As part of Microsoft's "12 Days of Deals" push towards achieving more and better sales of Microsoft-branded products, the company has pushed a pretty hefty discount for its MR HMDs mere months after their release. The discounts see the Acer Windows Mixed Reality, Dell Visor, HP, and Lenovo Explorer take price-cuts of $200 over the base price, while Samsung's Odyssey HMD sees a much more level $50 price-cut.

With a move so close to holiday season and in the wake of steep discounts from Virtual Reality headset makers Oculus and HTC, Microsoft is pushing as hard as it can towards shipping enough units to build a new VR ecosystem. Consumers are the ones that stand to gain the most here, however. Though if you want to get your hand son one of these, be fast: the Acer and Dell options are already sold out, and the others' supply might also be inferior to the demand. So go there, and grab them while they're hot.

ASUS dropped its hat into the DIY crypto-currency mining hardware craze, with the introduction of the B250 Mining Expert motherboard. This ATX form-factor motherboard comes with a jaw-dropping eighteen PCI-Express gen 3.0 x1 slots, in addition to a PCI-Express gen 3.0 x16, taking full advantage of the 200-series platform's PCIe lane budget. The board draws power from three 24-pin ATX, one 8-pin EPS, and three 4-pin Molex connectors, although besides one ATX and EPS, the other connectors are optional for the machine to start, but required for some of those PCIe slots to work.

Based on the Intel B250 Express chipset, the board supports 6th and 7th generation "Skylake" and "Kaby Lake" processors. The rest of the board is pretty spartan, with just enough connectivity to make the machine work. You get two DDR4 DIMM slots supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel memory, four SATA 6 Gbps ports, six USB 3.0 ports (two via header), a gigabit Ethernet connection, 6-channel HD audio, HDMI display output, and legacy PS/2 connectors. The company didn't reveal pricing.

ASUS CEO Jerry Shen today announced ASUS NovaGo (TP370) at the second annual Snapdragon Technology Summit in Maui, Hawaii. NovaGo is the world's first Gigabit LTE-capable laptop designed for truly connected mobility, providing users with an always-on, always-connected experience. This ultrathin and light convertible laptop is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Mobile PC platform, and features a Gigabit Snapdragon X16 LTE modem for download speeds exceeding that of typical home Wi-Fi. It has up to a 22-hour battery life with over 30 days of modern standby, and a built-in eSIM that ensures seamless connectivity across borders.

Mr. Shen joined Executive Vice President of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and President, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies Cristiano Amon onstage during the keynote speech of the three-day event. "Today marks the beginning of a new era of personal computing and ASUS is very proud to be paving the way with Qualcomm Technologies and other partners to develop this new landscape for 'Always Connected' Windows on Snapdragon PCs. ASUS NovaGo reinvents the concept of laptop connectivity and productivity - it's the world's first laptop that is connected anywhere, at any time, with the new Gigabit LTE network; and lasts up to 22 hours on a single charge for beyond all-day battery life," said Mr. Shen.

After the debacle that was Microsoft's last attempt at integrating its Windows OS with ARM in Windows RT, the company has now announced that products based on its new ARM approach are almost ready to come to fruition. The previous Windows RT failed, for the most part, because of its closed-wall ecosystem, where the only apps available for the platform were those being distributed on Microsoft's Store - which led to an overwhelming lack of good-quality apps that users were used to seeing in their laptops or desktop replacements. With Windows 10 for ARM and Always Connected PCs, that comes to an end, due in large part to Microsoft's apparent passion: emulators.

The new Windows 10 for ARM will enable ARM-powered systems (with CPUs such as Qualcomm's own Snapdragon 835) to run most x86 applications through the usage of a just-in-time philosophy. This means that any emulation will be run seamlessly through conversion of x86 code to equivalent blocks of ARM code. This conversion is cached both in memory (so that after the initial run, the emulated code is available right away) and on disk (which will likely work much like hybrid HDDs do, using their meager SSD cache to store the most frequently accessed programs). System libraries, however, are all native ARM code, including the libraries loaded by x86 programs. These are being called "chippie", as in (you didn't guess it) "Compiled Hybrid Portable Executables": native ARM code, compiled in such a way as to let them respond to x86 function calls.

As a brand, BitFenix is best known for unique PC cases and modding accessories, always striving to provide high-quality PC components and offering diversity for modders and gamers alike. Today, BitFenix is proud to announce its latest addition to the Spectre fan series, the Spectre Pro RGB.

As a direct successor to the Spectre Pro, the Spectre Pro RGB is a high performance silent fan, featuring a high-pressure CFM design for maximum pressure and airflow, delivering a torrent of air to keep systems cool. It is equipped with reinforced fan-blades to assure they resist warping even while spinning at high-speed for long durations, thus providing durability and longevity. The fluid dynamic bearing technology will keep the fan silent, even during heavy load.

Four months of silence after what can only be classified as a premature announcement, ASUS has finally put up the product pages for their custom RX Vega 56 and 64 graphics cards, marketed under the Strix branding. Yield and packaging issues, as well as differing chip characteristics between different AMD packaging partners, have greatly affected TTM on RX Vega's custom designs, which were sorely needed so as to improve on some of the reference cards' shortcomings. Sadly, the product pages are just that - product pages - and lack the holy trinity of graphics cards important information - clock speeds, pricing, and availability.

ASUS today introduced the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Cerberus graphics card (model: CERBERUS-GTX1070TI-A8G), designed for gaming iCafes, or those wanting a graphics card that can game for hours on end. ASUS tests each of these cards with a 144-hour burn-in, and rates them to be "15x more durable than industry standards." The card combines a new 2.5-slot thick cooling solution, with a custom-design PCB. The cooler is standard-height, featuring an aluminium fin-stack DirectCU heatsink, ventilated by a pair of 80 mm fans, which stay off when the GPU is idling. There's also a full-length back-plate.

The custom-design PCB is standard-height, and draws power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. It uses a 6+1 phase VRM to power the card. The card ships with NVIDIA-reference clock speeds of 1607 MHz core, 1683 MHz GPU Boost, and 8.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective) memory, since NVIDIA doesn't allow factory-overclocked GTX 1070 Ti cards. Display outputs include two each of HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4, and a dual-link DVI. The company will price this card below its ROG Strix graphics cards.

Cooler Master, a leader in PC components and peripherals, introduces RGB enabled all-in-one liquid cooling: MasterLiquid ML240L RGB and MasterLiquid ML120L RGB. Both models have full RGB effects on both the fan and pump, which comes with a controller and RGB splitter cable for quick setup or alternatively sync seamlessly with ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte and ASRock motherboards.

The ML240L RGB and ML120L RGB comes with the dual chamber RGB pump for increased reliability and provide a perfect balance of low noise levels at optimal performance. The aesthetic design of the low resistance radiator shows premium build and attached is the MasterFan MF120R RGB (2 included for the M240L RGB). The double layer tubing with sleeved on the outside and FEP on the inside for robust usage.

ASUS expanded its socket LGA2066 workstation-class motherboard lineup with the WS C422 Pro SE. The board is physically identical to the WS X299 Pro SE, but is based on the Intel C422 chipset. Designed for single-socket Intel Xeon W ("Skylake-W") processors, this board is targeted at workstation builders who require ECC memory support.

"Skylake-W" is an enterprise variant of the "Skylake-X" silicon, with support for up to 512 GB of ECC quad-channel DDR4 memory. It features up to 18 CPU cores, and is different from the Xeon Scalable "Skylake-SP" silicon. The board supports up to 512 GB of quad-channel DDR4 memory with support for ECC, over its eight memory slots. The rest of its feature-set is identical to that of the WS X299 Pro SE.

ASUS has added yet another monitor to its already long list of display solutions for customers. The ROG STRIX XG258Q monitor, as the "Strix" name implies, has been designed with gamers in mind, and is one of ASUS' eSports-designed offerings, promising unmatched fluidity in fast frame-rate titles with its 240 Hz refresh rate and 1 ms response time. To add even more smoothness to the picture, ASUS has also fitted this Strix monitor with FreeSync support (in the 48 Hz to 240 Hz range), which means there is now another high refresh-rate solution for AMD users.

To achieve this kind of refresh rate speeds, ASUS has made use of a 1080p, TN-based panel, which will deliver better gaming performance at the cost of viewing angles and (usually) color accuracy and contrast when compared to other technologies (contrast is set at 1000:1 and the panel is a 6-bit type with FRC). Added technologies include ASUS' ELMB (Extreme Low Motion Blur), as well as ASUS' Aura RGB lighting effects on the back of the monitor, with an added red ROG logo being projected on to the users' desk from the base of the display. Brightness is being touted at a higher than average 400 nits, but there's no mention of HDR support. Connectivity includes 1x HDMI 1.4 (refresh rates up to 140 Hz), 1x HDMI 2.0, and 1x DisplayPort 1.2. The ASUS ROG Strix XG258Q is available for $449, which is slightly more than $50 cheaper than the current market price of the ROG Swift PG258Q, which substitutes FreeSync for NVIDIA's G-Sync.

ASUS recently released BIOS updates for its socket AM4 motherboards based on AMD X370 and B350 chipsets, which implement AGESA 1.0.0.7, which as you'll recall, paves the way for implementing support for upcoming processors, based on AMD's Vega-infused "Raven Ridge" APU silicon, and the 12 nm refreshed Ryzen "Pinnacle Ridge" silicon due for February 2018. ASUS published, and later withdrew the BIOS updates as the media got whiff of them.

The next parts for AMD's mainstream-desktop socket AM4 platform will be Ryzen "Raven Ridge" APUs, which let you finally use the HDMI and DisplayPorts on your motherboards. "Raven Ridge" combines a quad-core "Zen" CPU with a 640-stream processor integrated graphics based on the "Vega" graphics architecture. The "late-2017 or early-2018" time-line for these chips still appears to stand. RedGamingTech suggests that AMD's answer to Intel "Coffee Lake" processors, the 12 nm Ryzen "Pinnacle Ridge" processors, could be out by as early (or late) as February 2018. These chips could be previewed or teased at the company's events held on the sidelines of the 2018 International CES.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash products, today launched the XPG STORM heatsink add-on for M.2 2280 drives. STORM features an aluminum heatsink and with a fan. It can be easily affixed to any compatible SSD to provide powerful cooling. Lower SSD temperatures promote more stable storage and system performance, in addition to the XPG-styled STORM heatsink with its colorful RGB lighting contributing to attractive, gaming-themed PC setups.

Lower temperatures complement high speeds
While M.2 2280 PCIe SSDs are currently the fastest on the market, their high data rates also mean considerable heat buildup. Without a heatsink, accumulating heat can compromise performance and accelerate SSD aging. STORM includes an aluminum heatsink that fits on any M.2 SSD without causing overhead issues. Together with the heatsink, STORM uses a fan to circulate cool air and reduces temperature by at least 25% when compared with bare M.2 SSDs.

AMD's Ryzen CPUs have come out of the gates swinging, and have maintained that momentum still. Besides democratizing core-counts and SMT (Simultaneous Multi-Threading), these AMD chips brought about a revolution of sorts for AMD's CPU power efficiency, with Ryzen frequently going up against Intel's solutions - and even besting them frequently in this area. As such, that the Zen architecture would make its way to laptops was only a matter of engineering, design and testing - which usually translate to time. Ever since we reported ASUS was working on a Ryzen 7-powered laptop, the folks at ASUS have been working on it. And now, they've finally introduced the ROG STRIX GL702ZC.

The ROG STRIX GL702ZC is the world's first Ryzen 7-powered laptop, and marks the beginning of the end for AMD as the "budget" option when it comes to mobile solutions, with lower ASP of products based on AMD's platform justifying sometimes horrendous specs and configurations. The ROG STRIX GL702ZC features a 17.3" FHD IPS anti-glare display with FreeSync, driven by a Ryzen 7 1700 CPU paired with AMD Radeon RX580 graphics (the 4GB VRAM version) and 16 GB of DDR4 memory (expandable up to 32GB). The system can be further configured with an M.2 SSD (up to 256 GB) and/or an up to 1 TB , 5,400 RPM HDD.

ASUS has introduced a new ROG Strix monitor to its lineup, the XG35VQ, which brings with it UWQHD resolution (3440 x 1440) in a 21:9 aspect ratio and a 35" diagonal. It's a curved affair - 1800R at that - and ASUS says the VA panel offers 100% sRGB coverage, plus 2500:1 contrast and 300 cd/m2 brightness. Viewing angles stand at an almost perfect 178° - a standard spec in recent times.

The most interesting selling point for this monitor, however, is that it can deliver a 100 Hz refresh rate, with FreeSync support up to that frequency. A 4 ms response time means reduced ghosting, and the panel also applies ASUS' version of Extreme Low Motion Blur mode, which strobes the LED backlight to lower persistence, much like a VR display. This mode uses a fixed refresh rate, so ASUS recommends it for fast-paced games where users can comfortably maintain high frame rates.

BitFenix presented Aurora, Shogun and Alchemy 2.0 RGB Magnetic LED Strips co-developing AURA SYNC technology with Asus bringing in the comprehensive neat RGB LED concept for PC build. Today BitFenix present the BitFenix ENSO and the Alchemy 3.0 Addressable RGB Magnetic LED
Strips, again co-developing with Asus, supporting the latest ASUS AURA SYNC 3-pin technology for addressable RGB illumination.

Sleek Design With Metallic Front & Enhanced AURA SYNC 3 Pin Addressable RGB illumination
With the ENSO, BitFenix is launching the long awaited case shown at Taipei's Computex 2017, available in black and white. The clean design concept is well balanced between a perfectly organized interior structure and a sleek exterior design. It is complemented by a 4mm see-through-tinted tempered glass panel on the side and addressable RGB illumination surrounding the metallic front. It comes with a pre-installed controller, compatible to both, BitFenix Alchemy 2.0, static, and BitFenix 3.0, addressable, RGB products.

AMD has been steadily increasing output and availability of their latest take on the server market with their EPYC CPUs. These are 32-core, 64-thread monsters that excel in delivering a better feature set in 1P configuration than even some of Intel's 2P setups, and reception for these AMD processors has been pretty warm as a result. The usage of an MCM design to create a 4-way cluster of small 8-core processor packages has allowed AMD to improve yields with minimum retooling and changes to its manufacturing lines, which in turn, has increased yields and profits for a company that sorely needed a a breakout product.

ASUS over the weekent, also introduced the Republic of Gamers (ROG) Strix XG32VQ 32-inch curved gaming monitor. The monitor features an 1800R curved VA panel with WQHD (2560 x 1440 pixels) resolution, bolstered further by 144 Hz refresh-rate, 4 ms (GTG) response time, and AMD FreeSync technology. The panel boasts of 125 percent coverage of the sRGB palette, and features 300 cd/m² maximum brightness, with 178°/178° viewing angles.

The monitor features ASUS GameFirst, a set of nifty features such as OSD crosshairs, frame-rate counters, and display presets optimized for the various game genres. An RGB LED ornament is positioned behind the panel, around the stand mount, with the signature laser projected ROG emblem below the stand. Display inputs include DisplayPort 1.2, mini-DisplayPort 1.2, and HDMI 1.4a. The company didn't reveal pricing.

ASUS today introduced the WS X299 SAGE motherboard, a socket LGA2066 motherboard designed for Intel Core X "Skylake-X" processors, in the SSI-CEB form-factor. This board is targeted at the same quasi-workstation crowd that the company's WS X299 Pro and WS X299 Pro SE are designed for, but unlike the latter, it lacks an iKVM remote-management chip. Those looking for more serious workstation builds involving something from Intel's Xeon stable or even 2P setups, should consider the larger WS C621E SAGE. The WS X299 SAGE is targeted at those who need the massive PCIe loadout of the C621E SAGE, but can make do with 1P Core X processors.

The ASUS WS X299 SAGE draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, two 8-pin EPS, and a 6-pin PCIe power. An 8-phase VRM powers the CPU, and is rated to power 16-core and 18-core CPU models. The CPU socket is wired to eight DDR4 DIMM slots supporting up to 128 GB of quad-channel DDR4 memory; and seven PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots. Storage connectivity includes eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and two each of 32 Gb/s M.2 slots and 32 Gb/s U.2 ports. Four USB 3.1 gen 2 ports, two 1 GbE interfaces, and a dozen USB 3.0 ports make for the rest of it. The company didn't reveal pricing.

ASUS today introduced the WS X299 Pro SE motherboard, a variant of the recently announced WS X299 Pro. The new Pro SE comes with an ASUS ASMB9-iKVM IPMI 2.0 compliant remote management chip, which is physically an ASPEED AST2500, but with custom firmware and software by ASUS. This chip provides a host of remote-management features, including iKVM, remote BIOS update, BSOD screen capture, and screen video recording, remote data wipe, etc., all adding to the board's enterprise credentials. The chip is tucked away underneath the secondary VRM heatsink next to the expansion slot area of the motherboard, and dissipates its heat to this heatsink via a thermal pad. The board is otherwise identical to the WS X299 Pro. We expect the WS X299 Pro SE to sell at a premium over the WS X299 Pro.

NVIDIA has dropped the next piece of the Pascal puzzle into place. Dubbed the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, it promises higher gaming frame rates and smoother VR experiences than the standard 1070 without completely blowing your budget. We've deployed the chip in several new graphics cards, including a range-topping ROG Strix model whose binned GPUs and beefy cooling are perfect for overclocking, and a streamlined ASUS Turbo that sticks to the essentials.

With 2432 CUDA cores, the GTX 1070 Ti boasts 27% more pixel-processing horsepower than the vanilla 1070. The 1683MHz Boost clock is the same, putting you within striking distance of the GTX 1080 at 2560 cores and 1733MHz. You get 8GB of dedicated video memory with each GPU; the Ti pushes GDDR5 to 8 Gbps, just like the GTX 1070, while the 1080 opts for pricier GDDR5X at speeds up to 11Gbps.

Built on Intel's C621 chipset, ASUS's new WS C621E SAGE motherboard possesses some interesting traits. For a start, this workstation motherboard not only supports one LGA-3647 socket processor, but two of them in tandem. That's right. Enterprise users in need of raw processing power can drop in a pair of Intel Xeon Platinum 8180 processors and build themselves a beastly workstation with 56 cores and 112 threads at their disposal. But, what really separates the WS C621E SAGE from the competition is the motherboard's overclocking capability. Since Intel locks the multiplier for their Xeon processors, owners are accustomed to settle for factory clock speeds. However, ASUS has engineered a method to allow Xeon owners to overclock their processors to take their performance to a next level. Given the locked multiplier, we assume that overclocking is probably done through base clock adjustments.

Processing power is crucial for productivity, but having enough memory for heavy-duty tasks is equally important. For that same reason, ASUS has incorporated 12 DDR4 memory slots into the WS C621E SAGE. Users can go with either RDIMM or LR-DIMM ECC modules with speeds up to DDR4-2666. This opens the door to running 1.5 TB of memory. Now that's something you don't see everyday.

Urgent message to all would-be Destiny 2 PC players: Bungie has enabled an extremely strict, no holds-barred permanent account-banning system with Destiny 2, which activates so long as you have any kind of application with process hooks / overlay features. This is true for Twitch, Discord, MSI Afterburner, OBS, XSplit, Skype, TeamSpeak, HWMon, AIDA, as well as some hardware vendor overlays such as ASUS Tweak and Corsair Link software, GeForce Experience's FPS counter... The message screen, "Not so Fast", indicates that players have been banned, without forewarning or any further explanation.

There's a meltdown going on in Bungie's official PC Support forums, where most of the threads have been started - and then added to - by banned users. In some cases, users are banned even before entering the character creation screen; some more fortunate ones can even get to thew first three minutes of the intro video. A post from a Bungie Forum moderator didn't do much to instill confidence: "In Destiny there are account restriction and bans,", Bungie moderator "Kellogs" writes. "Restrictions are only temporary but must be waiting out while bans are permanent. Please note that Bungie will not discuss or overturn account restrictions or bans."

ASUS today rolled out the WS X299 Pro, a feature-rich socket LGA2066 motherboard designed for machines built in the gray-area between high-end desktops (HEDTs) and "real" workstations (based on the Xeon/EPYC platforms). The board is still based on the Intel X299 Express chipset, and will only support Intel Core X "Skylake-X" processors. It features the company's highest-grade electrical components. Built in the ATX form-factor, the board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, a 6-pin PCIe power, and two 8-pin EPS connectors. It conditions power for the CPU using a 9-phase high-current VRM, which puts out heat on not just a primary heatsink making direct contact with the MOSFETs, but also a secondary heatsink over a heat-pipe. This heatsink occupies an area not just behind the rear I/O area, but also extends downwards, to just behind the expansion slots (while not intruding).

The LGA2066 socket is wired to eight reinforced DDR4 DIMM slots, supporting up to 128 GB of quad-channel memory, and four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (x16/x16/NC/x4 or x16/x8/x8/x4 on 44-lane CPUs), and a fifth open-ended x4 slot. Storage connectivity includes two 32 Gbps M.2 slots (both of which feature heatsinks), a 32 Gbps U.2 port, and six SATA 6 Gbps ports. USB connectivity includes four 10 Gbps USB 3.1 ports, and six 5 Gbps USB 3.0 ports. Networking is care of two 1 GbE interfaces, driven by Intel i210-AT controllers. The onboard audio is based around a Realtek ALC1220A CODEC, fronted by a headphones amp, and backed by audio-grade capacitors, and ground-layer isolation. The company didn't reveal pricing or availability.

Videocardz has done it again, and have gotten their hands on manufacturer's images of as of yet unreleased graphics cards. This time, it's ASUS' products that have been brought to the limelight, with not one, but two custom versions of their upcoming GeForce GTX 1070 Ti graphics cards being pictures next to their retail boxes.

The first graphics card is the 1070 Ti Turbo (TURBO-GTX1070TI-8G), which like most ASUS Turbo models, should be among the cheapest 1070 Ti options - it forfeits any additional engineering besides NVIDIA's reference design, and adds ASUS' Turbo blower-type cooler. The 1070 Ti STRIX (ROG-STRIX-GTX1070TI-A8G-GAMING), on the other hand, is a custom-engineered version of the GTX 1070 (GP-104) silicon, and should come with the same higher margins as other ASUS custom products. A mainstay of ASUS STRIX designs is the presence of Aura Sync RGB lighting control, and a triple-fan configuration, which should bring operating temperatures down considerably. We should start seriously considering the chance that we'll see an as of yet unannounced NVIDIA graphics card actually launch with custom partner designs before custom versions of AMD's Vega graphics cards ever hit the retail channel. Though to be fair, it's much easier for AIB partners to simply recycle NVIDIA custom designs for this particular graphics card than design an entirely new one for AMD's Vega.

EK Water Blocks, the Slovenia-based premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer proves its market leadership once again by releasing the world's first Socket TR4 based monoblock made for several ASUS X399 motherboards. The EK-FB ASUS ROG ZE RGB Monoblock has an integrated 4-pin Digital RGB LED strip which makes it compatible with ASUS Aura Sync, thus offering a full lighting customization experience.

Designed and engineered in cooperation with ASUS, this monoblock uses award-winning EK-Supremacy EVO cooling engine to ensure best possible CPU cooling. This water block directly cools AMD Socket TR4 type CPU, as well as the power regulation (MOSFET) module. Liquid flows directly over all critical areas, providing the enthusiasts with a great solution for high and stable overclocks. Using such a monoblock gets rid of the small fan that can be found on some X399 motherboards, hidden under the I/O cover.