Thought the 1920x1200 pixel 10.1-inch Super IPS+ display with ASUS Transformer Infinity tablet carried shock-value? Wait till you hear what Samsung's innovators have been up to. They've managed to develop a market-ready 4.8-inch display for the upcoming Galaxy S III smartphone that packs a whopping 1920x1080 pixels resolution, which smokes Apple's Retina display the iPhone 4S comes with (960x640 pixels in a 3.5-inch screen), or the 1280x800 pixels AMOLED screen Samsung's own Galaxy Note phone-tablet-thingy comes with. Then there are PC monitor vendors with the audacity of selling 27-inch monitors with the same 1920x1080 pixels resolution for upwards of $500. Multi-billion Dollar price-fixing scam much?

In addition to officially announcing the Full HD-capable Transformer Prime TF700T flagship, ASUS today also revealed another 10.1-inch tablet powered by NVIDIA's Tegra 3 4-PLUS-1 processor, the Transformer Pad 300.

Codenamed TF300T, this new model measures 263 x 180.8 x 9.9 mm, it weights 635 grams, and features a plastic chassis (colored in red, white or blue), a 10.1-inch (1280 x 800) Super IPS capacitive touchscreen, a 1.2 GHz Tegra 3 chip, 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of built-in storage (plus 8 GB of ASUS WebStorage), a microSD card slot, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 1.2 MP front camera, and a battery enabling up to 10 hours of operation (battery life goes up to 15 hours when the tablet is connected to the separately-sold keyboard dock).

ASUS' tablet also comes with 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity, a micro HDMI port, an accelerometer, an ambient light sensor, a gyroscope, an e-compass, GPS, and it runs Android 4.0 (aka Ice Cream Sandwich). The Transformer Pad 300 is said to cost $399.

Till Apple's 2048x1536 pixel Retina Display materializes with the iPad 3, ASUS can stake claim to having a 10-inch tablet with the highest pixel-density on its display. The new Transformer Pad Infinity (formerly known as Eee Pad Transformer Prime TF700T in its CES exhibition), packs a 1920x1200 Super IPS+ display with a capacitive touchscreen. The tablet is convertible to a netbook by attaching a base dock that gives it a keyboard and trackpad. It is driven by NVIDIA Tegra3 4+1 core processor clocked at 1.60 GHz, with a customized version of Google's Android OS.

ASUS chose the Milan Fashion Week as the perfect launch-pad for its Zenbook UX21 Rose Gold Ultrabook. Zenbook is ASUS' premium Ultrabook brand. The new UX21 Rose Gold variant sticks to the 11-inch, 2 cm-thick chassis, with a premium 2-tone alloy finish, with a brushed rose-gold lid. This finish also extends to the bezel around the display, and some other parts. Under the hood is an Intel Core i5-2467M processor, 4 GB DDR3 memory, and a 128 GB SSD. The ASUS ZenBook UX21E Rose Gold will be priced around 999€.A video presentation follows.

GUN'G'STAR of TeamRussia successfully achieved an overclocking record of 5.666 GHz for the quad-core Intel Core i7-3820 processor; a feat that validates the LGA2011 i7-3820 of being a generally good chip for overclocking, despite being "Limited Unlocked" (BClk multiplier being unlocked only to a few notches above its stock setting). GUN'G'STAR achieved a clock speed of 5,665.99 MHz using a BClk speed of 131.74 MHz, a multiplier value of 43x, and core voltage of 1.6V. The chip was assisted with GeIL-made DDR3-1600 memory sitting on all four channels, and ASUS Rampage IV Extreme motherboard. Only 2 out of 4 cores of the i7-3820 were enabled for the feat, HyperThreading was disabled. Extreme cooling was used. The CPU-Z validation can be accessed here.

ASUS' dual-LGA2011 workstation motherboard, the Z9PE-D8-WS, has been listed by Canadian retailer NCIX for pre-order. It is priced at CA $632.98 (US $634.56). The store page does not go on to mention availability, except that orders will be shipped whenever there are inventories. Given its pre-order listing, we expect the product-launch of the Z9PE-D8-WS not to be too far, considering Intel's launch of a large number of "Sandy Bridge-EP" Xeon processors is just around the corner (within Q1, 2012). The Z9PE-D8-WS is designed to support 2P configurations based on Xeon "Sandy Bridge-EP" processors. The motherboard is further detailed here. To PC enthusiasts, it presents a potential alternative to EVGA's SR-X.Image Courtesy: VR-Zone

ASUS decided to bail on this year's edition of CeBIT, Europe's biggest consumer electronics and computer expo, held annually in Hanover, Germany. It has reportedly scrapped plans of setting up a booth there. What makes this big news is that it's ASUS - the single biggest vendor of PC motherboards, a notable vendor of notebooks, netbooks, and other computer hardware. Perhaps it's the timing of CeBIT that ASUS isn't quite liking, which falls right in between CES, held in early-January, in the US; and Computex, held mid-year in Taiwan, home of most computer hardware manufacturers, including ASUS. CES and Computex both have a fair attendance of European press anyway. No other companies similar to ASUS have reported to scrap their CeBIT plans. ASRock and Biostar have plans to set up small booths.

Apple shipped nearly 23.4 million mobile PCs in Q4'11, up 128% Y/Y, and over 62.8 million mobile PCs in 2011, up 132% Y/Y, according to preliminary results from the latest NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly Mobile PC Shipment and Forecast Report. Nearly 80% of Apple's mobile PC shipments were iPads, more than 18.7 million shipped in the quarter, up 156% Y/Y, and 48.4 million units for the year, up 183% Y/Y.

Overall mobile PC shipments grew 12% Q/Q and 44% Y/Y, reaching 88 million units in Q4'11. This was driven by continuing strong demand for tablets. Tablet PC shipment growth was 42% Q/Q and 210% Y/Y, reaching 31.7 million units in Q4'11. Notebook PC shipments were flat Q/Q but up nearly 11% Y/Y, reaching 56.3 million units. As expected, consumer mobile PC adoption was focused on tablets, holding up demand in notebooks.

ASUS launched its Radeon HD 7700 series with two cards, both non-reference design, which take advantage of proven cooler designs ASUS used in previously-launched models. The Radeon HD 7770 card is based on its DirectCU cooler that has been used on a number of upper-mid range graphics cards. Its cooler consists of a heat-pipe fed aluminum fin array, in which the heat-pipes make direct contact with the GPU die. This card bears slightly overclocked speeds, with the core clocked at 1020 MHz (vs. 1000 MHz reference), and 1150 MHz / 4.60 GHz memory (vs. 1125 / 4.50 GHz reference) memory.

The Radeon HD 7750 card from ASUS uses a non-reference PCB and a cooler design which has been implemented on several mid-range graphics cards by the company in the past it is a fan-heatsink with spirally-projecting aluminum fins, with a copper core at the center. The heatsink is ventilated by a large fan, which is known to be very quiet. Like its bigger brother, this card too features slightly overclocked speeds, with the core clocked at 820 MHz (vs. 800 MHz reference), and 1150 MHz / 4.60 GHz memory (vs. 1125 / 4.50 GHz reference) memory. Expect these cards to stick to common prices of US $159 for the HD 7770 and $109 for the HD 7750.

The ASUS O!Play TV Pro upgrades living room TV viewing to a completely digital HD and live experience, enabling easy content consumption and distribution. Features open up playback and recording of digital programs, as well as almost any multimedia file currently available with over 50 formats supported, including 3D. Exclusive O!Easy technology adds specific one-click functions that cover file streaming, sharing, and replay, while an always-on design affords direct access to many major online entertainment and content services, all from a single user-friendly device.

Announced late last year together with the HS-W1 Wireless Headset, ASUS' MS-100 USB speakers have now went their separate way to be the focus of an unboxing/preview piece. Pictured below, the stereo speakers target mobile users and feature a cone design, a glossy black coating, a rubber stand that reduces vibration, and only USB connectivity (no need for a separate power cord).

The MS-100 makes use of 54 mm drivers, it has a frequency response of 100 Hz to 20 KHz, and delivers a total output of 3 W RMS. Still no word on pricing or availability but it's likely the speakers will be out very soon.

Ushering the finest and most capable graphics card based on new AMD "Tahiti" 28nm GPUs, the ASUS HD 7970 DirectCU II TOP uses a factory-overclocked core and 3 GB of GDDR5. It is cooled by the exclusive DirectCU II, a dual fan thermal design with six copper heatpipes and a large dissipation area that leads to the lowest temperatures and quietest operation of any HD 7970 card.

ASUS DIGI+ VRM 12-phase digital power delivery comes to graphics cards improved with Super Alloy Power components, while overclockers are bound to appreciate the inclusion of exclusive VGA Hotwire hardware overvolting and GPU Tweak software tuning. The new cards further support adapter-free AMD Eyefinity 6.

Responding to increasing prices of key raw materials such as copper, and spiraling labor costs, motherboard manufacturers are planning price-hikes of their products by as much as 10%, which will take effect by the end of Q1, 2012. Vendors adopting these increased prices include major players such as ASUS and Gigabyte. Motherboard prices were earlier raised by 5-10% in early-2011 to tune in with increased material costs and the impact of labor shortages, and by 3-8% in April 2011 due to shortages and increased prices of components sourced from Japan, in the wake of the earthquake/tsunami disaster of 2011.

ASUS kicked off its Radeon HD 7950 graphics card lineup with three models, the HD7950-3GD5 which sticks to the cost-effective AMD reference design; the HD7950-DC2-3GD5, which is a DirectCu II model that sticks to AMD reference clock-speeds; and the HD7950-DC2T-3GD5, which is a DirectCu II TOP model, which features factory-overclocked speeds of 900 MHz core with 1250 MHz memory, while the other two models feature 800 MHz core with 1250 MHz memory.

The HD7950-3GD5, which likely sells for US $449, is based on AMD's cost-effective central-fan reference design. The HD7950-DC2-3GD5 uses the company's triple-slot DirectCu II cooler, which is also featured on the Radeon HD 7970 DirectCu II, and is known to provide excellent cooling with low noise, though at the expense of its size. This card will likely be $15-20 costlier. Lastly there's the HD7950-DC2T-3GD5, which likely charges a further $20 premium for its factory overclocked speeds, taking its price close to $490.

It's no secret that Microsoft's proprietary gesture-recognition technology it originally launched on the Xbox platform, is making its way to PCs, as software developers have access to Kinect for Windows SDK. What's interesting, though, is that soon people won't need a creepy-looking three-eyed device facing them to recognize their gestures. They will, instead, be embedded into notebook display bezels the way web-cameras are.

The Daily reports that it has seen a pair of notebook prototypes that appeared to have been "ASUS notebooks running Windows 8," with their web-cam replaced by a row of optical sensors on top of the screen, and a row of LEDs said to be at the bottom. Some might think that this is ASUS' very own Kinect-alternative WAVI Xtion, but The Daily also confirmed with a source at Microsoft that these prototypes are indeed of notebooks that are Kinect-enabled.

One month after making its North American debut, ASUS' ET2700 27-inch All-in-One desktop PC is now gearing up to reach European retail and e-tail. Set to ship in Europe next month, the All-in-One (codenamed ET2700INKS-B005C) has a Full HD (1920 x 1080) MVA display, a Core i5-2400S processor, 6 GB of RAM, a 2 TB (5400 RPM) hard drive, a GeForce GT 540M 1 GB graphics card, and a Blu-ray combo drive.

ASUS' PC also packs Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, a 3-in-1 card reader, a 2.0-megapixel webcam, a TV tuner, two 3.5W speakers (an external subwoofer is included in the package), two USB 3.0 ports, and both D-Sub and HDMI outputs.

The ET2700 runs Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, it comes bundled with a wireless keyboard and mouse and a remote control, and is set to cost 1,399 Euro.

Here is the first GPU-Z screenshot of a Radeon HD 7950 graphics card. Although put into a screenshot with ASUS GPU Tweak tool and Republic of Gamers-themed GPU-Z, the card doesn't appear to be an ASUS-made one, and is more likely HIS or PowerColor. The device ID checks out with the one HD 7950 has been associated with. Most other features match expectations. The HD 7950 is carved out of the 28 nm "Tahiti" GPU, with 28 GCN compute units (CUs) active, totaling 1,792 stream processors and 112 TMUs. The ROP count is untouched at 32, so is the memory, that's 3 GB GDDR5 across a 384-bit wide memory interface. With a memory clock of 5.00 GHz effective, it's churning out 240 GB/s of memory bandwidth. It's just the core clock speed where we weren't on target (from the previously-expected 800 MHz), either 880 MHz is the reference core clock speed of HD 7950, or this particular card is a factory-OC variant (PowerColor HD 7950 PCS?).

Without making much noise ASUS has made available, in Germany at least, a new, Fusion-flavored (or should we say heterogeneous-heavy?) Eee PC, the 10.1-inch R051BX. Available in black (but coming soon in white), this netbook weights 1.17 kg, and has an LED-backlit (1024 x 600) display, an AMD C-50 (dual x86 cores @ 1.0 GHz, Radeon HD 6250 graphics) APU, 1 GB of RAM, a 320 GB hard drive, and a 2,200 mAh battery.

The Eee PC R051BX has Windows 7 Starter pre-installed and costs 259 Euro.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of GPU-Z, our popular video subsystem information and diagnostic utility that provides you with accurate information about the graphics hardware installed, and lets you monitor their clock speeds, fan speeds, voltages, VRAM consumption, etc., in real-time. Version 0.5.8 introduces two new features. The first one is a render test that applies sufficient load (not stress) on the GPU to pull it out of PCI-Express link-state power-management, to ensure the Bus information is accurate. If you find the PCI-Express bus link speed or PCIe version displayed incorrectly, simply click on the "?" button next to the field to launch the load test.

The next new feature is ASIC quality, designed for NVIDIA Fermi (GF10x and GF11x GPUs) and AMD Southern Islands (HD 7800 series and above), aimed at advanced users, hardware manufacturers, and the likes. We've found the ways in which AMD and NVIDIA segregate their freshly-made GPU ASICs based on the electrical leakages the chips produce (to increase yield by allotting them in different SKUs and performance bins), and we've found ways in which ASIC quality can be quantified and displayed. Find this feature in the context menu of GPU-Z. We're working on implementing this feature on older AMD Radeon GPUs.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.5.8, TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.5.8 ASUS ROG Themed

The full change-log follows.

Here are the first pictures of ASUS' premium DirectCu II graphics card designed around AMD's Radeon HD 7970 GPU. The design is based on giving the GPU a powerful cooling solution, backed by a custom-design PCB. Since its cooling solution spans across three expansion slots, one of the three expansion slot brackets is productively used to provide additional display connectivity. To begin with, the PCB uses a 10+1+1 ASUS Digi+ VRM that draws power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors. It supports heavy overclocking, and provides several voltage tuning features.

A common metal heatsink spans along the length of the card, making contact with VRM and memory components. On top of this sits the DirectCu II heatsink. This heatsink uses a large aluminum fin-stack heatsink to which heat from the GPU is conveyed by six heat-pipes, which make direct contact with it. The heatsink itself isn't very thick, but what makes the card span across three slots are its two 100 mm fans. The GPU is clocked out of the box at 1000 MHz (vs. 925 MHz reference), and 5.60 GHz/1400 MHz actual memory (vs. 5.50 GHz/1375 MHz actual reference).

ASUS B23E 12.5-inch Business Laptop goes up for Pre-order

The ASUSPRO B Series of business-grade laptops will soon be added a new model, one known as the B23E which weights as low as 1.55 kg and features a durable magnesium-aluminum alloy chassis, a spill-proof keyboard, a 12.5-inch (1366 x 768) display, a Sandy Bridge processor, and a Sonata long life (900-charge cycle) battery.

Now available for pre-order is one B23E SKU (the B23E-XH71) which packs a 2.7 GHz Core i7-2620M CPU, 4 GB of RAM, Intel HD graphics, a 500 GB (7200 RPM) hard drive, a 5-in-1 card reader, a 2 megapixel webcam, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, an ExpressCard slot, and a HDMI output. The B23E-XH71 runs Windows 7 Professional 64-bit and costs $922.43.

Rampage IV GENE continues the legacy of Republic of Gamers motherboards by delivering gamers with enhanced performance that places a premium on fidelity and speed. SupremeFX III EMI-shielded audio guarantees better in-game sound, Intel Ethernet LAN and ROG GameFirst technology boost online multiplayer performance, while ROG Extreme Engine Digi+ II digital voltage regulation promotes improved overclocking.

The board further uses Black Metallic capacitors and NexFET Power Block MOSFETs for added durability and heat resistance. Unlike budget micro ATX boards, it supports 2-way NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFireX.

In addition to building three netbooks around it, ASUS has also used Intel's Cedar Trail platform for a new, Eee Box nettop, the EB1031. Showcased at week at CES 2012 in Las Vegas, the EB1031 features a 2.13 GHz Atom D2700 processor, up to 4 GB of RAM, up to a 500 GB hard drive, integrated graphics, LAN, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, USB 3.0 connectivity, a memory card reader, and a HDMI port (the system can play 1080p video).

ASUS' Cedar Trail-based Eee Box is said to ship in March.

Earlier this week at CES 2012 in Las Vegas, ASUS showcased a brand new monitor designed for professional artists and photographers, a 27-inch model called VA278Q that features an LED backlight, an IPS panel, a native resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels, and 178/178 degree viewing angles.

ASUS' widescreen also has a 'Smart Contrast Ratio' of 80,000,000:1, DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort connectivity, a stand enabling tilt, pivot, swivel, and height adjustments, and the Splendid Video Intelligence Technology providing six pre-set modes (Theater, Scenery, Gaming, Night View, sRGB, and Standard) that 'optimize colors and image fidelity for the onscreen content'. No word yet about the price tag or availability of the VA278Q.

Hit by hard drive shortages and slow economic conditions, the PC market has ended 2011 on a rather low note, with preliminary data from research firm IDC showing that PC sales in Q4 were of 92.7 million units, down 0.2% on-year. Despite the Q4 drop, the PC market still managed a decent result for the whole year, recording a 1.6% increase in shipments compared to 2010.

Back to the Q4 data though, we see HP maintaining its top position with 15.1 million shipped units and a market share of 16.31%. It's worth noting that, while it's still top dog, HP actually experienced a 15.93% drop in shipments compared to the same period of 2010. On second place, inching closer to HP is Lenovo, with a 14.04% share (the company managed a 36% growth over Q4 of 2010) while on third we find Dell securing 12.91% of the market.