At this year's CES, GIGABYTE has unveiled a new lineup of gaming monitors. Supposed to offer good value and high refresh rate, GIGABYTE decided to start offering 3 initial products in the form of the GIGABYTE G27F, G27QC, and G32QC. The first in the lineup is the G27F, a 27-inch 1080p monitor. It features a 144 Hz refresh rate along with support for FreeSync and G-SYNC technologies. Along with a high refresh rate, there is a 120% sRGB color saturation support. It has two integrated 2 W stereo speakers and feature GIGABYTE's auto-update, a feature which performs automatic system checkups once the monitor is connected to the PC.

Next up, two more monitors are a part of the QC Series, which brings advanced features to the table. The G27QC is a 27-inch 1440p display with 1500R curvature applied to it. It has a higher, 165 Hz refresh rate capability with 90% of DCI-P3 color saturation coverage. The display itself is also HDR capable to bring better, brighter and more vibrant colors to users. When it comes to syncing technology, it has support for AMD's FreeSync Premium and NVIDIA's G-SYNC. There are also two 2 W stereo speakers and the monitor has support for GIGABYTE's Auto-Update feature. In addition to these monitors, GIGABYTE also showed off the G32QC monitor, which takes the presented features even further. This time we are getting a 32-inch 1440p monitor with a 1500R curvature as well. It also has support for the 165 Hz refresh rate and 90% coverage of DCI-P3 color saturation standard. HDR support is also present, however, it has VESA's DisplayHDR 400 standard in place. For syncing support, there is AMD's FreeSync Premium Pro that takes the FreeSync support to another level, while G-SYNC is also present. For this model, there aren't any integrated speakers, while the support for the Auto-Update feature is still present.

At this year's CES, ASUS announced the latest addition to their TUG gaming lineup of laptops - two 15-inch TUF Gaming A15 and TUF Gaming F15, and two 17-inch TUF Gaming A17 and TUF Gaming F17. Being advertised as durable, high-performance gaming laptops, the TUF lineup is here to bring "unprecedented experience for the price" meaning that the pricing of these models will be more than adequate for what they offer. Inside these new machines are the latest mobile processors from both Intel and AMD. The "A" series, as it is called, is an AMD based solution that features Ryzen 4000 series of mobile processors, which can be configured to go up to 8 cores and 16 threads, while the so-called "F" series is based on Intel's 10th generation of Core processors, which can be configured to go up to 6 cores and 12 threads.

At this year's CES, the ASUS Republic of Gamers announced the latest additions to the Zephyrus family of ultra-portable gaming laptops. Designed with portability in mind, these laptops are packing a lot of hardware in a body that is less than 20 mm thick. The G14 model is a 17.9 mm thin power-house capable of a lot more than its size would suggest. Packing AMD's latest Ryzen 7 4800HS processor, built on 7 nm "Zen 2" architecture with 8 cores and 16 threads, the G14 laptop is paired with NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX 2060 GPU with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory.

The Ryzen processors used in Zephyrus laptops are special edition models, which are configured to run at lower 35 W TDP, instead of 45 W like the regular Ryzen 7 4800HS, with the same performance. This is due to the 6 months exclusive ASUS had on these processors, so they now able to use them in their designs to lower power consumption and improve battery life. This Zephyrus G14 laptop features two 14-inch display options to choose from - one 1080p IPS panel with 120 Hz refresh rate, Pantone validated FreeSync display and one 1440p IPS display that is capable of 60 Hz refreshing and also features Pantone validation with FreeSync technology.

AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su at the company's 2020 International CES address announced the company's e-sports flagship graphics card, the Radeon RX 5600 XT. This card is designed to dominate the sub-$300 market-segment that's been led by NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1660-series. Based on 7 nm "Navi" silicon, the RX 5600 XT has surprisingly powerful specs: 2,304 stream processors across 36 RDNA compute units, which is the same as the RX 5700, but with some cost-cutting in the way of memory: 6 GB of GDDR6 across a 192-bit wide memory interface, and 12 Gbps memory speed. The GPU has a gaming engine clock of roughly 1500 MHz. Other key specs include 144 TMUs and 48 ROPs.

Designed with a 150 W typical board power target, the card draws power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. The RX 5600 XT is designed to provide 1080p e-sports gaming at high refresh-rates, or 1440p gaming at reasonable graphics settings. In its presentation, AMD showed the RX 5600 XT beating the GTX 1660 Ti that leads NVIDIA's GTX 16-series. With a price of USD $279 SEP, which is on-par with that of the GTX 1660 Ti, AMD looks to bring some serious competition to the $200-300 market-segment. Available January 21, 2020.

Today, at CES 2020, ASUS debuted its latest VivoBook and ZenBook laptop refreshes. The first in the lineup is the VivoBook S series, which is consisting out of VivoBook S333, S433 and S533 models. At the heart of these new laptops is the latest 10th generation of processors from Intel that is giving the ultra-portable notebooks power to perform everyday tasks with ease. In some configurations like S433 and S533, there is a choice of Core i7 and Core i5 Comet Lake CPUs, while the S333 model is rocking Ice Lake at its core. For Comet Lake configurations, there is a choice of Intel Core i7-10510U or Core i5-10210U processor, while Ice Lake powered models have a choice between Intel Core i7-1065G7 or Core i5-1035G1 processors. As far as graphics power goes, users can choose to use Intel iGPU, or add NVIDIA MX series GPU for an additional price increase.

he leading global motherboard, graphics card and mini PC manufacturer, ASRock, launches the Radeon RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming D 8G OC graphics card - as the latest member of the ASRock Phantom Gaming series graphics card product line, equipped with AMD 's 2nd generation 7nm Radeon RX 5500 XT GPU, 8 GB 128-bit GDDR6 video memory, and support PCI Express 4.0 bus standard, as well as the new dual fan design with Phantom Gaming appearance, brilliant Polychrome SYNC lighting effect synchronization, and the stylish metal backplane. The advanced specifications and rich functions bring gamers an outstanding 1080p gaming experience.

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.

NVIDIA today raised the bar higher still for streaming media players — unveiling the next generation of SHIELD TV, which delivers unmatched levels of home entertainment, gaming and AI capabilities right into the living room, starting at $149.

The two new SHIELD models — SHIELD TV and SHIELD TV Pro — provide exceptional visual and sound experiences. Their new Tegra X1+ processor, delivering up to 25 percent more performance than its predecessor, helps bring to life Dolby Vision for ultra-vivid imagery and Dolby Atmos for extraordinary audio. Its computational prowess dramatically improves picture quality by using AI to upscale HD video streams into 4K resolution.

Acer America announced the new Nitro XF2 Series monitors offering gamers superbly smooth gameplay thanks to amazingly high speed. To decrease blur in fast moving images, these new monitors include blisteringly fast 3 ms native response times as well as speeds of up to 0.2 ms G2G for the Nitro XF272 X and 0.3 ms G2G for the Nitro XF252Q in overdrive mode.

Boasting a rapid 240Hz refresh rate that shortens frame rendering time and AMD Radeon FreeSync that syncs the monitor's and graphics card's frames, the Nitro XF2 Series are extremely responsive and support stunningly clear and fluid visuals even when the gaming gets frenetic. With a high 400 nit cd/m^2 brightness and 100 million: 1 maximum contrast ratio, they deliver brilliant imagery as well as support HDR 10 content.

Acer America has announced the new Predator XN253Q X monitor, which boasts up to an incredibly fast 0.4 ms response time for amazingly accurate gameplay even in the fastest action scenes.

Featuring a rapid 240Hz refresh rate and NVIDIA G-Sync that syncs in a way few technologies can rival, the Predator XN253Q X delivers stunningly clear and fluid visuals. A high 400 nit cd/m^2 brightness supports crisp, clear and brilliant images, so no important details are missed.

Two of the often overlooked components of a new graphics architecture are the I/O and multimedia capabilities. With its Radeon RX 5700-series "Navi 10" graphics processor, AMD gave the two their first major update in over two years, with the new Radeon Display Engine, and Radeon Multimedia Engine. The Display Engine is a hardware component that handles the graphics card's physical display I/O. The Radeon Multimedia Engine is a set of fixed-function hardware that provides CODEC-specific acceleration to offload your CPU.

The Navi Radeon Display Engine features an updated DisplayPort 1.4 HDR implementation that's capable of handling 8K displays at 60 Hz with a single cable. It can also handle 4K UHD at 240 Hz with a single cable. These also include HDR and 10-bit color. It achieves this by implementing DSC 1.2a (Display Stream Compression). The display controller also supports 30 bpp internal color-depth. The HDMI implementation remains HDMI 2.0. The multi-plane overlay protocol (MPO) implementation now supports a low-power mode. This should, in theory, reduce the GPU's power draw when idling or playing back video.

Samsung at E3 2019 announced their latest high-refresh ration monitor, the CRG5. Based on a 27" VA panel, the display supports only up to 1080p resolution - a limitation that helps it become the fastest refresh-rate monitor in Samsung's lineup with its 240 Hz frequency. These 240 Hz come with the help of support for NVIDIA's G-Sync adaptive sync technology (there's no G-Sync ultimate chip inside, though).

The monitor also offers a 3000:1 contrast ratio, 178º viewing angles, and a peak brightness set at 300 nits - nothing to write home about. It also includes software modes specific for FPS, RTS, and RPG content, and keeps connectivity at a relative minimum with 1x DisplayPort 1.2, 2x HDMI 2.0, and 1x headphone jack. The Samsung CRG5 will be available starting this July for $399.

Razer , the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, today announced updates to both the Advanced and Base models of the Razer Blade 15 laptop series, now equipped with 9th Generation Intel Core i7 6 Core processors. The Razer Blade 15 Advanced models will now be available with a 240Hz Full HD or 4K OLED touch display option while the Razer Blade 15 Base model gets a boost to 144Hz Full HD and GeForce RTX graphics.

"The Razer Blade 15 is the perfect companion for hardcore gamers and power users," says Razer Co-founder and CEO Min-Liang Tan. "Now we're packing even more performance in the same slim form factor to satisfy the needs of even the most demanding gamers, esports athletes and content creators."

MMD announces the launch of the Philips 222B9T 22" LCD monitor with SmoothTouch. Equipped with projective capacitive 10-point touch technology, stylus, IP54 dust and water protection, a wide array of connectors, and a flexible stand for easy portability, this versatile monitor is a high-quality, feature-rich solution for sectors as diverse as retail, point of sale (POS), point of information (POI).

The Philips 222B9T touch monitor ensures smooth, simple, intuitive interaction thanks to such forward-thinking technologies as SmoothTouch, which guarantees a natural, fluid touch response that relies on projected capacitive (PCAP) 10-point touch technology that enables touch-typing with 10 fingers, project sharing with classmates, or interactive gaming with multiple players. Equipped with advanced IP54 protection against contact, water and dust, this monitor is ready for intensive use scenarios, in a wide variety of environments.

MSI is proud to officially announce AMD Radeon VII, the world's first 7nm gaming graphics card. The all-new Radeon VII is designed to provide exceptional performance and amazing experiences for the latest AAA, esports and VR titles, demanding 3D rendering and video editing applications, and next-generation compute workloads.

"AMD Radeon VII is the highest-performance gaming graphics card we have ever created," said Scott Herkelman, corporate vice president and general manager, Radeon Technologies Group at AMD. "It is designed for gamers, creators and enthusiasts who demand ultra-high quality visuals, uncompromising performance and immersive gaming experiences."

The system requirements for 4A Games' Metro: Exodus, the studios' first open-world effort that comes with baked-in NVIDIA RTX support, have been outed. The minimum system requirements for 1080p gaming at 30 FPS uses the Low IQ settings, and should be achieved by an i5-4440 CPU, paired with a 2 GB VRAM graphics card (GeForce GTX 1050 or Radeon HD 7870) and 8 GB of RAM.

For the Extreme IQ settings, at 4K 60 FPS, though, you'll require, obviously, a beast of a system. An Intel Core i9-9900K is the CPU of choice here, paired with 16 GB of RAM and the top of the line NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti. These requirements pressupose the absence of any RTX features, however, so prepare to see your maximum resolution with those features on coming down quickly as you scale the ray tracing capabilities. RTX-specific performance profiles will be released by 4A Games in the coming days.

China-based Hisense came out at CES 2019 with quite an ingenious new display solution that has (speculatively) a much better chance of faster PC monitor integration that OLED. OLED's implementation in PC monitors has been excruciatingly slow despite recent developments of the technology - mainly due to some underlying problems for PC's mostly fixed-image use-cases with its UI elements. As a result, display technology in the monitor space has been somewhat stagnant. Hisense, with its dual-panel ULED XD solution, whoever, could have a much cheaper and easier to implement solution that could bring another technology player to the PC monitor market.

The ULED XD solution basically crams two panels in front of the LED array. One is a 4K, RGB VA panel. This is your run-of-the mill implementation. However, there's a second panel sandwiched between the RGB and LED array in the form of a greyscale, 1080p resolution panel. What does this particular implementation offer, you ask? Well, it just so happens that different lighting conditions across the same RGB image are expanded upon by the grayscale monitor, even if it works at a lower resolution - it only serves to increase contrast if high and low luminosity areas, with black areas being supported by the blacks of the grayscale monitor. And even at that resolution, look at these as local dimming zones - over 2 million of such across a single panel.

ViewSonic Corp., a leading global provider of display solutions, unveils the launch of a new sub-brand of professional gaming monitors. ViewSonic ELITE gaming products are specifically designed with a sleek and minimalistic aesthetic, while boasting practical gamer-centric designs. With decades of display technology experience and heritage, ViewSonic ELITE will deliver next-level gaming products that fit the needs of today's multifaceted gaming community.

ViewSonic ELITE launches with a pair of new gaming monitors: XG240R and XG350R-C. The XG240R and XG350R-C are the first monitors aligned with partnered software programs that enable customizable RGB lighting capabilities. Through partnerships with the industry's top PC peripheral manufacturers, ViewSonic ELITE products allow gamers to take full control over their RGB ecosystems when using these partners' software. When running the software, the RGB lighting harmoniously syncs with other RGB-equipped gaming peripherals and hardware.

Japanese company IO Data has announced a pair of monitors with a blazing fast 240 Hz refresh rate and a sub-1 ms response time. Part of the reason the response time is so low is the usage of TN (Twisted Nematic) panels on the design, which have historically presented faster response times than other mainstream panel technologies. These are available in a 24" size with varying specs according to the refresh rate: there are 60 Hz, 144 Hz, and 240 Hz panels, each with a maximum brightness of 250, 350, and 400 cd/m². Response times vary in 0.8, 0.7, and 0.6 ms, respectively. It's unclear which technology was used to achieve these response times - either some sort of strobe-based lighting, or an impressive overdrive function.

IO Data only makes its monitors available to their domestic market of Japan, so it's likely these won't be available for the global market. However, since these panels aren't manufactured in-house, but are purchased from a supplier (the amount of companies that have the capability to produce their own LCD panels is thin, to say the least), other companies are bound to introduce products based on these panels. IO Data's GigaCrysta-series displays with a sub-1 ms response time are currently available for $142 (60Hz), $265 (144 Hz) and $380 (240 Hz) on Amazon japan.

Philips, via its MMD brand license partner, today announced the launch of the basic, cost-effective 241B8QJEB monitor. The 241B8QJEB is a no-frills, basic monitor for your office use, and would be ideal as a second or third monitor in a non-gaming environment - though of course it would also work for gaming on a budget, though there are many better options for that particular use case. The pricing of £159 goes hand in hand with the 1080p panel, which fogoes the cheaper TN type for the more image-quality-friendly IPS.

The Phlipos 241B8QJEB is an environment-friendly monitor, with 85% of the materials used in its construction being recycled, thus reducing its footprint in the environment. LowBlue Mode, Flicker-free, and the SmartErgoBase provide ease-of-use specs that can be taken advantage of by users. Connectors include VGA, DVI-D, DisplayPort 1.2, HDMI 1.4, and USB 3.0 Super Speed technology.

EA-DICE and NVIDIA earned a lot of bad press last month, when performance numbers for "Battlefield V" with DirectX Raytracing (DXR) were finally out. Gamers were disappointed to see that DXR inflicts heavy performance penalties, with 4K UHD gameplay becoming out of bounds even for the $1,200 GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, and acceptable frame-rates only available on 1080p resolution. DICE has since been tirelessly working to rework its real-time raytracing implementation so performance is improved. Tomorrow (4th December), the studio will release a patch to "Battlefield V," a day ahead of its new Tides of War: Overture and new War Story slated for December 5th. This patch could be a game-changer for GeForce RTX users.

NVIDIA has been closely working with EA-DICE on this new patch, which NVIDIA claims improves the game's frame-rates with DXR enabled by "up to 50 percent." The patch enables RTX 2080 Ti users to smoothly play "Battlefield V" with DXR at 1440p resolution, with frame-rates over 60 fps, and DXR Reflections set to "Ultra." RTX 2080 (non-Ti) users should be able to play the game at 1440p with over 60 fps, if the DXR Reflections toggle is set at "Medium." RTX 2070 users can play the game at 1080p, with over 60 fps, and the toggle set to "Medium." NVIDIA states that it is continuing to work with DICE to improve DXR performance even further, which will take the shape of future game patches and driver updates.A video presentation by NVIDIA follows.

Introducing the brand-new AOC G2590PX G2 Esports Signature Edition gaming monitor. Created in partnership with G2's sponsor and favorite display provider AOC, this special edition monitor combines performance, style and affordability into one package ensuring a smooth, tear and stutter-free gameplay experience. AOC designed this specialized G90 monitor specifically for the G2 Esports professional teams and all gamers who want to upgrade the look of their battle station.

This news post really does serve as a symbolic gesture for the state of the GPU market in the last months (going on to a year now, really). Mainly due to increased demand from crypto users looking to farm and mine their way to financial security and shortages of GPUs, the time to buy a new or even second-hand, latest generation graphics card hasn't been the best. However, now, we're seeing something that wasn't seen for a long time: actual decent pricing in graphics cards. It's still a process, but in that process, this Gigabyte AORUS RX 580 deal at Amazon is the proverbial pin in a haystack.

The Gigabyte AORUS Radeon RX 580 8GB (GV-RX580AORUS-8GD) is available now from Amazon for $209.99 (after a $20 mail-in rebate). If you're in the states and looking for a graphics card that guarantees 1080p performance at max settings, or a decent 1440p experience with somewhat reduced IQ, this could be the graphics card for you - and judging by its Best Seller status, it may very well be the same for many other customers. And for now, there's even stock - how about that. If you're shopping from outside the states and still find this deal mesmerizing (here in Portugal a similar graphics card would go for $410 so... yeah. Take the deal). Here's hoping this is a sign of the incoming times, and not just a freak event.

MMD, the leading technology company and brand license partner for Philips monitors, is releasing the 278E9, the latest addition to the E9 line of consumer displays. Featuring the stylish design and high-quality image performance for which the E9 line is known, the 278E9 offers a curved 27-inch narrow-border Ultra-Wide Color Full HD display for realistic visuals and extra wide viewing angles in addition to features such as AMD FreeSync for a smooth and more fully immersive user experience.

A report via PCGamesN points to some... interesting performance positioning when it comes to NVIDIA and AMD offerings. Battlefield V is being developed by DICE in collaboration with NVIDIA, but it seems there's some sand in the gears of performance improvements as of now. I say this because according to the report, AMD's RX 580 8 GB graphics card (the only red GPU to be tested) bests NVIDIA's GTX 1060 6GB... by quite a considerable margin at that.

The performance difference across both 1080p and 1440p scenarios (with Ultra settings) ranges in the 30% mark, and as has been usually the case, AMD's offerings are bettering NVIDIA's when a change of render - to DX12 - is made - AMD's cards teeter between consistency or worsening performance under DX 12, but NVIDIA's GTX 1060 consistently delivers worse performance levels. Perhaps we're witnessing some bits of AMD's old collaboration efforts with DICE? Still, It's too early to cry wolf right now - performance will only likely improve between now and the October 19th release date.