A couple of weeks ahead of its worldwide launch, Intel's much talked about "Sandy Bridge-E" Core i7 processors and compatible motherboards are beginning to surface on an online store in China. Listings include all three of the Core i7 LGA2011 processors Intel will launch in November, that includes the quad-core Core i7-3820, six-core Core i7-3930K and six-core Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition (details on the three here. Apart from these, a few compatible motherboards such as the ASUS ROG Rampage IV Extreme and MSI X79A-GD65 8D, were also listed.

Before getting into the pricing, it's important to note that prices of components in mainland China, in general, are more or less consistent with those in the US. The top-of-the-line Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition is priced at RMB ¥7,800 (converts to US $1,227). The next best LGA2011 offering, Core i7-3930K, is priced at ¥5,800 (US $912). The most afforable of the three, Core i7-3820, goes for ¥3,500 (US $550).

In mid-September, earlier this year, a team of overclockers sponsored by AMD set a new Guinness Record for clock speed by a silicon processor, setting an AMD FX-8150 processor to run at a staggering 8429.38 MHz. If anything, the coveted Guinness Record feat helped cement the general notion that AMD FX processors are good at overclocking. Sadly, AMD's record didn't last long, with renowned overclocker Andre Yang breaking it with his 8461.51 MHz feat. At this point we don't know if Andre had Guinness covering his feat to he could officially break AMD's record. AMD wouldn't mind it at all, because the new record was set using an AMD FX-8150, too. Andre did it single-handed, or at least he is the only person in the "Submitted by" field on the CPU-Z Validation page.

According to the validation page, 8461.51 MHz was achieved using a base clock speed of 272.95 MHz, with 31.0X multiplier, and a brutal core voltage of 1.992V (almost 2 volts!). As with AMD's record feat, an ASUS Crosshair V Formula motherboard was used. A single 2 GB Corsair-made memory module was used doing 909.8 MHz (1818.16 MHz DDR) with timings of 9-9-9-24T. Like with AMD's feat, only two out of the FX-8150's eight cores were enabled. More details are awaited.

AMD today announced revenue for the third quarter of 2011 of $1.69 billion, net income of $97 million, or $0.13 per share, and operating income of $138 million. The company reported non-GAAP net income of $110 million, or $0.15 per share, and non-GAAP operating income of $146 million.

"Strong adoption of AMD APUs drove a 35 percent sequential revenue increase in our mobile business," said Rory Read, AMD president and CEO. "Despite supply constraints, we saw double digit revenue and unit shipment growth in emerging markets like China and India as well as overall notebook share gains in retail at mainstream price points. Through disciplined execution and continued innovation we will look to accelerate our growth and refine our focus on lower power, emerging markets, and the cloud."

ASUS' top-tier LGA2011 lineup is completed by the TUF Sabertooth X79. This board, along with the ROG Rampage IV Extreme and P9X79 Deluxe makes up for it. There will be many more affordable LGA2011 boards by ASUS, one such model we're hearing about is the P9X79 Pro. The TUF Sabertooth family is based on the idea of rock-solid stability and component durability, these motherboards are built to last, if not score accolades with overclocking like the ROG boards are designed for.

The Sabertooth X79 uses an ASUS-designed Digi+ VRM to power the CPU, which is spread across two sides of the socket (north and west). The heatsink cooling the VRM components to the west is actively cooled by a 40 mm fan, the one over the X79 PCH is cooled by a similarly sized lateral blower, too. Like with the other two top-tier boards from ASUS' stable, this one provides eight DDR3 DIMM slots supporting quad-channel memory.

Here are the first pictures of ASUS P9X79 Deluxe, the company's premium segment LGA2011 motherboard based on the X79 chipset. This features in ASUS' main motherboard lineup, and not sub-lineups such as Republic of Gamers (ROG) or The Ultimate Force (TUF). The P9X79 Deluxe is loaded with features and connectivity options. To begin with, the LGA2011 socket is powered by a next-generation Digi+ VRM design by ASUS, driven by Dual Intelligent Processors III (next-generation Energy Processing Unit (EPU) chip and TurboV Processing Unit (TPU)). Like with the ROG Rampage IV Extreme, VRM is spread across three sides of the socket, and each cluster of MOSFETs is cooled by heatsinks. The socket is wired to eight DDR3 DIMM slots in two sets of four slots, supporting quad-channel DDR3. The memory VRM uses a Digi+ design, too.

Among the six expansion slots, there are four PCI-Express x16 slots, and two PCIe x1. The PCH gives out six SATA ports, two 6 Gb/s (white), four 3 Gb/s (blue), the two additional 6 Gb/s ports come from a third-party controller. There are two power-eSATA ports on the rear panel. The eight USB 3.0 ports on this board are spread across as six ports on the rear-panel, and two via standard header. Other connectivity includes 8+2 channel HD audio, two gigabit Ethernet connections, USB 2.0, and Bluetooth.

Here is ASUS' top of the line LGA2011 motherboard targeting the gamer-overclocker market, the Republic of Gamers (ROG) Rampage IV Extreme. This board offers all the expansion room and connectivity you'll ever need, plus a wealth of nifty features that help overclockers and ease incremental upgrades. To begin with, the Rampage IV Extreme employs a strong digital PWM circuitry that supports heavy voltage-assisted overclocking with Vdroop control.

The LGA2011 socket is wired to eight DDR3 DIMM slots (two per channel). CPU and memory VRM areas are located along three sides of the socket, all cooled by heatsinks that are connected by heat pipes. These VRM heatsinks share heat with the one over the X79 PCH, which is actively cooled by a fan.

ASUS is ready with a new PCI-Express 3.0 compliant socket LGA1155 motherboard, adding to its recently-launched line of Intel Z68 chipset-based boards that feature Gen 3.0 PCI-Express x16 slots. This latest one is part of the elite Republic of Gamers (ROG) family, and is built on the compact micro-ATX form factor, called Maximus IV Gene-Z/Gen 3. This is the second modification of the Maximus IV Gene, the original was based on Intel P67 chipset, the Gene-Z replaced the chipset with Intel Z68 that supports Smart Response technology, while the Gene-Z/Gen 3 adds PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots.

The board uses a 12-phase Digi+ VRM for the CPU, it is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting DRAM speeds of up to DDR3-2200 MHz with overclocking. The socket is wired to two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots over Gen 3 compliant switches and electrical components, the slots configure to PCI-Express 3.0 x8/x8 when both are populated. PCI-Express Gen 3 support requires next-generation 22 nm Ivy Bridge Core processors, which will be launched next year. The only other expansion slot is an open-ended PCI-Express 2.0 x4, wired to the Z68 PCH. NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFire are supported.

ASUS unveiled a trio of socket LGA1155 motherboards based on the Intel Z68 chipset, which feature PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (electrical x8/x8 when both are populated). The new motherboards are PCI-Express Gen 3.0 specifications compliant, complete with switches and electrical components. Leading the pack is the P8Z68 DELUXE/Gen3 in the $250-segement, followed by the P8Z68-V PRO/Gen3 in the $200-segment, and the P8Z68-V/Gen3 in the sub-$200 segment.

All three feature 16-phase Digi+ CPU VRM, an Intel-made gigabit Ethernet controller, and Lucid Virtu support. All three feature the same expansion slot loadout, with two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (x16/NC or x8/x8), one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical 2.0 x4), and two each of PCI-Express 2.0 x1 and legacy PCI wired to an ASMedia-made bridge chip.

Here are the first pictures of ASUS' latest gaming desktop under its premium Republic of Gamers banner, the ROG CG8565. This black beauty is sculpted with the typical "edgy" design that has been found on recent ROG products. The case has no windows, but its design is enough to be an eyeball-magnet at LAN parties. The case looks well-ventilated with its intricately-designed vents on its top and sides. The front door slides down revealing the front panel, with two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, audio, multi-format card reader, a Blu-ray ROM + DVD-RW combo drive, and a 3.5-inch SATA hard drive hot-swap bay. The ROG logo glows red when the system is powered on.

Under the hood, the ROG CG8565 is a Sandy Bridge-powered system. It is driven by an Intel Core i7-2600K quad-core processor, that's overclocked out of the box at 4.20 GHz. There are two higher OC presets that's selectable using the ROG panel, OC1 runs the CPU at 4.40 GHz, and OC2 runs it at 4.60 GHz. The CPU makes use of liquid cooling. In all likelihood, the motherboard is an ROG Maximus IV-class. There's 16 GB of dual-channel DDR3-1600 MHz memory.

Weeks ahead of its market launch, AMD pulled off a nice PR feat by setting making its trusty squad of overclockers, Sami Mäkinen, Brian Mclachlan, Pete Hardman, and Aaron Schradin set a new clock speed world record (as in Guinness World Record). With just one of its four modules enabled, the eight-core FX-8150 engineering sample was overclocked to a stunning 8429.38 MHz. The chip was able to tolerate a brutal core voltage of 2.016V. Even for a one-in-a-million cherry-picked chip, those are staggering numbers.

8429.38 MHz was achieved using a base clock of 271.92 MHz, with 31.0X multiplier. The memory used was a Corsair Dominator GT single module, which apparently tolerated 3:10 DRAM ratio and timings of 2-16-2-22. That's right, 2-16-2-22. ASUS Crosshair V Formula seated the platform. Cooling was care of a custom liquid-nitrogen evaporator setup. The team used liquid nitrogen as its cooling medium, and switched to liquid helium halfway, which has a lower boiling point. The team cherry-picked chips from the best lots on-site.A video of the feat follows.

ASUS released a new embedded micro-ATX motherboard based on AMD's Fusion "Zacate" processor platform. The new E45M1-M PRO from ASUS resembles the E35M1-M PRO, except that it's powered by the newer AMD E-450 dual-core APU. Clocked at 1.65 GHz, the E-450 combines two Bobcat architecture x86-64 cores with Radeon HD 6320 DirectX 11-compliant graphics packing 80 stream processors, and a DDR3-1333 MHz integrated memory controller. The E45M1-M PRO measures 244 x 183 mm, and makes use of all of its expansion area to provide four expansion slots: a PCI-Express 2.0 x16, a PCI-E x1, and two legacy PCI.

The board draws power from standard 24-pin ATX with 4-pin CPU power. A 3-phase VRM handles APU power, it is backed by ASUS EPU chip that works to improve energy efficiency. The APU is wired to two DDR3 DIMM slots, for single-channel DDR3 memory. A large heatsink cools both the APU and Hudson M1 chipset, optionally a fan can be attached to cool it better.

TechPowerUp today announced the latest version of GPU-Z, the graphics hardware information and diagnostic utility trusted by the PC enthusiast community at large. Version 0.5.5 comes with support for the latest graphics processors, makes the interface a little more accessible to users, and improves stability and reliability.

To begin with, GPU-Z 0.5.5 adds full support for AMD A-Series accelerated processing units (the Radeon GPU component embedded in them), a load of new and lesser-known GPUs from NVIDIA including GeForce GT 560 Ti OEM, GT 545, GT 530, GeForce GTX 580M, GT 555M, GeForce 520MX, GT 520M, 410M, 305M, Quadro 5000, Quadro 4000M, Quadro 400; from AMD including Radeon HD 6290, Radeon E6760 & E4690, FirePro V8800, FirePro V3700, FirePro 2460 (FireMV); and the recently launched ASUS ROG MARS II, which probably got Santa's inbox flooded by now.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.5.5 | TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.5.5 ASUS ROG Edition

The new ROG MARS II picks up where previous graphics card powerhouses from ASUS ROG left off, and continues the legacy of the finest hardware for hardcore gamers. The limited-edition card is built on twin NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 GPUs and a mammoth 3GB of GDDR5 video memory, with a proprietary ROG design that combines extreme cooling and extensive tuning facilities that cater to the most demanding power user. It also offers colossal pixel-pushing output that is unmatched by any graphics card.

Seagate has shipped its one millionth solid state hybrid drive for laptop PCs after launching the product - Momentus XT - in spring 2010. Major computer makers including Alienware, ASUS, Dell, Sony and Toshiba now offer laptops powered by the 2.5-inch drive that blends performance rivaling solid state drives with the enormous capacity and much lower cost of hard disk drives.

The Momentus XT solid state hybrid drive, a 7200RPM drive with up to 500GB of capacity, boots up to 50 percent faster than traditional 5400RPM drives and sets new benchmarks for real-world system performance for laptops and gaming systems. Seagate's Adaptive Memory technology is key to the drive's speed, optimizing its performance by moving frequently used information into the 4GB of onboard solid state memory for faster bootup and application access.

ASUS unveiled its first socket FM1 motherboard in the mini-ITX form-factor, catering to the premium HTPC and small form-factor (SFF) markets. Like with similar mini-ITX boards, the F1A75-I Deluxe crams in all the connectivity features it can on its tiny PCB, outdoing even large ATX boards. It is based on the AMD A75 chipset. The FM1 socket supports AMD's A-Series "Llano" APUs, and is powered by a 4+1 phase VRM. It is wired to two full-length DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting dual-channel DDR3-1866 MHz memory. The board draws power from standard 24-pin ATX with 4-pin CPU power.

The lone expansion slot is a PCI-Express 2.0 x16, letting you plug in just about any PCIe addon card. Storage connectivity includes four SATA 6 Gb/s ports with RAID support, and one eSATA 6 Gb/s. Other connectivity features include 6-channel HD audio with optical SPDIF (our only gripe), four USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear panel, two by header), WiFi b/g/n, gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. Display connectivity includes one each of DVI, HDMI 1.4a, and DisplayPort 1.2. The HDMI 1.4a output includes 8-channel HD audio of the GPU, so the 6 analog audio channels is sort of compensated. The board features ASUS TPU performance control chip, EPU energy-efficiency chip, and a UEFI firmware with ASUS EZ-mode GUI setup program. There's no word on pricing.

ASUS is ready with a new silent (passive-cooled) graphics card based on the AMD Radeon HD 6770 graphics processor, the ASUS HD 6770 DirectCu Silent. ASUS designed a new passive GPU cooler from ground up, which makes use of heat pipe direct-touch design, which ASUS refers to as DirectCu (direct copper). The cooler is essentially a large aluminum fin heatsink that uses four nickel-plated copper heat pipes, conveying heat to a large aluminum fin stack, that is longer than the card's PCB itself.

Based on the 40 nm "Juniper" silicon, the HD 6770 is a rebrand of the HD 5770, it packs 800 stream processors, and a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface to hold 1 GB of memory. The core is clocked at 850 MHz, and memory at 1200 MHz (4.80 GHz effective). The card draws power from one 6-pin PCI-E power connector. It uses high-grade "Super Alloy" VRM components, that are efficient, and don't lose energy to high-pitched noise on load. The card's display outputs include one each of DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI 1.4a. There's no word on the pricing and availability.

ASUS today launched the ASUS Eee Pad Slider, a tablet that builds on the great success of the Eee Pad Transformer. Prior to its launch, the Eee Pad Slider has already made its mark with its winning design at the International Design Excellence Awards 2011. The Eee Pad Slider, which comes in either pearl white or metallic brown, features a slide-out keyboard, the new Google Android 3.1 operating system (Android 3.2 upgradable), as well as a plethora of powerful multimedia features. In pad mode, users can experience rich visuals on the 178° wide viewing angle IPS display. Connectivity is a breeze too, with the built-in USB port, Micro SD card reader, and mini-HDMI port. In slide-out mode, users can take advantage of the keyboard to compose emails and blog posts faster than ever.

ASUS has released the ROG Vulcan ANC, the world's first active-noise-cancelling pro gaming headset designed to immerse users into games and keep them free of distractions like never before. Created from the needs of competitive pro gamers to remain focused during competition, the ROG team forged the Vulcan ANC with both performance and comfort in mind. The Vulcan ANC features 85% active noise cancellation to filter out sounds like low frequency computer fan noise and 30dB passive noise cancellation to reduce a wide range of ambient noises, including background voices.

The Vulcan ANC not only provides gamers an immersive gaming experience with noise cancelling features, but also a comfortable one. The lightweight design of 320g is lighter than other comparable models of the same size, with other headsets weighing around 350g. Soft memory foam encased in breathable Japanese protein leather ensures user comfort even after extended gaming sessions. It is also portable, with a foldable design that easily fits into a durable touring case to take between competitions or LAN parties.

In late June, Prolimatech unveiled its latest variant of the Megahalems heatsink, the Black Edition, which has a grainy matte surface that is designed to radiate heat better than the smooth piano-black fins on the Super Mega (an older black-colored Megahalems variant). Now, Prolimatech is taking it further with the Camouflage series of heatsinks based on the Megahalems and Genesis heatsink designs. The two feature fin stacks that are mostly black, but with a dash of pale green that blends perfectly with the color of chipset and VRM heatsinks on ASUS TUF Sabertooth series motherboards.

Both heatsinks feature fins with matte surfaces. The Megahalems Camouflage is an aluminum fin dual-stack tower-type heatsink. Six nickel-plated copper heat pipes pass through the base, making a U-shape. On each of the two arms of the "U", is an independent stack of fins. Some of the upper fins have a dash of the pale green color. The Genesis Camouflage has a unique heatsink design in which six heat pipes that pass through the base convey heat to two differently oriented aluminum fin stacks: one propagates perpendicular to the plane of the motherboard, the other parallel to it, hovering over the memory area. Pricing and availability details are not known.

Gigabyte released pictures of G1.Sniper 2, the company's first socket LGA1155 motherboard in the G1.Killer series of motherboards designed for gamers with overclocker alter-egos (the same market ASUS Republic of Gamers targets). The board is based on the Intel Z68 Express chipset without any additional PCI-E bridge chip such as NVIDIA nForce 200. The board supports 2nd generation Core "Sandy Bridge" LGA1155 processors. The first G1.Sniper was a LGA1366 motherboard based on Intel X58 chipset.

Apart from being yet another high-end 2-way SLI/CrossFire Z68 motherboard, which Gigabyte's mainline Z68X series motherboards already achieve, the G1.Sniper 2 packs two extremely gamer-specific onboard devices: the Bigfoot Killer E2100 low-latency, high-offload PCI-Express network controller with its of dedicated memory; and Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi hardware audio with CA20K2 PCIe processor and 64 MB XRAM, backed by a high-grade Cirrus Logic DAC and OPAMP circuit, driving signal-noise ratio easily above 105 dBA with punchy bass.

ASUS detailed its WX-Lamborghini wireless mouse, which has been in cold-storage since September 2010, when it was first spotted. ASUS is an authorized manufacturer of Lamborghini-branded electronics, which has a line of high-end notebooks branded and inspired by the fast-car maker. Measuring 106.5 x 68 x 36 mm, the design of this mouse is inspired by the Lamborghini Concept S, the mouse uses 2.4 GHz wireless technology with a range of up to 10 meters from its receiver. The optical sensor's resolution can be set between 800 and 2,500 dpi. It has a total of 7 buttons, and a vertical scroll-wheel that's resembles the design of Lamborghini's stock wheel. It is retailing in Europe for around €38.

Created to meet the needs of graphic designers and other professionals, the IPS-paneled ASUS PA238Q joins the ProArt Series of displays as a 23", LED-backlit model with native 1920 x 1080 resolution. It reproduces 100% of the sRGB color space, with every individual monitor precision calibrated at the factory to ensure unmatched color accuracy. The PA238Q ships with ASUS-exclusive QuickFit Virtual Scale software to display photos and documents in their true size on screen. In terms of ergonomics, a fully adjustable and sturdy stand complements a wide I/O range, which includes HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI-D, D-sub, and multiple USB ports.

TechPowerUp released the latest version of GPU-Z, our popular graphics hardware information and monitoring utility. Version 0.5.4 packs a large number of changes, beginning with faster start-up, support for the entire line of NVIDIA GeForce 500M series GPUs, new models of Intel Sandy Bridge processor graphics, a number of AMD Radeon HD 6000M series GPUs, improved support for AMD APUs, and a number of bug fixes.

GPU-Z has overcome the slow start-up issue on AMD Radeon GPUs, it loads slightly faster on NVIDIA GPUs, too. ROP count reading on AMD Radeon HD 6790, Turks & Whistler was fixed; along with sensor count on Caicos, Whistler, Turks. OpenCL detection on some NVIDIA drivers was fixed. The ability to read UMA-shared memory on AMD APU systems was added. GPU-Z has better ability to detect and warn of spurious graphics cards with faked IDs. GPU-Z 0.5.4 is available in both its standard form and the ASUS Republic of Gamers themed variant.DOWNLOAD: GPU-Z 0.5.4 | GPU-Z 0.5.4 ASUS ROG Themed

A complete list of changes with this version follows.

ASUS today announced the launch of their new AMD A75 chipset-based F1A75 Series motherboards. Designed specially to optimize performance for the AMD Llano APUs, the F1A75 Series motherboards have exceptional overclocking capability for the versatile APU with a variety of integrated graphics built directly on the same die. This new series is also equipped with the latest ASUS-exclusive technologies and features, including the Dual Intelligent Processors 2 (DIP2) with DIGI+ VRM for precise power control, a graphical and mouse-controlled UEFI BIOS and the easy-to-use auto tuning for better performance.

The nanometer-coated ASUS U36 is the world's thinnest notebook with standard voltage Intel Core i5 processor. The U36 notebook is the world's thinnest laptop to harness the power of a standard voltage Intel Core i5 processor, giving you the freedom to stay light and connected on the move without compromising on mobile performance.

ASUS Super Hybrid Engine (with the ability to switch off USB 3.0 functionality) combined with NVIDIA graphics and Optimus technology saves power for when it's needed most to deliver an incredible 11.5 hours battery life.