It appears that ASRock got a little bit too excited and posted a Computex video earlier today that contained a brief glimpse of its upcoming X670E Taichi motherboard. The screenshot that was captured by Wccftech doesn't give away too much details, but the board appears to have at least three M.2 slots and a pair of PCIe x16 slots, of which at least one is meant to be of the PCIe 5.0 variety. The rest of the board is covered in heatsinks and various shrouds. The board will feature Realtek's ALC4082 USB attached audio codec, as well as a ESS ES9218 DAC. It is also said to sport a 26-phase VRM setup. The board is also expected to have Thunderbolt 4 support. The video has unfortunately been taken down, so we'll have to wait until next week to find out more details.

In related news, @momomo_us has leaked details of several upcoming AM5 motherboards, of which four models are from ASRock and two from ASUS. The ASRock models are the X670E Taichi mentioned above, the X670 PG Riptide, X670 Phantom Gaming 4 and the X670 Steel Legend. The two ASUS models are the ProArt X670E-Creator WiFi and the ProArt B650-Creator. Finally Gigabyte has revealed that the company will be displaying its X670 Aorus Xtreme, X670 Master, X670 Pro AX and X670 AERO D at Computex next week. The company mentions PCIe 5.0 for both graphics and the M.2 interface, which pretty much cements the earlier rumors about AMD offering PCIe 5.0 support for the M.2 interface on the AM5 platform.

The portable and lightweight Flow family has a new member. ROG is proud to introduce the Flow X16, a convertible thin and light laptop with gaming horsepower that belies its size. Paired with the stunning Nebula HDR Display and fully compatible with the XG Mobile ecosystem, the Flow X16 is ready to redefine how you look at ultraportable gaming laptops.

The Flow X16 is the culmination of a relentless drive to pair cutting-edge components with a thin and light chassis. This 16-inch convertible laptop is powered by up to an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS processor and up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Laptop GPU, all while weighing just 2.1 kilograms. With a maximum TGP of up to 125 W on the RTX 3070 Ti thanks to Dynamic Boost, this machine is able to go pound for pound with much larger and heavier competition.

In January, we introduced the ROG Strix SCAR 2022, an ultra-powerful esports gaming machine designed to blow away any and all competition. But we couldn't leave well enough alone, so we decided to make it even better. We're proud to announce the ROG Strix SCAR 17 Special Edition, the ultimate laptop for competitive gaming.

For most gamers, the regular 2022 Strix SCAR is the perfect companion, since it's lighter and more affordable than the new Special Edition, while offering exceptional gaming performance. But for gamers who need the absolute best of the best, cutting-edge technology paired with a bold cyberpunk design, the Strix SCAR 17 SE has arrived.

Only a week ago the first pictures of the ASUS x Noctua GeForce RTX 3080 card turned up on the web and now the card has been officially announced as the ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 Noctua OC Edition 10 GB GDDR6X. The card will have an OC and a Gaming mode with different boost clocks, where the Gaming mode allows the GPU to boost to 1785 MHz and the OC mode takes this further to 1815 MHz. The memory remains at stock clocks and uses 19 Gbps GDDR6X memory. ASUS claims it's the quietest card in its class, but doesn't mention any actual noise levels, although the card comes with a 0dB fan stop mode. It should be noted that the card takes up 4.1 slots and as such, it might not fit in all builds. No official pricing was provided.

With Gigabyte and more recently MSI offering internal consumer SSDs, it now looks like ASUS is getting ready to join the fray. There's no shortage of companies that are selling SSDs and most are based on very similar hardware and firmware, so the question is what ASUS is going to bring to the market to differentiate itself from the competition. The company hasn't provided any real details at this point in time, beyond a picture posted on its Taiwanese Facebook page.

The picture doesn't give away a ton of details, but what's clear is that ASUS aims to use its ROG gaming brand for the first product that ends up under the Strix sub-brand. The first drive will be called SQ7 and it's a standard M.2 PCIe 4.0 drive that not unsurprisingly uses four PCIe lanes and will come in at least a 1 TB size. It's possible that ASUS will launch its new SSD either during its "Boundless" event on the 17th of May, or during Computex, which kicks off on the 24th of May.

Update: Based on the sharp-eyed observations of our Editor-In-Chief, its highly likely that the ASUS ROG Strix SSD will be based on Phison's E18 controller, paired with Micron's 176-layer NAND, using Phison's reference PCB design. This means that ASUS would go straight after other high-performance drives, like the Kingston KC3000, Corsair MP600 Pro LPX and MSI's Spatium M480. Keep in mind that not all early product shots are of the actual product though, so we're just going to have to wait and see what ASUS brings to the table.

ASUS looks set to release a second graphics card featuring a Noctua cooling solution nearly a year after the two companies announced the ASUS x Noctua GeForce RTX 3070. This new card features the GA102-based 10 GB version of the RTX 3080 instead of the newer 12 GB version launched in January. The quad-slot cooling solution present on the card is very similar to the existing configuration with dual 120 mm Noctua fans and a slightly modified backplate. The card features dual 8-pin power connectors in addition to non-standard display outputs with 3x DisplayPort 1.4 and 2x HDMI 2.1. The ASUS x Noctua GeForce RTX 3080 is expected to launch soon and retail for 1150 EUR which is 250 EUR more then the existing ASUS x Noctua GeForce RTX 3070.

Extreme overclocking is an enthusiast discipline where overclockers try to push their hardware to extreme limits. Combining powerful cooling solutions like liquid nitrogen (LN2), which reaches sub-zero temperatures alongside modified hardware, the silicon can output tremendous power. Today, we are witnessing a custom XOC (eXtreme OverClocking) BIOS for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card that can push the GA102 SKU to impressive 890 Watts of power, representing almost a two-fold increase to the stock TDP. Enthusiasts pursuing large frequencies with their RTX 3090 Ti are likely users of this XOC BIOS. However, most likely, we will see GALAX HOF or EVGA KINGPIN cards with dual 16-pin power connectors utilize this.

As shown below, MEGAsizeGPU, the creator of this BIOS, managed to push his ASUS GeForce RTX 3090 Ti TUF with XOC BIOS to 615 Watts, so KINGPIN and HOF designs will have to be used to draw all the possible heat. The XOC BIOS was uploaded to our VGA BIOS database, however, caution is advised as this can break your graphics card.

ASUS is pleased to announce the latest lineup of ProArt displays and creative solutions at NAB 2022 in Las Vegas. The ProArt lineup features an array of innovative solutions for creative professionals, work-from-home employees, and remote students. The ASUS ProArt display offerings include the PA32DC, the world's first OLED monitor with auto calibration; PA147CDV with Wacom EMR technology; and ProArt Display PA348CGV, a 34-inch 21:9 UWQHD (3440 x 1440) flat display featuring 120 Hz variable frame rate.

ASUS ProArt Display OLED PA32DC is a 31.5-inch (3840x2160) Pure RGB Stripe OLED monitor designed to meet the needs of creative professionals. It offers true 10-bit color, exceptional Delta E < 1 color accuracy, covers 99% DCI-P3 color space, and has a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio to provide the deepest black hues and accurate highlights.

Phanteks announces the latest Glacier G3090Ti ASUS Bundle Pack containing the water block and backplate designed specifically for the ASUS GeForce RTX 3090 Ti STRIX and TUF models. With increased power consumption and front memory chip location on the new RTX 3090 Ti design, the Glacier G3090Ti ASUS water block will be a great benefit to bring unprecedented cooling to the new ASUS RTX 3090 Ti STRIX and TUF cards.

Like all Glacier water blocks, the water block will use premium materials such as a nickel-plated copper base, clear acrylic top, black or chrome aluminium cover plates, and industrial quality VITON o-rings to ensure the best reliability and longevity. The water block will come with integrated D-RGB lighting that beautifully complements your build and can sync with Phanteks' D-RGB accessories and A-RGB equipped motherboards.

EK, the leading computer cooling solutions provider, is introducing a whole series of Vector² liquid cooling products for ROG Strix RTX graphics cards. ROG RTX 3070 Ti cards get their Vector² water block with passive backplate, and optional backplates in nickel finish to customize your water-cooled 3070 Ti ASUS GPU to your own desires.

The EK-Quantum Vector² Strix RTX 3070 Ti D-RGB is a complete liquid cooling solution including a new plexi Vector² water block, black-anodized aluminium backplate, and a mounting mechanism. The new look of the next-gen water blocks is dominated by minimalist straight lines. The 3rd-generation Vector cooling engine combines the jet plate with a 3D machined Plexi insert to improve flow distribution and thermal performance. This new cooling engine is still based on an Open Split-Flow cooling engine design, which proved to be a superior solution for GPU water blocks. It is characterized by low hydraulic flow restriction, meaning it can be used with weaker water pumps or pumps running on low-speed settings, and still achieve top performance. Great care was taken to achieve a symmetrical flow domain by utilizing an internal bridge to secondary components. This was done to ensure the cooling of secondary components without sacrificing flow distribution over the GPU core.

ASUS today introduced the TUF Gaming AX3000 V2 wireless router. The Wi-Fi 6 router offers not just characteristic TUF Gaming product design, but also durability, in the way of multi-level heatsinks for the various hot components underneath, with a "nano-carbon coating." As a router, its specs are pretty mainstream—you get up to 2.4 Gbps in the 5 GHz band, up to 576 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz band (which add up to the "AX 3000" nameplate). The wired networking consists of a 2.5 GbE WAN port, and four 1 GbE LAN ports, from which two ports can be aggregated to a 2 Gbps link when paired with a machine that has two 1 GbE ports. You also get a 5 Gbps USB 3.x type-A port that can turn any USB mass-storage device into a network share, or be used to share a printer; and security in the way of the latest WPA3. The company didn't reveal pricing.

ASUS today unveiled its highest-Wattage variant of the ROG Thor line of premium power supplies. The new ROG Thor 1600 W Titanium comes with not just an enormous amount of power, but also the latest connectivity, including an ATX 3.0-compliant 16-pin connector that ASUS specifies can deliver 600 W of power. There are also as many as ten 8-pin PCIe power connectors, two 8-pin EPS, a 24-pin ATX, and a dozen SATA power connectors.

Under the hood, the ROG Thor 1600 W Titanium uses high-end GaN FETs in its switching circuitry, and a single +12 V rail setup that meets 80 Plus Titanium and Cybenetics Titanium efficiency. The 135 mm fan can stay completely off until 800 W load, thanks to an array of heatsinks designed by ASUS, which along with the low overall noise, earn this PSU Cybenetics Lambda A++ acoustic rating. ASUS is backing it with a 10-year warranty. The company didn't reveal pricing.

ASUS is giving final touches the to the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card. This is the company's first TUF Gaming product based on the RTX 3050, which was, until now, given the ASUS ROG Strix and DUAL OC custom treatment. What's more interesting is its cooling solution, which appears to be the first TUF Gaming graphics card with RGB LED lighting—a change from the functional, industrial look of TUF Gaming graphics cards.

This is also the smallest iteration of the TUF Gaming cooling solution the company debuted with the RTX 30-series "Ampere," and features a dual-fan setup (compared to triple-fan on every other TUF Gaming product from this generation). The card comes with a strip of RGB LEDs lined along the top of the card, at the edge of the backplate. It's being reported that this RTX 3050 card is based on the smaller "GA107" silicon, instead of "GA106," and hence comes with a lower typical board power than GA106-based RTX 3050 cards, with no difference in performance.

Global shipments of traditional PCs, including desktops, notebooks, and workstations, declined 5.1% in the first quarter of 2022 (1Q22) but exceeded earlier forecasts, according to preliminary results from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. The PC market is coming off two years of double-digit growth, so while the first quarter decline is a change in this momentum, it doesn't mean the industry is in a downward spiral. Despite ongoing supply chain and logistical challenges, vendors still shipped 80.5 million PCs during the quarter. The 1Q22 volume marks the seventh consecutive quarter where global shipments surpassed 80 million, a feat not seen since 2012.

"The focus shouldn't be on the year-over-year decline in PC volumes because that was to be expected. The focus should be on the PC industry managing to ship more than 80 million PCs at a time when logistics and supply chain are still a mess, accompanied by numerous geopolitical and pandemic-related challenges," said Ryan Reith, group vice president with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. "We have witnessed some slowdown in both the education and consumer markets, but all indicators show demand for commercial PCs remains very strong. We also believe that the consumer market will pick up again in the near future. The result of 1Q22 was PC shipment volumes that were near record levels for a first quarter."

ASUS today announced the ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti and TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics cards, arriving in Standard and OC editions. The GeForce RTX 3090 Ti features a record-breaking 10,752 CUDA cores, 78 RT-TFLOPs, 40 Shader-TFLOPs and 320 Tensor-TFLOPs of power.

The ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti includes a closed-loop liquid cooling system that keeps temperatures and noise levels under control. Featuring a custom-designed cold plate that extends over the GPU die and the onboard GDDR6X memory and 560 mm tubing, consumers will have flexibility installing the radiator in larger cases or builds that also feature an AIO CPU cooler. The 240 mm radiator on the GPU is cooled by a pair of 120 mm ARGB fans designed to improve airflow at high static pressure. A blower-style fan and a low-profile heatsink under the shroud expel the heat produced by the power delivery components, all in a slim 2.6-slot design.

Editor's note: You can find our review for the ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti here.

ASUS has announced that it will be dropping the prices for almost the entirety of its NVIDIA RTX 30-series graphics card stack. The news comes on the back of finally descending channel prices for the latest GPUs, alongside the U.S. Trade Office decision last week of excluding integrated circuit boards from the added taxes in the China-US Trade War. As an ASUS representative told Tom's Hardware, users should expect an "up to 25%" price reduction to be applied throughout its RTX 30-series stack (from the RTX 3050 through the RTX 3090 Ti). Interestingly, there was no mention of AMD's graphics cards in the announcement.

After more than a year of inflated pricing, there may be a light in the tunnel - although it's becoming increasingly difficult to discern whether it's the RTX 3000-series family behind the veil or NVIDIA's next-gen solutions. No other AMD or NVIDIA board partner made a comparable announcement, but one would expect them to follow ASUS on the downward pricing trend or risk sitting in larger unsold inventories than they're comfortable with. Of course, this remains a problem for ASUS throughout the world, should the company not extend the price-cut to other regions other than the U.S.

EK, the premium liquid cooling gear manufacturer, is releasing a new AMD AM4 socket-based monoblock belonging to the Quantum Line of products, the EK-Quantum Momentum² ROG Crosshair VIII Extreme D-RGB—Plexi. This monoblock is engineered specifically for the ROG CROSSHAIR VIII EXTREME motherboard from ASUS. The addressable D-RGB LED in the monoblock is compatible with ASUS Aura Sync RGB control and offers a full lighting customization experience for every single diode at any given time. This Momentum² monoblock is EK-Matrix compatible.

This is a complete all-in-one (CPU and motherboard) liquid cooling solution for AMD Ryzen 5000 series processors and the monoblock is compatible with the AM4 socketed ROG Crosshair VIII Extreme motherboard. This monoblock uses the latest generation of EK Velocity² cooling engine to ensure the best possible CPU cooling while not reducing flow to other components. This water block directly cools the Ryzen CPU, VRM section, and the LAN controller. The LAN controller is cooled by an add-on large heatsink that goes over the I/O section and is linked to the monoblock.

If you own an Asus 802.11ac/WiFi 5 router, you might want to make sure your firmware is up-to-date, as several models are at risk of being infected by a Russian botnet malware. The group behind the worm, which goes under the name of Cyclops Blink, is Sandworm APT, the same group that created the VPNFilter botnet a few years ago. Cyclops Blink was detected by Trend Micro and although it seems it doesn't cause any direct harm to the network behind the router it infects at this point in time, it is a persistent malware and is believed to be a first of its kind. Unlike most malware that attack routers, the Cyclops Blink worm can save itself to the flash memory in the router, so even a factory reset won't wipe it off.

That said, a firmware flash will remove it and according to a security bulletin from Asus, the company advises all of its customers to install the latest firmware. On top of this, Asus also recommends to turn off remote management, if enabled and to change the admin login credentials and make sure to use a complex password. However, the company doesn't have an update that is guaranteed to prevent the malware from infecting their products, since at this point in time, it's unclear how the Cyclops Blink worm infects routers. Prior to the Asus routers listed below getting attacked, the malware was mainly going after WatchGuard Firebox devices, which are generally only used by businesses. Based on the information provided by Trend Micro, it looks like Asus is unlikely to be the only brand of routers that will be targeted by the malware, so even if you don't own an Asus router, it would be a good idea to make sure your firmware is up to date. Another option would be to install a third party firmware, although the Merlin firmwares for Asus are also likely to be affected, based on comments by the authour of the firmware over on the Small Net Builder forums.

ASUS today announced BIOS support and updates for a variety of motherboards supporting the new AMD Ryzen 5000 and 4000 series CPUs. Matching the new Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which has a dedicated 96 MB L3 cache, AMD has released AGESA version 1.2.0.6b to improve system performance. Many ASUS 500, 400, A320 and X370 series motherboards already have BIOS updates with this new AGESA version. Other compatible models will receive corresponding BIOS updates by March 25th.

All CPUs in this series are recognized by ASUS mainboards of the 400 and 500 series via existing BIOS updates - also with AGESA version 1.2.0.6b. The updates can be downloaded from the ASUS support website. Previous generation ASUS motherboards will receive support for these new CPUs according to the table below:

Akasa, have released the latest model of their small form factor fanless cases, introducing the Newton A50! The newest Newton is ultra-compact, with dimensions of just 169 x 115.5 x 68.5 mm (1.3L). The case supports ASUS PN50 and PN51 motherboards, which are equipped with the latest Ryzen 4000 mobile processors and 5000 mobile processors (respectively) for the best performance in its size category.

The small but mighty design makes the case perfect for small areas, or minimalist desktop setups. The sleek, futuristic panels combined with this ultra-compact shape means the case can be used in a wide range of ways; either a discreet addition to a desk, for smaller desktop setups, or hidden away for a clean, truly silent aesthetic. To fully take advantage of the silence, the use of SSDs is essential for the noiseless experience - the cases have enough space for one M.2 SSD and one 2.5" SSD/HDD.

ASUS today introduced the ROG Swift PG329Q-W gaming monitor. Essentially a white-body variant of the ROG Swift PG329Q, its design sees matte-white take up must of the back body panel with matte-aluminium accents—a diagonal strip and another one around the pivot. The stand has the same 2-tone finish. At the front, you see matte-white only take up the bottom bezel. The screen is still framed in a thin black bezel.

The ROG Swift PG329Q-W is a 32-inch planar monitor with a Fast IPS display panel. It offers WQHD (2560 x 1440 pixels) resolution, 175 Hz refresh-rate, 1 ms (GTG) response time, and technologies such as ELMB Sync, NVIDIA G-SYNC Compatible, and DisplayHDR 600. You also get ASUS innovations such as Shadow Boost, Game Visual (game genre-optimized display presets), Game Plus (OSD crosshair, timer, and FPS counter. Display inputs include one DisplayPort 1.2a, and two HDMI 2.0 ports. The company didn't reveal pricing.

ASUS today announced the Pro Q670M-C-CSM business motherboard with support for 12th Gen Intel Core processors and DDR5 memory. The Pro Q670M-C-CSM joins the ASUS B660 and H610 models launched in January to deliver a full lineup for customers ranging from small-to-medium businesses to enterprise. These models are designed to deliver enhanced security, reliability, manageability, and serviceability that every company needs to build their IT systems. The board is equipped with anti-sulfur resistors, anti-moisture coating, and a stainless-steel rear I/O port to prevent internal corrosion and adhesion in order to prolong the board's life in humid environments.

ASUS today introduced the Dual 4K USB-C Dock, a device that adds connectivity to your ultraportable that only has one or two USB type-C ports. The compact docking station takes in a single USB-C connection, and puts out dual 4K-capable display outputs either encapsulated with the downstream USB-C ports, or the standard HDMI connector. There are a total of three USB downstream ports. One of these is a type-C with 10 Gbps bandwidth, the other is a USB type-C with 100 W USB-PD passthrough and 5 Gbps bandwidth; while the third one is a USB type-A with 10 Gbps bandwidth. Lastly, there's a 1 GbE wired Ethernet interface. The USB-PD passthrough port allows you to recharge your notebook while using all of the downstream connectivity. The device measures 104 mm x 44 mm x 14 mm (WxDxH), weighing 98 g. The company didn't reveal pricing.

We recently reported on the DDR5-8888 CL88 Overclocking world record set by G.Skill, ASUS, and overclocker "lupin_no_musume" using G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5 memory on an ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 APEX motherboard. This same overclocker has now set a new record using the same memory and motherboard combination achieving a speed of 4779.7 MHz (9560 MT/s) at 120-120-120-120-127-2 timings using liquid nitrogen cooling. The record was set with a single 16 GB Trident Z5 DDR5 memory module paired with an Intel Core i9-12900K processor.

ASUS this week rolled out the IPMI Expansion Card, an add-on card that lends your PC or workstation remote-management capabilities on par with servers or HPC units in a data-center. The half-height add-on card is essentially an ASPEED AST2600A3-GP multi-function remote-management chip on a stick. On the I/O side, it puts out a 1 GbE remote-management network interface, and a VGA connector for some very basic display.

It connects to your machine over a PCI-Express 3.0 x1 host interface, along a BMC, PM-bus, and SPI headers. and relies on a 6-pin PCIe power connector for its power needs. Quite a few of ASUS's workstation-class motherboards feature these headers. It also puts out eight 4-pin PWM fan headers. The card lets you perform remote management, including remote BMC firmware updates, over a web-browser based control panel. The company didn't reveal pricing or availability information.