Here are the first pictures of the Republic of Gamers Maximus VII motherboard series, from ASUS. The lineup will initially consist of three models, the Maximus VII Hero, the Maximus VII Ranger, and the micro-ATX Maximus VII Gene, with no signs of >$200 "Formula" and "Extreme" variants, or even the mini-ITX "Impact" variant. With MSI and ASRock setting up their "Gaming" and "Fatal1ty" sub-brand models at the $150 price point, ASUS is feeling the pinch of not putting an ROG Maximus-series model up at that price. Hence we have the Maximus VII Ranger, a $150-ish motherboard that could go head on against the Gaming 3 from MSI, and Z97 Fatal1ty Killer from ASRock. The $199 price-point is captured by the Maximus VII Hero, competing with the Gaming 7 from MSI. Future "Formula" and "Extreme" variants could compete at the $250 and ≥$300 price-points with the MPower and XPower models.

The Maximus VII Ranger features two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots wired to the CPU (x8/x8 with both populated), the third one is wired to the Z97 PCH, and is electrical x4. The board appears to feature a simple 8-phase CPU VRM, six SATA 6 Gb/s ports, an M.2 slot, SupremeFX audio, and a single gigabit Ethernet connection, probably made by Intel. Moving on, the Maximus VII Hero. Which could feature a meatier CPU VRM, eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports, one M.2, a similar expansion slot layout to the Ranger, and probably more connectivity options. The Maximus VII Gene is a feature-rich micro-ATX board, with a similar CPU VRM to the Maximus VII Hero, two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, an addition PCI-Express x1, an M.2, and eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports. Its connectivity appears to include a WLAN card with 802.11 ac. Among the new ROG-exclusive features introduced by this series, are Gamefirst III (packet prioritization), LANGuard, SonicRadar II (points to where a sound is coming from), KeyBot (keyboard macros), and TrueVolt USB (power stabilization for USB ports).

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced Striker GTX 760 Platinum, a brand-new gaming graphics card powered by the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 graphics-processing unit (GPU), a beefy 4 GB of high-speed GDDR5 memory and engineered with exclusive cooling and power-stabilizing technologies.

The GTX 760 GPU is greatly desired by many gamers for being the performance sweet-spot, while Striker GTX 760 Platinum's DirectCU II cooling, CoolTech fan, DIGI+ voltage-regulator module (VRM) and Super Alloy Power components ensure cooler, faster, quieter gaming that also provides great overclocking potential.

ASUSTOR Inc., a leading innovator and provider of network storage solutions, announced today that it has added support for USB digital-to-analog audio converters (DAC) giving ASUSTOR users the ability to use a USB DAC to increase the quality of audio output from their NAS devices. A USB DAC can be conveniently used in concert with ASUSTOR's SoundsGood music player App to provide users with a heightened listening experience featuring fuller and deeper sound. Featured in this integration of USB DAC devices are four models from ASUS. These models include the Xonar Essence III, Xonar Essence One, Xonar Essence STU and Xonar U3.

"Today's NAS applications have evolved from the traditional storage and backup functions as demand for multimedia functionality has taken off," said Steve Huang, Product Manager at ASUSTOR. "ASUSTOR has made great efforts to support the increasing multimedia demands of NAS users by providing compatibility for a wide range of peripherals. With this integration of USB DAC devices, ASUSTOR users will be able to savor a fully enhanced hi-fi listening experience when playing music from their NAS."

TechPowerUp released the latest version of GPU-Z, the popular PC graphics diagnostic and monitoring utility, which gives you up to date information of the GPUs installed in your system, and lets you monitor their clock speeds, temperatures, fan-speeds, voltages, dedicated memory usage, among other things. Version 0.7.8 introduces a few handy user-interface features, beginning with the ability to resize the app's window, when the "Sensors" tab is being viewed. With modern graphics cards giving us dozens of sensors to track, throwing in a scroll-bar is making the tab cluttered, and so we decided to give it resizing. The window returns to the normal size when other tabs, such as the main "Graphics Card" tabs are clicked, and remembers your window size preference when you select the "Sensors" tab again. At this time, this feature is available only on our main (non-skinned) version.

Apart from the resizeable window for "Sensors" tab, GPU-Z 0.7.8 adds tested support for AMD Radeon R9 295X2 "Vesuvius," R9 M275, HD 7500G, and FirePro W9000. It also adds support for NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN-Z, GTX 745, GTX 880M, GTX 870M, GTX 860M, GTX 850M, GTX 775M, and Quadro NVS 510. Release dates have been fixed for GTX 780 Ti, and GTX TITAN Black.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.7.8, GPU-Z 0.7.8 ASUS ROG Themed

The change-log follows.

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 73.4 million units in the first quarter of 2014 (1Q14), a decline of -4.4% year-on-year, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. Although still in decline and with continuing weakness in consumer and emerging market segments, the preliminary results are slightly better than a projected decline of -5.3%.

Similar to the latter part of 2013, the upside in the first quarter arose primarily from demand in mature commercial markets. Commercial refresh projects, which had already been protracted, received a last push from the impending end of Windows XP support, particularly in Japan. In addition, slowing demand for tablets seems to have helped constrain previously drastic cutbacks in notebooks. Nevertheless, emerging regions continued to post weak results, with growth in Latin America and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan)(APeJ) falling even faster than recent declines as both economic conditions and continued tablet penetration stifled PC shipments.

ASUS today announced ESC4000 G2S, a new 2U-sized server series based on the dual Intel Xeon E5-2600 v2 processor platform and designed for use in environments that demand high-density GPU/coprocessor servers.

The new ESC4000 G2S series servers feature a highly optimized thermal design, six hot-swappable 2.5-inch SATA drive bays and nine PCI Express 3.0 (PCIe 3.0) x16 expansion slots. The innovative and thoughtful design delivers high-density computing power, easy scalability and exceptional energy efficiency, making ESC4000 G2S series servers the ideal choice for applications in the high-performance computing (HPC) fields of life and medical sciences, engineering science, financial modeling and virtualization.

ASUS today announced exciting new additions to its commercial ASUSPRO PC range, with the launch of the ET1620 all-in-one PC, EeeBox EB1036 and EB1037 space-saving desktop PCs, and the ultra-small form factor (USFF) BT1AD and BT1AE desktop PCs.

All models feature the very latest Intel processors for optimum performance and power efficiency. Designed for small-to-medium businesses, public sector and enterprise customers, these new ASUSPRO PCs offer enhanced productivity, space-saving design, and advanced management and security features - including the new and exclusive ASUS Business Manager - tailored to enhance productivity with minimal impact on operating and maintenance costs.

ASUS joined the Radeon R9 295X2 launch party with a card of its own. Sticking to AMD's reference board design, ASUS' offering ships in a big black+red box. The card features reference clock speeds of 1018 MHz core, with 5.00 GHz memory; and 8 GB of memory (2x 4 GB). Its two "Hawaii" GPUs feature 2,816 stream processors, 176 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 512-bit wide memory interfaces, each. ASUS is pricing the card on par with the others, at US $1,499.

Here's the first picture of an AMD add-in board (AIB) branded Radeon R9 295X2 dual-GPU graphics card, ASUS in this case. The card ships in a huge cubical box, although we're not sure if that paperboard box hides a metal suitcase inside. ASUS did away with the perforated metal grille over the central fan on the card, and plastered a couple of stickers, although the rest of the card sticks to AMD's reference board design. According to leading Turkish tech publication DonanimHaber, AMD is planning to price the Radeon R9 295X2 at US $1,499. According to older reports, the R9 295X2 is a dual-GPU CrossFire-on-a-stick graphics card, featuring two 28 nm "Hawaii" GPUs, with all 2,816 stream processors, 176 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 512-bit wide memory interfaces enabled on each chip, and 4 GB of memory per GPU system, totaling the amount to 8 GB.

Here are some of the key slides from AMD's press-deck (presentation) for reviewers, for the Radeon R9 295X2 dual-GPU graphics card, ahead of its April 8 launch. The slides confirm specifications that surfaced earlier this week, which describe the card as bearing the codename "Vesuvius," having two 28 nm "Hawaii" GPUs, and all 2,816 stream processors on the chips being enabled, next to 176 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and 512-bit wide GDDR5 memory interfaces. Two such chips are wired to a PLX PEX8747 PCI-Express 3.0 x48 bridge chip. There's a total of 8 GB of memory on board, 4 GB per GPU. Lastly, clock speeds are revealed. The GPUs are clocked as high as 1018 MHz, and memory at 5.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective). The total memory bandwidth of the card is hence 640 GB/s.

The Radeon R9 295X2 indeed looks like the card which was pictured earlier this week, by members of the ChipHell tech community. It features an air+liquid hybrid cooling solution, much like the ROG ARES II by ASUS. The cooling solution is co-developed by AMD and Asetek. It features a couple of pump-blocks cooling the GPUs, which are plumbed with a common coolant channel running through a single 120 mm radiator+reservoir unit. A 120 mm fan is included. A centrally located fan on the card ventilates heatsinks that cool the VRM, memory, and the PCIe bridge chip.

ASUS' choice of decking its mainline motherboards in black and gold is coming to bite it, as the company unveiled one of the first of its "Gamer" line of motherboards. Simply put, these are boards from its mainline Z87 and B85 series products, but with black and red color scheme, and not many of the goodies that its expensive ROG (Republic of Gamers) series comes with. It's the idea of making entry-level and mid-range products more appealing to gamers that ASUS appears to have aped MSI on, even if MSI isn't the original "black + red" motherboard maker. That said, the B85-Pro Gamer isn't just a B85-Pro with fancy heatsinks. Its PCB resembles rather closely with that of the Z87-A.

To begin with, this slim ATX motherboard uses an 8-phase VRM to condition power to the LGA1150 socket. It's wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, and a single PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot. The other long x16 slot on this board is physically PCI-Express 2.0 x4, and wired to the B85 PCH. Three legacy PCI, and two PCI-Express 2.0 x1 make up the rest of the expansion area. Storage connectivity includes four SATA 6 Gb/s, and two SATA 3 Gb/s. Display outputs (which we doubt gamers would use), include DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. ASUS worked on the networking and audio of this board. It features a rather premium Intel I217V GbE controller, and SupremeFX audio, with a 115 dBA SNR CODEC, electrolytic capacitors, a TI-made 300Ω headphones amp, and ground-layer isolation.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced Matrix R9 290X and Matrix GTX 780 Ti, two new graphics cards that squeeze breathtaking performance from the latest R9 290X and GeForce GTX 780 Ti graphics-processing units (GPUs).

ROG Matrix R9 290X and GTX 780 Ti build on the renowned and highly-trusted ROG Matrix legacy as the coolest, quietest and most-readily-overclocked graphics cards available. DirectCU II cooling and CoolTech fan technologies combine with the brand-new Memory Defroster feature to create the perfect balance between spectacular power and out-of-the-box simplicity - all dressed up in the seductive ROG wardrobe.

ASUS today announced AM1M-A and AM1I-A, two exciting new motherboards that support the latest AMD AM1-socketed SoC (system-on-a-chip) Athlon and Sempron series Accelerated Processing Units (APUs).

These revolutionary APUs with AMD R Series graphics combine high processing power, advanced Microsoft DirectX 11.1 graphics, and Fusion controller hubs (FCHs) in one small, efficient package - improving performance by over 50% compared to the previous ('Brazos 2.0') generation of AMD APUs.

ASUS today announced Essence STX II and Essence STX II 7.1, two new Hi-Fi-grade sound cards designed to delight audiophiles with 124 dB signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) clarity and a 600 ohm-headphone amplifier.

Essence STX II and STX II 7.1 build on the success and huge popularity of ASUS Essence STX - the world's first consumer sound card to deliver 124 db SNR audio clarity plus 600 ohm headphone amp, and the long-term holder of the number-one position in Head-Fi's Sound Cards charts, as voted by highly-satisfied users globally.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced the G750JZ, G750JM and G750JS, new additions to its highly acclaimed range of G-Series high-performance gamer-centric notebooks.

The latest G750 models feature a 4th-generation Intel Core i7-4700 processor and the brand-new enthusiast-level NVIDIA GeForce GTX 800M Series GPUs, and include exclusive ASUS TurboMaster GPU-overclocking technology to deliver desktop-grade gaming performance. With its awesome looks and components that are designed from start to finish with the needs of serious gamers in mind, G750 sets the standard for amazing portable gaming performance.

After just a little teasing ASUS has today opened the flood gates and published over a dozen images depicting its newest ROG Series graphics cards, the MATRIX R9290X (based on the Radeon R9 290X) and the MATRIX GTX780TI (GeForce GTX 780 Ti).

Both of ASUS' cards make use of a custom PCB and come equipped with a dual-slot cooler featuring two fans (one of which is a CoolTech fan), and a black nickel-plated heatsink boasting five direct contact copper heatpipes. The upcoming MATRIX models also have dual 8-pin power connectors, a 14-phase DIGI+ VRM, a backplate, dual-DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, and OC-oriented additions like the LN2 Mode Switch.

ASUS kicked off its Radeon R9 280 lineup with a pair of DirectCU II series graphics cards, one which sticks to AMD reference clock speeds of 827 MHz core, 933 MHz boost, and 5.00 GHz memory; and a TOP variant, which offers clock speeds of 874 MHz core, 980 MHz boost, and 5.20 GHz memory. Both cards are based on a board design that's not too different from that of the R9 280X DirectCU II series, featuring a custom-design PCB, and the company's new generation DirectCU II cooling solution, which features the CoolTech fan that combines a lateral blower with a conventional fan impeller. Based on the 28 nm "Tahiti" silicon, the Radeon R9 280 features 1,792 stream processors 112 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 3 GB of memory.

ASUS announced the J1800I-C, a completely fan-less motherboard based on Intel's "Bay Trail" low-power platform, running a Celeron J1800 SoC. The J1800 integrates a dual-core 64-bit x86 CPU clocked at 2.40 GHz, with Turbo Boost frequencies as high as 2.58 GHz. Built in the mini-ITX form-factor, the board features a chunky aluminium heatsink cooling the SoC. The board draws power from 24-pin ATX connector, and a 4-pin CPU connector.

ASUS productively utilized the scarce real-estate of the mini-ITX PCB - a sizable portion of which is consumed by the heatsink - providing two DDR3 SO-DIMM slots, a conventional PCIe x1, an mPCIe with mSATA pins, two conventional SATA 3 Gb/s ports, and a healthy mix of modern and legacy connectivity, that includes headers for LPT, an RS-232 COM at the rear panel, a mixed-mode PS/2 port, one USB 3.0 SuperSpeed port, a number of USB 2.0/1.1 ports, gigabit Ethernet, HDMI, D-Sub, and 6-channel HD audio. The board is driven by AMI UEFI BIOS.

ASUS today announced that all 8 Series motherboards offer support for new 4th-generation Intel Core processors, assuring a quick, safe, and smooth upgrade - immediately. A simple BIOS update is all that's required to enable users to enjoy the great performance of the latest CPUs.

Just one click for instant compatibility with new 4th-generation Intel Core Processors
All ASUS 8 series Intel motherboards support new 4th-generation Intel Core Processors, and the necessary BIOS update takes just one click in an easy-to-use application, which can be downloaded from the ASUS website. Users keen to take advantage of the power of the latest CPUs can visit the ASUS website, at www.asus.com, and download the relevant BIOS version - today!

ASUS today announced GTX 750 Ti and GTX 750, two new high-value 3D-gaming graphics cards equipped respectively with the powerful GeForce GTX 750 Ti and GTX 750 graphics-processing units (GPUs) and overclocked for performance that's up to 52 MHz faster than reference.

The new GTX 750 Ti and GTX 750 cards benefit from many exclusive ASUS technologies and tools including dust-proof fans for improved card lifespan and Super Alloy Power components for superior stability. They also include GPU Tweak, an easy-to-use tuning software that helps users to squeeze every last drop of performance out of their graphics card and stream on-screen action over the internet in real time - great for boasting rights.

ASUS today announced GTX Titan Black, a graphics card powered by the brand-new GeForce GTX Titan Black graphics-processing unit (GPU) clocked at 980 MHz and bundled with exclusive GPU Tweak technology for advanced overclocking that's also accessible, simple and incredibly safe.

Fitted with 6 GB of super-fast GDDR5 video memory and further benefiting from NVIDIA GPU Boost 2.0 and G-SYNC technologies, GTX Titan Black is a powerhouse graphics card with a stylish black heatsink design for enthusiasts who demand supercharged visuals for the very best gaming experiences.

EK Water Blocks, Ljubljana-based premium water cooling gear manufacturer, is proud to introduce the full-cover water cooling solution for the ASUS engineered Direct CU II series AMD Radeon R9 280X graphics card.

EK-FC R9-280X DCII water block directly cools the GPU, RAM as well as VRM (voltage regulation module) as water flows directly over these critical areas thus allowing the graphics card and it's VRM to remain stable under high overclocks.

ASUS today announced R7 265 DirectCU II, a new graphics card powered by the latest AMD Radeon R7 265 graphics-processing unit (GPU).

R7 265 DirectCU II includes many innovative and exclusive ASUS technologies and tools including DirectCU II for 20%-cooler and three-times (3X) quieter gaming performance, Super Alloy Power components for vastly improved longevity and GPU Tweak, an easy-to-use software tool that allows users to squeeze more performance out of the GPU.

Thanks to falling production costs leading to declines in average selling prices (ASPs), shipments of ultra-high-definition (UHD) 4K desktop monitor displays are expected to increase steadily. According to the NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly Desktop Monitor Shipment and Forecast Report, even as overall desktop monitor demand falls to 133 million units in 2014, 4K UHD monitor shipments will reach two million units, and by 2017 shipments are forecast to reach approximately 8% of the market. The ASP for 4K monitors is forecast to decline from $1,347 in 2014 to $927 in 2017.

"Increased 4K-class monitor shipment volume will depend on how far and how fast ASPs decline," said Hidetoshi Himuro, director of PC and IT research at NPD DisplaySearch. "Although manufacturers hope toraise prices for 4K-enabled monitors, price competition has already begun."

ASUS today announced the Chromebox. ASUS Chromebox is a stylish and compact device thoughtfully designed to simplify home, classroom or office computing. It is easy to set up right out of the box, and starts up in seconds to give users quick access to their favorite applications, games and websites. It provides integrated virus and malware protection and automatically updates itself for a safe hassle-free user experience.

"The ASUS Chromebox offers the simplicity, security and speed of Chrome OS in the most compact and powerful Chrome device to date," said Felix Lin, director of product management, Google. "Perfect for home, the classroom or the office, Chromebox is designed for the way we use computers today."