new Firefly V2 now also features brighter LEDs for a more dashing experience, and has been made thinner as well, coming in at just 3 mm (1 mm has been shaved compared to the original model). Like the original version, the Firefly V2 RGB features a micro-textured hard surface, optimized for precise tracking across all mouse sensors, playstyles and sensitivity settings. It also features a built-in cable catch for minimal mouse drag and an anti-slip rubber base to stay firmly in place. The Razer Firefly V2 RGB is now available at various retailers for £49.99 GBP / $49.99 USD / €59.99 MSRP.

Phanteks today announced the release of the Digital RGB LED motherboard adapter. The cable offers a simple and easy solution to synchronize all your Digital-RGB products with a compatible motherboard with an addressable RGB lighting header.

The cable features two connectors, one for Phanteks' DRGB products and the other for third-party addressable RGB products allowing you to expand your lighting configuration. Expand and synchronize your lighting, all with one cable.

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Cougar unveiled the DarkBlader line of ATX full-tower cases characterized by an asymmetric trapezoid front design, and two variants based the front panel. The DarkBlader-G has a tinted tempered glass front insert, while the DarkBlader-S has an anodized-aluminium insert arranged in a stepped pattern. The rest of the front panels on both models have a brushed metal finish. The right side panel is dominated by a tempered glass panel, and the case's front-panel connectivity are arranged along the side, with light-framing that glow in RGB. On both cases a trapezoid RGB LED diffuser runs along the height of the case. Besides ATX, the case supports E-ATX and CEB motherboard form-factors.

Inside, the DarkBlader features a conventional horizontally-partitioned layout. The motherboard tray has room for graphics cards up to 38 cm in length, and CPU coolers up to 17 cm in height. Storage options include two 3.5-inch trays that can also hold 2.5-inch drives; and 3.5-inch mounts behind the motherboard tray, which can also hold onto 2.5-inch drives. Ventilation includes three 140/120 mm front intakes, either two 140 mm or three 120 mm top exhausts, and a 120 mm rear exhaust. You can mount a 360 mm x 120 mm radiator along the front, and a 360 mm x 120 mm radiator along the top. The case includes an RGB LED lighting controller. Measuring 232 mm x 523 mm x 518 mm (WxDxH), the case offers 8 + 2 expansion slots. The company didn't reveal pricing.

INNO3D, a leading manufacturer of pioneering high-end multimedia components and various innovations is thrilled to announce the new range of INNO3D fans including the TWIN X2 OC RGB and GAMING OC X2, while also adopting the popular TWIN X2 and COMPACT on existing GPUs. So what GPU will get what fan? Take a look at the list below.

Our engineers were at the drawing board and had the task of designing two new fans to essentially target customers with specific requirements when purchasing their graphics card. High on the list of requests was the need for the INNO3D GTX 16 series to have RGB so that even the less hardcore gamers can also enjoy and marvel at the colour cycling display when playing their favourite games. It is not all form and no function, far from it - the RGB cooler has dual 9 cm fan with the best balance of noise and cooling performance. The cooler houses a big heatsink with 3 heatpipes for efficient heat dissipation while made up of an 8-layer PCB with 8 pin power input for stable overclocking. All this in a relatively small form factor with the length of just 22 cm.

LG Electronics USA announced that 2019 OLED TVs are receiving a firmware update starting this week, enabling stunning game play via NVIDIA G-SYNC Compatible technology.

NVIDIA G-SYNC Compatible support will be available on the E9 series (65 and 55 inches) and C9 series (77, 65 and 55 inches) as well as the B9 series (65 and 55 inches) LG OLED TV models in the United States in November.

An XFX spokesperson, commenting on a Reddit post linking to our comprehensive review of the XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT THICC III Ultra graphics card from Thursday, stated that they have revised the coolers of its sibling, the THICC II (which we also reviewed). Besides the number of fans (3 vs. 2), what sets the THICC III and the original THICC II apart is a slightly longer aluminium fin-stack heatsink on the THICC III, and more importantly, a copper secondary base-plate instead of aluminium alloy one, on the THICC III. This secondary base plate pulls heat from the eight GDDR6 memory chips. What's more, with the THICC III, XFX also removed a metal foil between the secondary base-plate and the main heatsink.

In our testing, we found this simple design change dropped memory temperatures by 8°C compared to the original THICC II. Higher air-flow from the triple-fan setup may have also contributed, although we believe the base-plate changes, specifically removal of the metal foil, contributed the most. The XFX spokesperson announced that the company is implementing the same base-plate design on the THICC II, and that revised cards are "already on the shelves." The spokesperson also announced that anyone with an older revision of the card can seek a free replacement to the newer revision by contacting XFX. We are awaiting information from them on how to tell the older revision apart from the newer one without having to disassemble the card, and will update this article.