On the first day of Computex, we sifted past the In Win 909, which at the time, we thought was a wacky enough case by In Win for this year; until the company dropped this on us, the next day. This unnamed In Win case (working title: "H-tower prototype") is being designed with the ASUS ROG brand licensed; which could be sold directly to the consumers, and part of an ASUS ROG desktop. The case looks like any heavily styled ATX mid-tower with premium aluminium panels, until you push a button, making the case open up like a blooming mech-flower from Cybertron, giving you easy access to its innards. There was nobody around the exhibit who wasn't gaping at it.The way it opens up is so cool that we decided to take a short video (after the break).

ASUS' mainline motherboard lineup based on the upcoming Intel Z170 chipset could retain the black + glossy white design scheme from the company's X99 mainline motherboard series. The company showed off its premium upper-mid segment Z170-Pro motherboard, which could be sold around the $170-$190 price range. This socket LGA1151 motherboard offers a 16-phase CPU VRM, a new high-capacity VRM heatsink design; and four DDR4 DIMM slots, supporting up to 64 GB of dual-channel DDR4-3000 memory.

Expansion slots include three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (x16/NC/NC or x8/x8/NC or x8/x4/x4), and four PCI-Express 2.0 x1. Storage connectivity includes eight SATA 6 Gb/s, from which two wire out as a SATA-Express 16 Gb/s slot; and an M.2 slot. Other modern connectivity includes two USB 3.1 ports, eight USB 3.0 ports, two Intel-driven gigabit Ethernet interfaces, 802.11 ac WLAN with Bluetooth 4.0, and Crystal Sound 2 audio (115 dBA SNR CODEC, ground-layer isolation, audio-grade capacitors, EMI shielding, and DTS Ultra PC II).

ASUS' new generation triple-fan STRIX cooling solution was up on display at Computex. This gargantuan cooler will make its debut with the GeForce GTX 980 Ti STRIX OC, and is designed to tame the 250W TDP chip, by staying completely silent until the chip breaches a 65°C temperature threshold, and staying low-noise beyond that. It features a very large aluminium fin-stack, to which heat drawn directly from the GPU die is conveyed by 10 mm-thick nickel-plated copper heat pipes. The heatsink is ventilated by three 100 mm fans, with independent speed control using ASUS GPU Tweak tool. The GTX 980 Ti STRIX features a huge PCB that's 1.5x the standard add-on card height; and features a back-plate. It will ship with a 15% factory-overclock.

ASUS unveiled two new high-end 7.1-channel sound cards under its premium STRIX brand, the STRIX RAID DLX, the STRIX RAID Pro, and the STRIX Soar. The three are based on a common base card design, and differ with features and DSPs. The DAC component of the card consists of a native-PCIe multi-CODEC HD audio controller, wired to an ESS SABRE 9006a DAC, dedicated to the front audio output, with 116 dBA SNR; and a separate 110 dBA SNR DAC wired to the main headphones amplifier. On the RAID DLX, the front-out DAC is a higher quality SABRE 9016a.

The main amp can handle 600Ω impedance headphones. On the software side of things, is a Raid mode (positional audio), Sonic Radar (lets you pinpoint enemies based on audio, and a new Sonic Studio control panel interface. The RAID DLX and RAID Pro come with an external module with audio jacks, and physical switches to audio feature controls, besides volume control.

Here's the first picture of ASUS X99M-WS, an upcoming workstation-grade socket LGA2011v3 motherboard based on the Intel X99 Express chipset, which the company claims will be the "most powerful" motherboard of its kind in this form-factor. The board draws power from 24-pin ATX, and two 8-pin EPS power connectors, with an optional 6-pin PCIe power input to stabilize power to add-on cards. The socket is wired to four DDR4 DIMM slots, supporting up to 128 GB of quad-channel DDR4 memory; and two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 connectors.

Other expansion slots include one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x4) and a PCI-Express 2.0 x1. Storage connectivity includes eight SATA 6 Gb/s, and a 32 Gb/s M.2 slot. Other connectivity includes two USB 3.1 ports, six USB 3.0 ports, two gigabit Ethernet interfaces (Intel-made controllers); 802.11 ac WLAN, Bluetooth 4.0, 8-channel HD audio with a 115 dBA SNR CODEC, ground-layer isolation, and audio-grade capacitors. The board supports certain 1P Intel Xeon models in addition to Core i7 ones.

Here are some of the first pictures of retail packages of NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce GTX 980 Ti graphics card, sold by ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI. The three are reference-design cards, which stick to reference speeds. A leaked retailer presentation by ASUS confirms the specifications of this SKU, as being based on the GM200 silicon, with 2,816 CUDA cores, and 6 GB of GDDR5 memory across its 384-bit wide memory interface. Reference clock speeds are almost identical to those of the GTX TITAN X, with 1000 MHz core, 1076 MHz GPU Boost, and 7012 MHz (GDDR5-effective) memory. The GTX 980 Ti launches in the first week of June.

PRC-based Colorful, which started out as (and continues to be) a vendor of wacky, over-the-top GeForce GTX graphics cards, has surpassed industry stalwarts MSI, ASUS and Gigabyte, in terms of graphics cards shipped worldwide this year, according to industry numbers published by DigiTimes. The report notes that Colorful could become the second largest graphics card maker in terms of shipments by the end of the year, next only to Palit (the current leader in terms of shipments).

Colorful has been clocking an average of 500,000 graphics cards shipped per month, and is projected to have shipped over 5 million cards in 2015. The company has currently outsold ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, and ZOTAC, all of which are multinationals. Colorful has developed a strong brand-image in the Greater China region, particularly in the mainland. With a brand portfolio that includes Galaxy, Gainward, Point of View, and its own namesake, Palit is the biggest graphics card manufacturer by volume. Colorful's motherboard business is accelerating at a similar rate, and the report notes that the company could become "a very big threat" to ASUS and Gigabyte.

G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world's leading manufacturer of extreme performance memory and solid state storage, is hosting two major extreme overclocking events at Computex 2015 (June 2~6): the OC World Cup 2015 and the OC World Record Stage 2015! 19 world-class overclockers, 5 motherboard vendors, and 3 hardware sponsors - all at the G.SKILL Computex Booth I0608, located at Nangang Exhibition Hall, 1F.

Very special thanks to Intel, Samsung, and Kingpin Cooling for sponsoring the OC World Cup 2015 and the 4th Annual OC World Record Stage extreme overclocking events. "Intel is pleased to be a sponsor of this year's G.SKILL OC World Cup & 4th Annual OC World Record Stage at Computex 2015," says Gregory Bryant, Corporate Vice President and General Manager, Intel Corporation. "Intel processors and chipsets enable mind-blowing experiences and we are glad to be a part of this exciting event."

Here are some of the first pictures of an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti graphics card, in the flesh. As predicted, the reference design board reuses the PCB of the GeForce GTX TITAN-X, and its cooler is a silver version of its older sibling. According to an older report, the GTX 980 Ti will be carved out of the 28 nm GM200 silicon, by disabling 2 of its 24 SMM units, resulting in a CUDA core count of 2,816. The card retains its 384-bit GDDR5 memory bus width, but holds 6 GB of memory, half that of the GTX TITAN-X. The card is expected to launch in early June, 2015. NVIDIA's add-in card (AIC) partners will be free to launch custom-design boards with this SKU, so you could hold out for the MSI Lightnings, the EVGA Classifieds, the ASUS Strixes, the Gigabyte G1s, and the likes.

ASUS unveiled a value micro-ATX motherboard based on the new Intel Celeron N3150 SoC "Braswell." This 14 nanometer chip embeds a quad-core CPU based on the "Airmont" architecture, an integrated GPU with 12 execution units, and a dual-channel DDR3L-1600 memory controller, apart from platform core-logic. The board draws power from a 24-pin ATX and 4-pin CPU power connectors.

The SoC, with its 6W rated TDP, is cooled by a fan-less heatsink. The SoC is wired to two DDR3 DIMM slots, a PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot, and two PCI-Express 2.0 x1 slots, apart from the board's I/O. Storage connectivity includes two SATA 6 Gb/s ports. Display outputs include HDMI and D-Sub. Gigabit Ethernet, four USB 3.0 ports, and onboard audio with audio-grade capacitors and ground-layer isolation; make for the rest of its modern connectivity.

G.SKILL International Enterprises Co., Ltd., the world's leading manufacturer of extreme performance memory and solid state storage, is thrilled to announce the world's first DDR4 128GB(16GBx8) 2800MHz CL16-16-16 -36 1.35V memory kit based on the newest 16GB capacity DDR4 consumer-class memory modules. These high capacity memory modules are manufactured with new 8Gb ICs produced on the latest 20nm fabrication process, which takes performance to a whole new level, by Samsung Electronics.

While 16GB capacity have been available for server memory in the past, support and design for such large capacity memory modules are now paving its way to consumer memory modules, suitable for workstation level workloads where high capacity memory is vital. These new G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 series high capacity memory kits are capable of running in quad-channel at a grand total of 128GB, and have already been validated on the latest ASUS X99 Rampage V Extreme motherboard with Intel Haswell-E processors. A stress-testing screenshot of the newly released memory kit with 16GB DDR4 modules can be found below.

ASUS today announced that it is the world's first motherboard brand to support all NVM Express (NVMe) storage devices via a simple UEFI BIOS update and optional ASUS Hyper Kit expansion card.

The free UEFI BIOS update enable all ASUS X99 and Z97 motherboards to be compatible with the latest NVMe storage devices, including those with PCI Express (PCIe) and M.2 (PCIe) interfaces. All ASUS X99 motherboards are also compatible with the latest 2.5-inch NVMe SFF-8639 solid-state drives (SSDs), via the exclusive ASUS Hyper Kit expansion card - for ultimate data-transfer bandwidth up to 32 Gbit/s.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced the ROG GR6 ultra-compact desktop, a console-inspired 2.5-liter PC with supreme gaming performance. GR6 is powered by a 5th-generation Intel Core i5 processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M graphics for Full HD gaming. It features 8GB of DDR3L memory (upgradable to 16GB), and hard disk or solid state drives (SSD). GR6 also has built-in 802.11ac Wi-Fi and comes pre-installed with Windows 8.1. GR6 features a matte-black finish, Mayan-inspired detailing, and a pulsing ROG logo. It is ideal for gaming in the living room or bedroom, and is portable enough to take to LAN parties.

ASUS today announced TUF Trooper B85, a rugged, high-value motherboard designed to withstand all conditions and heavy loading, and tested to exacting military standards for total protection to offer exceptional durability and long-term reliability. TUF Trooper B85 is certified by TUF engineers as a server-strength motherboard and is covered by a five-year warranty.

TUF Trooper B85 incorporates many exclusive TUF features, including the military-grade TUF LANGuard Ethernet socket and TUF ESD Guards 2 to protect against electrostatic discharge. Based on the versatile Intel B85 Express chipset, TUF's newest addition also benefits from ultra-durable TUF Components, high-fidelity TUF Audio with physical shielding, and flexible temperature-management with TUF Thermal Radar Core.

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 68.5 million units in the first quarter of 2015 (1Q15), a year-on-year decline of -6.7%, and slightly ahead of previous projections, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker.

Following a strong second half of 2014, which benefitted from the tailwind of the Windows XP refresh and pockets of price-driven consumer activity, the Q1 market faced multiple headwinds - including inventory build-up of Windows Bing based notebooks, commercial slow down following the XP refresh and constrained demand in many regions due to currency fluctuations and unfavorable economic indicators. As a result, growth and volume declined with Q1 shipments below 69 million units, the lowest recorded volume since Q1 2009.

In addition to the GeForce GTX 980 20th Anniversary Edition, ASUS rolled out a snappy new GeForce GTX 970 graphics card, the Turbo GTX 970. ASUS started off its GTX 970 lineup with the top-flow heatsink based GTX 970 Strix, topping it up with the GTX 970 DCU2 Mini. What the company was lacking was a card with a conventional lateral-blower based cooler, which exhaust hot air directly out of the case. That's where this product comes in.

The Turbo GTX 970 appears to be based on the same short PCB as the GTX 970 DCU2 Mini, but strapped to a longer lateral-flow cooling solution, featuring a dense aluminium fin-channel heatsink, and a base-plate drawing heat from the memory and VRM, ventilated by the blower, which pushes air right out of the case. ASUS offers factory-overclocked speeds of 1088 MHz core with 1228 MHz GPU Boost. If this card is indeed based on the DCU2 PCB, then its power inputs include just one 8-pin PCIe power connectors. If however, it's derived from NVIDIA's cost-effective reference PCB (which has been modified and used by brands such as ZOTAC and Palit), then it could feature two 6-pin power inputs. Display outputs include two dual-link DVI, and one each of HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2 connectors.

ASUS announced what it claims to be the fastest GeForce GTX 980 graphics card out of the box. Called the ASUS GTX 980 20th Anniversary Gold Edition, this card marks ASUS' 20 years of presence in the PC graphics card market. Based essentially on the GTX 980 ROG MATRIX Platinum, this card features a black and gold color scheme, and a higher factory-overclock than its ROG sibling. Its cooler shroud and back-plate feature matte-black and gold-painted metal panels. The rear I/O shield is matte-black, while the connectors are gold-plated.

Under the shroud, the card features the company's largest trim of the DirectCU II cooler, featuring matte-black aluminium fins, and matte black copper heat pipes, ventilated by a pair of 100 mm spinners, which stay off until a temperature threshold of 65°C is reached. Given the size of that heatsink, we reckon a large silence headroom, even while casual-gaming, before the fans begin to spin.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced the ROG Sica optical gaming mouse and ROG Whetstone mouse pad. ROG Sica has an ambidextrous design and is especially ideal for fingertip grip gamers. The ROG Whetstone mouse pad features a silicone-fabric construction that gives it excellent mouse tracking qualities for smooth, precise control; it is also both portable and durable. Both feature Mayan-inspired markings and the distinctive red and black ROG color scheme. ROG sought input from Taipei Assassins, a professional e-sports team, to ensure both products perform exceptionally in the gaming arena.

ROG Sica has a compact, ambidextrous design optimized for multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) gamers of all grip types. It features a simple independent two-button and single clickable scroll-wheel setup, with durable Omron switches. The left and right mouse buttons are separated from the main mouse body to reduce travel distance to ensure increased button tactility and responsiveness. An improved exclusive easy-swap switch socket design lets users customize click resistance.

ASUS today announced TUF Sabertooth X99, the world's first consumer desktop motherboard to support all NVM Express storage devices, including PCI Express (PCIe), M.2 PCI Express and the latest 2.5-inch solid-state drives (SSDs) with SFF-8639 via the mini SAS HD connector on the Hyper Kit1 expansion card. With built-in USB 3.1, TUF Sabertooth X99 maximizes choice for ultra-high-speed transfer options speeds, handing users total flexibility.

TUF's newest motherboard additionally introduces all-new and exclusive TUF Detective technology that displays live system information on smartphones and tablets, right at users' fingertips. TUF Sabertooth X99 is also equipped for ultimate cooling with exclusive TUF Thermal Armor, TUF Thermal Radar 2 and TUF ICe technologies. Exceptional durability and tested reliability is assured, with TUF Fortifier and TUF Components, including 10K capacitors, TUF chokes and a military-grade MOSFET.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced the G501 series gaming laptop. One of the thinnest laptops in its class, G501 is just 20.6mm tall and weighs as little as 2.06kg (for non-touchscreen models) - ideal for gaming on the go.

G501 is powered by the 4th-generation Intel Core i7 processor and the new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M graphics for an unrivalled gaming experience. This impressive power is supported by ASUS-exclusive Hyper Cool technology with dual independent fans, delivering smooth, stable performance for both gaming and professional content creation. In addition, G501 has a 15.6-inch 4K/UHD (ultra-high definition) display with 8.2-million pixels to treat users to incredibly detailed visuals and lifelike colors.

TechPowerUp released the latest version of GPU-Z, the popular video hardware information and diagnostic utility. Version 0.8.2 brings with it a vast number of changes, support for new hardware, and bug-fixes. To begin with, the user-interface of GPU-Z received a major update, with the addition of a "Lookup" button that takes you to our GPU Database page corresponding to your GPU. The app can now tell you if your drivers are WHQL-signed. GPU manufacturer logos are updated.

Among the new hardware supported includes NVIDIA GeForce TITAN-X, GTX 980M, GTX 970M, GGTX 965M, GTX 845M, GTX 760 Ti OEM, GTX 660 (960 shaders), GT 705, GT 720, GT 745M, NVS 310, and Grid; AMD Radeon R9 255, FirePro W7100, HD 8370D, AMD R9 M280X, and R9 M295X; and Intel "Broadwell" integrated graphics. Specifications are revised for GeForce GTX 970.

A large number of bugs were fixed, and overall usability improved, including notably GPU-Z now supports Windows 10. We implemented a new working way of extracting BIOS from NVIDIA GPUs on systems with WIndows 8 and higher, to avoid a system hang. A large number of bugs were fixed, and overall usability of the app improved, as detailed in the change-log.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.8.2 | GPU-Z 0.8.2 ASUS ROG-themed

The Change-log follows.

ASUS today announced that all 9 Series motherboards offer support for 5th-generation Intel Core processors, assuring a quick, safe, and smooth upgrade - immediately. The easy-to-use ASUS USB BIOS Flashback or BIOS Updater tools enable users to update the UEFI BIOS quickly, unleashing the great performance of the latest high-performance CPUs.

ASUS 9 Series motherboards that include the renowned ASUS USB BIOS Flashback feature enable users to apply UEFI BIOS updates with incredible ease. This innovative tool downloads the latest BIOS to a USB flash drive, enabling users to update the award-winning ASUS UEFI BIOS quickly and easily. The motherboard does not even need to have a CPU or DRAM modules in place: users can simply connect the power supply, plug in their USB drive, press the USB BIOS Flashback or Reset button and then sit back and wait - there's nothing else to do.

ASUS joined the 4 GB GeForce GTX 960 party with a variant of its STRIX OC graphics card, the STRIX-GTX960-DC2OC-4GD5. The card features 4 GB of memory across the chip's 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory bus, and offers factory-overclocked speeds of 1291 MHz core, 1317 MHz GPU Boost, compared to reference speeds of 1126/1178 MHz, and an untouched 7010 MHz memory (GDDR5-effective).

A star attraction here, is ASUS's DirectCU II STRIX cooling solution, which features a meaty aluminium fin-stack heatsink that's ventilated by a pair of fans that stay off until a temperature threshold is reached. So the card is completely silent unless you're subjecting it to heavy 3D loads. The card features a back-plate, to cool memory chips located there. It draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector. Display outputs include three DisplayPort 1.2, and one each of HDMI 2.0 and dual-link DVI. ASUS didn't announce pricing or availability.

Boutique memory modules designer Avexir unveiled its flagship DDR3 memory module, the RAIDEN. This double-height module features a plasma tube on its top, which lights up with a blue lightning-effect, which could look awesome in cyberpunk case-mods. The module could pair particularly well with ASUS Z97 Sabertooth Mark S, ASUS X99 series, and MSI Krait series motherboards.

Form aside, the module has some pretty formidable specs - an 8-layer main PCB, XMP profiles of up to DDR3-2400 MHz, a machined aluminium heatsink drawing heat away from the DRAM chips, and hand-binned DRAM chips for the best overclocked performance. The RAIDEN comes in speeds of DDR3-1866 and DDR3-2400, densities of 4 GB and 8 GB, and in dual- and quad-channel kits that are combinations of the two top-level specs. Avexir didn't reveal pricing or availability.

A fusion between PC hardware giant ASUS' Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand, and Valve's Steam Machines, was bound to happen. With the new ROG GR8S, ASUS has taken a plunge into the exciting new gaming platform that bridges living room gaming consoles, and full-blown gaming PCs, backed by Steam. The ROG GR8S is roughly as big as a modern console such as Xbox One, but features ASUS' signature red and black ROG product design.

The ROG GR8S is peppered with a lot more wired connectivity than a console, offering two USB 2.0 (for controllers, keyboards, mice), four USB 3.0 SuperSpeed ports, DisplayPort 1.2, HDMI 2.0 - both of support 4K Ultra HD at 60 Hz; gigabit Ethernet (Intel controller), digital and analog multi-channel audio connectivity. Under the hood, ASUS offers Intel Core i5 or Core i7 processors (options), GeForce GTX 900 "Maxwell" graphics (options), between 4 GB and 16 GB of DDR3 system RAM (options), either 500 GB to 1 TB HDD or 128 GB to 512 GB SSD storage, and an 802.11 ac WLAN controller with Miracast receiver.