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.

NEC Display Solutions of America, Inc., a leading provider of commercial LCD displays and projectors, today announced the launch of two 27-inch desktop monitors, the MultiSync E271N and the MultiSync EA271F.

"The MultiSync E271N and the MultiSync EA271F are packed with essential features and designed with business users in mind," said Art Marshall, Senior Product Manager for Desktop Displays at NEC Display Solutions. "Both of these models provide a large desktop workspace with Full HD resolution; lower pixel density, which makes text easier to read; and a three-sided narrow bezel design, which results in fewer distractions."

AOC today announced availability of their budget-conscious G2590FX, their latest addition to the G90 series of monitors (and an improvement to their 6-month old G2590VXQ). The G2590FX has been developed with the budget-conscious gamer in mind. The usage of a TN panel keeps costs lower than other panel options would allow. At the same time, AOC looked towards offering high-quality gaming specs - such as the 1 ms response time, and the 144 Hz panel refresh rate with AMD Freesync support - to allow twitch-players to stay competitive. The 1080p resolution can almost be seen as a bonus, as it ensures the likelihood of users' graphics processing hardware to deliver those 144 Hz.

AOC is touting this monitor as having a 3-side-frameless structure, which does look that way in the media photos - though those usually have to be taken with a grain of salt. Display output connectors include 1x VGA, 1x DisplayPort 1.2, and 2x HDMI 1.4. The AOC G2590FX monitor is now available worldwide at an MSRP of £219.99 (direct conversion puts it at some €252 or $290, but US pricing will likely be lower.

Despite not wanting to do away with Intel's dominance in its portfolio anytime soon, Dell is obviously looking to better round up its product lineup with some red team-powered goodies. Case in point: the 2-in-1 convertible Dell Inspiron 13 7000, which makes use of AMD's latest Ryzen mobile APUs to deliver a strong computing performance, whilst also emphasizing content consumption. There's an option for all budgets (starting from $700 for the base version and up to $1019 for the top-tier one), and the CPU choices are naturally based around either AMD's Ryzen 5 2500U with a Radeon Vega 8 iGPU, or the more powerful Ryzen 7 2700U with a Radeon Vega 10 iGPU (both 4 core, 8-thread CPUs, but with 512 and 640 Vega Stream processors, respectively).

AOC has been making waves with the overall quality and value proposition of each new line of monitors they launch - from the premium to the more budget-conscious offerings. Now, they're introducing a whole new line of monitors that leaves their gaming roots behind in favor of more professional-centric features.

The series will cover the 21.5"-27" range, and panel types will vary between TN and IPS panels according to diagonal and pricing. Starting in the 21.5", the AOC 22P1D is equipped with a 21.5 "TN panel with 1080 screen resolution. The 24P1 is a 23.8" monitor which upgrades the panel to an IPS solution, features a 16:9 screen ratio with 1080p resolution, and a three-frameless bezel. There will be another 24" monitor in the form of the X24P1, which keeps all the features and specs of the 24P1, but brings the screen ratio to 16:10. Rounding out the lineup, we've got the 27" 27P1 (which sports an IPS panel with 1080p resolution) and the flagship 27", Q27P1 (which also sports an IPS panel but increases the resolution to QHD (2560 x 1440).

Intel's upcoming "Hades Canyon" NUC, the spiritual successor to the company's "Skull Canyon" NUC; will be one of the first commercial implementations of the "Kaby Lake-G" multi-chip module, which puts an AMD Radeon Vega M graphics part and a quad-core "Kaby Lake" die together on a package, along with 4 GB of HBM2 memory for the GPU, when they start shipping in Spring 2018, priced between $799-$999. Korean tech publication Playwares got its hands on one of these, and its testing suggests that it achieves the key design goal of Kaby Lake-G: to be able to play any of today's games at 1080p (with acceptable levels of eye-candy.)

Playwares put "Hades Canyon" through three of today's AAA game titles that take advantage of DirectX 12: "Rise of the Tomb Raider," "Tom Clancy's The Division," and "Total War: Warhammer 2." At default clocks, and 1080p resolution, "Rise of the Tomb Raider" puts out around 53 fps, with 45.36 fps (minimum, 99th percentile). When overclocked, the chip averages 59.11 fps, with 50.5 fps (minimum, 99th percentile). "The Division" averages 41.5 fps at default clocks, and 46.8 fps when overclocked. "Warhammer 2" is a lot more taxing on the chip - 27.3 fps average and 23 fps minimum at default clocks, and 30.1 average with 26 fps minimum, when overclocked. One has to take into account that the "Vega M" chip on the Core i7-8709G is significantly more powerful than the iGPU of AMD's Ryzen "Raven Ridge" APUs - 1536 stream processors, 96 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and 1024-bit HBM2 memory; versus 704 stream processors, 44 TMUs, 16 ROPs, and system memory share.

MSI and SteelSeries are proud to announce that thanks to their long-standing technology partnership, the newly launched Optix MPG series curved gaming monitors are now supported by SteelSeries Engine. Using the five RGB zones on the front of the monitor, gamers can easily program lighting effects in the SteelSeries Engine to notify them of in-game timers, stats, cooldowns or even Discord notifications.

Joseph Hsu MSI President said: "The integration of SteelSeries Engine with the Optix MPG Series Curved Gaming Monitors brings PrismSync Illumination and real-time game alerts which offer an even greater level of immersive gameplay." "MSI and SteelSeries are delivering a truly immersive experience to gamers," said SteelSeries CEO, Ehtisham Rabbani said, "SteelSeries is proud of the strong partnership that we continue to build with MSI and we are excited to bring the gaming community new types of immersive technology like this."

BenQ announces the ZOWIE XL2740 monitor. The XL2740 is a 27 inch PC e-Sports monitor with native 240hz refresh rate providing gamers with another option to suit their personal preference. It has the same features as the smaller 24.5 inch XL2540 and in order to experience the benefits in-game, people who are interested should make sure their computer is able to generate over 240 frames per second (fps) consistently. Please stay tuned to our social media for information regarding availability in your region.

Lenovo announced the addition of two new monitors to its ThinkVision lineup. The X24 and P32U are distinct in both diagonal sizes and feature-sets, so let's start with the bigger of the two. The P32U is being touted as a professional-grade display, featuring a 32" diagonal, 4K resolution IPS panel with a maximum 300 cd/m² brightness, 1000:1 contrast ratio, a 6 ms GtG response time, 178°/178° viewing angles as well as a 60 Hz maximum refresh. The monitor covers 99.5% of the AdobeRGB color space, which means that its capabilities exceed those required to display 100% of the sRGB spectrum. Another interesting feature is the support for Thunderbolt 3 daisy-chaining of multiple monitors, external storage sub-systems, or any other TB3 devices. Connectors on this display include 1x DisplayPort 1.2, 2x HDMI 2.0, 1x Thunderbolt 3 input, and 1x Thunderbolt 3 output.

NVIDIA is expanding their GeForce GTX 1060 offerings with a new 5GB model. The GTX 1060 5GB will utilize the GP106-350-K3-A1 GPU and feature 1280 CUDA Cores. It's equipped with 5GB of GDDR5 memory connected by a 160-bit memory interface. Let's remember that the GTX 1060 already comes in three variants - 6GB (9 Gbps), 6GB, and 3GB. So, the question here is: why did NVIDIA suddenly decided to add a fourth member to the already big GTX 1060 family. Apparently, the main motivation behind the 5GB model's creation is to provide internet cafes with a cost-effective option to deliver a 60 FPS gaming experience at 1080p. According to Expreview, the GTX 1060 5GB is exclusive to the Chinese market, and it won't be available at retail. That means you won't find the GTX 1060 5GB on any shelves. If you really want to get your hands on one, online e-commerce websites like Taobao or Alibaba are your only options.

AOC has introduced a budget monitor to its lineup, which looks slightly outdated when compared to the company's flagship monitors. The G2590VXQ is a 25" display that's being marketed towards a budget-aware audience, who still wants to have some of gaming's recent technologies at their side. The 25" panel features a TN panel with the type's blazing fast 1 ms response times, and a 1080p resolution, the latter of which should allow for multiple graphics cards options for the monitors' prospective buyers. However, AOC is thinking that most budget users that care about gaming will pick up an AMD Radeon graphics card, it seems, due to the inclusion of FreeSync in the spec list of the G2590VXQ - though knowing that FreeSync implementation is free, contrary to G-Sync, might also have something to do with it.

FreeSync range should cover the 35 Hz - 75 Hz spectrum, and the monitor itself isn't too bad aestheticwise, with its 3-side frameless design and simple, yet attractive stand. That gaudy red line under the monitor likely will lead users to a "love it or hate it" scenario, but considering the target market, red is all the rage. The monitor is priced relatively high (notice the relatively there), at £159 (roughly $212). For these features, I'd prefer to see a $130 price-tag.

Users looking for a budget 1080p solution for their system, or even just for a secondary display, might be glad to know that Benq has just launched a budget monitor to its lineup that might fit the bill. The GW2480 certainly won't set the world on fire with its specs list, but then again that's not the point, anyway. The point here was to create an affordable monitor that might find its way to budget-conscious users, leveraging the latest software technologies so as to increase the product's attractiveness.

There's an ultra slim bezel design here, which might look good in multi-monitor configurations. Users should keep in mind it doesn't look like the integrated stand supports moving the monitor to a vertical position, however, which could limit such use cases. There's a 5 ms response time on its 1000:1 (12 million:1 DCR) contrast-touting IPS panel. Brightness is at the bottom of usual deliveries: 250 cd/m². Built-in stereo speakers deliver a basic sound experience (1Wx2), and connectivity on the GW2480 stands at 1x D-Sub, 1x HDMI and 1x DisplayPort input ports. Benq has deployed their Brightness Intelligence (BI) as well as Flicker Free technology, with blue light reduction so as to decrease the strain on users' eyes. Budget a solution as it is, the Benq GW2480 will be available starting from December 10th for €139.

Philips has launched the 356M6QJAB/11 monitor, a 35" affair that sports a somewhat anemic resolution of just 1080p for such a diagonal size. Besides being aesthetically pleasing - whose mileage may vary, as always - there's not much to gloat about regarding its features, except for one thing: this monitor sports Philips' proprietary Ambiglow technology.

Ambiglow marries image processing capabilities with RGB LEDs that add to the viewing experience by projecting the on-screen color shifts around the monitor's bezels towards a close-proximity wall. It's not clear from Philips' product page, but it seems that this monitor's Ambiglow tech is only available on the bottom of the monitor - if so, this seems to be a mistake, since usually, the top and sides are preferred areas for color display (this editor speaks as a user of a Lightpack PC solution.)