Palit sprung an unexpected surprise at the 2024 Computex. Normally, graphics card partners announce their new custom-design brands alongside new GPU generation launches. Palit took a different path, it rehashed its usual GameRock, JetStream, and Dual OC brands with the RTX 40-series "Ada," back in 2022, but showcased all new custom graphics card designs at Computex 2024, with an expected 5-6 months left for NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce "Blackwell" to hit the scene. The RTX 4090 Neptunus is a variation of the GameRock OC, except it is an air+liquid hybrid cooling solution. The card doesn't include a liquid cooling loop, and out of the box, the air-cooling performance of this card should resemble that of the GameRock, but it has a liquid cooling channel, you use your own G 1/4" fittings, and connect the card to a DIY loop for a transformative upgrade in cooling performance.

Next up, is the RTX 4080 SUPER Beyond Limits. This is Palit being flamboyant with its design, similar to the ASUS ROG Strix or the MSI Gaming X. The card features a very capable 3.5-slot air cooling design with high static-pressure fans, but the star attraction is a large acrylic RGB LED diffuser that runs along the length of the card, which has the Beyond Limits logo, and an infinite-reflection mirror. There is a variant of this card called the Beyond Limits Crystal, which has an "infinity reflection pyramid." The screaming "Beyond Limits" lettering makes way for some abstract shapes.

At Computex 2024, PC case and cooling maker HYTE unveiled their new flagship all-in-one liquid cooler, the THICC Q80 Trio. It features a massive 360 mm radiator with triple 120 mm THICC FP12 fans rated for 105.8 CFM airflow and 8.14 mm H2O static pressure. The pump housing has a 5-inch HD display that can show custom visuals via HYTE's Nexus software. The back of the cooler has RGB LED lighting for an ambient glow effect. HYTE claims it is the "THICCest, coolest, quietest, and smartest" AIO ever made, with more copper used in a large second-generation copper cold plate with 50% higher skived fin coverage and upgraded liquid flow path, promising to drop temperatures by up to 1°C per 100 W compared to the older model.

We've seen a lot of motherboards with the power, SATA and USB connectors on the rear at Computex this year, but Chinese Maxsun decided to put the PCIe x16 slot on the back of its Mini-ITX MS-Terminator B760BKB D5 motherboard. This might seem like a crazy move, but with the right chassis, this means that the graphics card won't need a PCIe extension cable, while fitting in a compact chassis. It's also become increasingly hard to retain signal integrity over ribbon cables and with PCIe 5.0, it might be impossible. Another added benefit of this design is that the board also has a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot available for something like a 10 Gbps network card or just about anything else you'd want to plug into a compact PC.

The overall board specs don't really stick out from the crowd, as the Intel B760 chips is a somewhat limiting factor as well. In addition to the PCIe 5.0 x16 slot and the PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, the board also has a pair of PCIe 4.0 M.2 NVMe slots—one on each side of the PCB—and a slim SAS connector using an SFF-8654 connector. In addition to this, the board also has two DDR5 DIMM slots, four SATA ports, a 2.5 Gbps Ethernet port, a DP 1.2, an HDMI 2.0 port, a USB Type-C port of unknown speed and WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2. The power design consists of a fairly basic 8+1+1 phase setup. We'd like to see this board design to become a standard, as it makes a lot of sense for the SFF market to allow for a better placement of the PCI x16 slot to allow for a more compact chassis without having to compromise on the choice of graphics card.

MSI has become something of a major player in the gaming monitor market and the company had a range of new OLED and QD-OLED models on display at Computex 2024. Let's start with the biggest buzzword model, the MEG 321URX QD-OLED which MSI claims is the world's first true AI gaming monitor. The so-called AI engine is supposed to help gamers lose less with features like AI Skysight which scans the game's mini map in real time for threats and then points them out to the player. There's also the ability to display certain stats on the monitor's "SpectrumBar" which is an RGB light strip below the monitor. Looking at the actual specs we find a next-gen 31.5-inch, 4K QD-OLED display panel with 240 Hz refresh rate and a 0.03 ms grey to grey response time. There was no mention of any HDR certification for this model.

Connectivity wise many of you will not be happy to see DisplayPort 1.4 as the main input, although it also has two HDMI 2.1 ports, a USB Type-C with DP Alt-mode support that also offers 98 Watts of USB PD charging, one USB 2.0 Type-B input, two USB 2.0 Type-A outputs and a headphone jack. KVM support is part of the package and MSI states it has improved the cooling by using a graphene film and a custom heatsink so the QD-OLED panel should run cooler than competing products. The MEG 321URX finally comes with OLED Care 2.0 which MSI claims will "significantly reduce the chances of OLED screen burn-in" according to the information provided at the show. According to TFTCentral, it will cost US$1700, but there's no availability date as yet.

KLEVV by Essencore had a formidable lineup of high-end gaming PC memory and SSDs at Computex 2024. We were greeted at the booth with an Essencore-branded LPCAMM2 module with 32 GB density, and LPDDR5-8533 speeds on tap. The Genuine G560 (it's named Genuine) is a modern M.2 NVMe Gen 5 SSD with a fanless heatsink. It comes in capacities of 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB; with sequential speeds ranging between 13 GB/s to 14 GB/s reads, and 9.5 GB/s to 12 GB/s writes; and depending on the capacity, the endurance is between 700 TBW to 3000 TBW. The CRAS C930 is a premium M.2 Gen 4 SSD, with 1 TB and 2 TB models available, sequential read speeds of up to 7.4 GB/s, and sequential write speeds between 6.4 GB/s to 6.8 GB/s. Endurance ranges between 750 TBW for the 1 TB model, and 1500 TBW for the 2 TB.

At the value end of KLEVV's SSD lineup is the CRAS C925, which offers mostly similar performance numbers to the C930, but with slightly different endurance ratings. It ranges between 500 GB and 2 TB; with the same 7.4 GB/s maximum read speeds, but slightly lower maximum write speeds of 6.2 GB/s for the 500 GB model, 6.3 GB/s for the 1 TB, and 6.5 GB/s for the 2 TB model; and endurance rated at 600 TBW, 1200 TBW, and 2400 TBW, respectively.

In addition to the new PC cases and PSUs, ENERMAX also unveiled a couple of new and interesting AIO CPU coolers and fans at the Computex 2024 show, including the LIQTECH XTR AiO which can handle quite a high thermal load, the new AQUACore concept, which is actually a compact CPU cooler that integrates the pump and the radiator into a compact solution, and new Montage Flow fans with magnetic daisy-chaining.

The one that piqued our interest is definitely the LIQTECH XTR AIO liquid CPU cooler series, which can handle some impressive thermal loads. To be available in 240 mm, 280 mm, and 360 mm radiator sizes, the LIQTECH XTR can easily AMD Threadripper and Intel Xeon processors, offering 100 percent coverage and uses a powerful EF1 pump in combination with patented shunt-channel technology. According to Enermax and what we saw at the show, the smaller 240 mm can handle well over 500 W of thermal load, while the 360 mm one goes well over 900 W. The LIQTECH XTR also includes a digital built-in display on the pump/block unit, which shows CPU and GPU temperature, or fan RPM data.

On June 4th, COMPUTEX 2024 was successfully held at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center. Mnemonic Electronic Co., Ltd., the Taiwanese subsidiary of Longsys, showcased industry-leading high-capacity SSDs under the theme "Embracing the Era of High-Capacity SSDs." The products on display included the Mnemonic MS90 8TB SATA SSD, FORESEE ORCA 4836 series enterprise NVMe SSDs, FORESEE XP2300 PCIe Gen 4 SSDs, and rich product lines comprising embedded storage, memory modules, memory cards, and more. The company offers reliable industrial-grade, automotive-grade, and enterprise-grade storage products, providing high-capacity solutions for global users.

High-Capacity SSDs
For SSDs, Mnemonic Electronic presented products in various form factors and interfaces, including PCIe M.2, PCIe BGA, SATA M.2, and SATA 2.5-inch. The Mnemonic MS90 8 TB SATA SSD supports the SATA interface with a speed of up to 6 Gb/s (Gen 3) and is backward compatible with Gen 1 and Gen 2. It also supports various SATA low-power states (Partial/Sleep/Device Sleep) and can be used for nearline HDD replacement, surveillance, and high-speed rail systems.

M.2-2280 SSDs are always smaller than they look in pictures, a quarter of the size of a DIMM, but we've come across some huge cooling solutions. One of the most interesting of these is the T-Force Dark Airflow 06 magnetic-stacked cooling solution. An extruded aluminium heatsink with its fins positioned sideways, has two flattened surfaces, one of which makes contact with the SSD, the other is equally flat, and can make contact with another such heatsink.

A 20 mm fan pushes airflow sideways through the heatsink. The heatsink is magnetized to help with the stacking. The Dark Airflow 05 is a more conventional fin-stack heatsink that isn't expandable, it uses a simple aluminium fin-stack to which heat is fed by two copper heatpipes. The T-Force GE Pro Gen 5 is an M.2-2280 drive that leads Team Group's gaming SSD lineup. It comes in capacities of up to 4 TB, with transfer speeds of 14 GB/s reads, with up to 11 GB/s writes. The T-Create I54 Ai Gen 5 is not far behind, with a 4 TB, and up to 14 GB/s sequential speeds on tap, with a large amount of SLC caching that should benefit AI workloads.

ASRock Rack sells the entire stack of servers a data-center could possibly want, and at Computex 2024, the company showed us their servers meant for AI GPUs. The 6U8M-GENOA2, as its name suggests, is a 6U server based on 2P AMD EPYC 9004 series "Genoa" processors in the SP5 package. You can configure it with even the variants of "Genoa" that come with 3D V-cache, for superior compute performance from the large cache. Each of the two SP5 sockets is wired to 12 DDR5 RDIMM slots, for a total of 24 memory channels. The server supports eight AMD Instinct MI300X or MI325X AI GPUs, which it wires out using Infinity Fabric links and PCIe Gen 5 x16 individually. A 3 kW 80 Plus Titanium PSU keeps the server fed. There are vacant Gen 5 x16 slots left even after connecting the GPUs, so you could give it a DPU-based 40 GbE NIC.

The 6U8X-EGS2 B100 is a 6U AI GPU server modeled along the 6U8M-GENOA2, with a couple of big changes. To begin with, the EPYC "Genoa" chips make way for a 2P Intel Xeon Socket E (LGA4677) CPU setup, for 2P Xeon 5 "Emerald Rapids" processors. Each socket is wired to 16 DDR5 DIMM slots (the processor itself has 8-channel DDR5, but this is a 2 DIMM-per-channel setup). The server integrates an NVIDIA NVSwitch that wires out NVLinks to eight NVIDIA B100 "Blackwell" AI GPUs. The server features eight HHHL PCIe Gen 5 x16, and five FHHL PCIe Gen 5 x16 connectors. There are vacant x16 slots for your DPU/NIC, you can even use an AIC NVIDIA BlueField card. The same 3 kW PSU as the "Genoa" system is also featured here.

At Computex 2024, we went hands-on with the only custom-design AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card to implement the 16-pin 12V-2x6 power connector. We've written quite a bit about this card, but weren't expecting it to be this long. This isn't just the only RX 7900 XTX with a 12V-2x6, but also the only air-cooled RX 7900 XTX that's strictly 2 slots-thick. ASRock made this card for graphics rendering farms, or AI development/inferencing builds, in which a GPU server would have 4-6 of these packed like sardines. The lateral blower helps ensure proper ventilation. The backplate is recessed to ensure better ventilation to the neighboring card.

The card sticks to AMD reference clock speeds of 2270 MHz Game clock, and 20 Gbps (GDDR6-effective) memory speed. ASRock also gave us a technical deep-dive into the card's design. For one, it's confirmed that the power connector is 12V-2x6 (H++) and not 12VHPWR. The cooling solution consists of a large copper vapor-chamber plate that makes contact with the GPU, memory, and VRM; conveying heat to an aluminium channel heatsink, which is ventilated by a high-speed lateral blower. The cooler shroud and backplate are both made of aluminium.

ASRock at the 2024 Computex presented a massive lineup of gaming and overclocking motherboards based on the Intel Z890 chipset. The company is not allowed to use the term "Z890," and refers to it as "next-gen Intel," but for convenience's sake, we will use Z890 in this article. Z890 is the highest tier desktop chipset for Socket LGA1851, which will power the Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors that launch in Q4 2024. With the Z890 generation, ASRock stratified its coveted Taichi brand of high-end motherboards further up, clubbing its enthusiast-grade OC Formula brand along with it.

There are now Taichi OCF motherboards with either 1-DIMM per channel memory configurations (best dual-channel topology for memory overclocking), or with a new CAMM2 slot. There's also a mainline Taichi Lite, which is a no-frills variant with less bling, and essential high-end features such as a strong VRM and good onboard audio; and there's also the new Taichi Aqua, targeting the creator crowd, with its liquid-cooled VRM+SSD heatsink setup.

Elgato, Corsair's game streaming and content creator-focussed brand, showcased its latest portfolio of Stream Deck control panels, mics, lighting, and boom armatures, except they're all so colorful and themed. We've seen not just Elgato, but even Corsair, pivot to customization, with its Corsair Custom Lab service. Elgato has its Wave 3 microphones in close to a dozen new design collections, and its Stream Deck control panels in eight of them. Most notably, their Fallout collection that they recently announced.

Elgato also showed off its next-generation Neo series of Stream Deck, Wave microphone, Facecam, and Key Light. These come in a silvery-white finish, and a more compacted design. The Stream Deck Neo features eight programmable buttons, each with a higher resolution OLED display, and a rectangular display called the Infobar. Although designed for its core market of game streamers, Elgato is also targeting the home-office crowd with this device. It is priced at $99.99. The Facecam Neo is a high-performance 1080p 60 Hz HDR webcam with a 26 mm 1:2.0 autofocus lens, and a CMOS sensor. The central theme behind the Neo series carries on, and this webcam is targeted as much toward the home-office crowd as it is at game streamers.

This might be the gaming monitor some of you have been waiting for, as Cooler Master has pulled out all the stops with its GP57ZS monitor that the company was showing at Computex. Apart from being a massive 57-inches, the monitor offers dual 4K resolution, or 7680 x 2160 pixels, which are lit up by a 2304-zone Mini LED backlight. We've seen similar displays from both Samsung and Acer. Cooler Master is clearly using the same VA panel as the previously mentioned companies and you also get the same 1000R curvature here, which means the GP57ZS isn't going to be for everyone. Cooler Master didn't provide any refresh rate details, nor the types of inputs that will be on offer.

In addition to this, Cooler Master also showed off a pair of new 27-inch models, both sporting a 2560 x 1440 resolution. The cheaper GM27QP gets a 1500R curved 160 Hz VA panel and HDR400 support, as well as a DP 1.4 and two HDMI 2.0 inputs. It also gets to make do with basic Adaptive Sync VRR, but it does have gaming features like crosshair, an FPS counter and black stabilisation. The more premium GP27QP on the other hand gets a flat display panel of unknown type with a 240 Hz refresh rate, which is illuminated by an 1152 zone Mini LED backlight. Typical brightness is 350 nits and the contrast ratio is 2500:1, but the display is also HDR1000 certified. Connectivity is seriously upgraded here with two DP 1.4 and two HDMI 2.1 inputs, as well as a USB Type-C input that also delivers 96 Watts of USB PD power. In addition to this, there's also a USB Type-B input and three USB Type-A outputs. For some reason it seems like Cooler Master has stuck with Adaptive Sync on this model too, but this model does at least gain support for Picture-in-Picture and Picture-by-Picture support.

ID-Cooling stole the spotlight at Computex 2024 with its impressive lineup of new all-in-one (AIO) liquid coolers, air coolers, and an ingenious daisy-chained fan system. At the forefront of ID Cooling's offerings were their latest AIO liquid coolers, designed to provide unparalleled cooling performance for high-end gaming rigs and overclocked systems. The flagship model, the DL360 MAX, boasted a massive 360 mm radiator, high-static pressure pump, RGB lighting effects, and an LCD monitor on the pump/CPU block, promising to keep even the most demanding CPUs and GPUs running at optimal temperatures, which you can monitor live. For more demanding tasks, there is a HUNTER GOL liquid cooler lineup with two 360 mm radiators attached to a single block, designed for extreme overclocking. Other AIO solutions like the FX360, DX360, and SL360 variants were also at the booth.

At Computex 2024, Colorful has followed the success of their popular COLORFIRE MEOW Series gaming desktops. The company has unleashed two fierce new gaming laptops - the COLORFIRE MEOW R15 and R16. These portable laptops are adorned with designs inspired by Bobi, COLORFIRE's beloved office cat. From paw print patterns to a sleek orange tabby color scheme, the laptops are littered with feline flair. Under the cat-inspired hood, the MEOW laptops pack a serious punch. They are equipped with the latest AMD Ryzen 8000 Series processors tailored for gaming, content creation, and entertainment. AMD Ryzen AI technology provides a boost to artificial intelligence capabilities. Both run on the AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS processor with eight cores, 16 threads, and a 5.1 GHz maximum boost clock. The Ryzen AI engine delivers up to 39 TOPS for accelerated AI performance. For graphics, the laptops feature up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GPU with 140 W of power.

The R15 has a 15.6-inch 2560x1440 IPS panel with 100% sRGB color and 165 Hz refresh rate. The R16 goes even bigger with a 16-inch 2560x1600 IPS display, 100% sRGB, and 240 Hz refresh. AMD FreeSync is there as well to ensure a tear-free experience. Colorful has outfitted the laptops with dual turbo fans, a 6-heatpipe solution, and performance control software to tame the heat from the powerful components. When it's time to pounce on the latest games, these MEOW laptops have the fierce cooling to keep their claws out.

At Computex 2024, Colorful has launched an ultra-exclusive new graphics card - the iGame Lab 4090. This limited edition GPU is squarely targeted at hardcore overclockers and performance enthusiasts willing to pay top dollar for the absolute best. With only 300 units produced globally, the iGame Lab 4090 represents the pinnacle of Colorful's engineering efforts. Each chip was hand-selected from thousands after rigorous binning to ensure premium silicon capable of extreme overclocks. The card's striking aesthetics feature a clean white shroud with silver accent armor. Beyond the intricate design, the real draw is performance. The iGame Lab 4090 has already shattered records, with professional overclocker CENs pushing it past 3.8 GHz under 3D load. It set a new world record 3DMark Time Spy Extreme score of 24,103 points. Out of the box, the card features a base clock of 2235 MHz, a boost clock of 2520 MHz, and a turbo mode of 2625 MHz, all while being a 3-slot design.

At Computex 2024, Colorful has introduced a new PC series of premium componentry for games, called iGame Ultra Series. Carrying a premium white aesthetics, the Ultra Series serves as clean and elegant component for PC builds. At the heart of the Ultra Series is the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER graphics card. The card has a triple-fan cooling solution with vapor chamber technology that keeps temperatures under control. Powering this GPU is the iGame Z790D5 Ultra motherboard. Supporting the latest Intel 14th Gen CPUs and up to 192 GB of DDR5-7800 RAM. An array of ultra-fast PCIe 5.0 and 4.0 M.2 slots allow multiple high-speed SSDs for ridiculous storage performance. Keeping all of these elite components running is the 850 W iGame P850G Ultra W 80 Plus Gold power supply. Its modular design with dedicated PCIe 5.0 connectors ensures clean cable management and stable power delivery. For cooling the CPU, there is the iGame LQ360 Ultra W all-in-one liquid cooler, which sports a massive 360 mm radiator and a trio of high-static pressure fans. All of these premium components are housed in the iGame C23A Ultra W full-tower chassis. With a spacious dual-compartment layout, front USB-C port, and preinstalled vertical GPU bracket, it offers both incredible expandability and sleek aesthetics.

Sharkoon brought an impressive set of PC cases to the 2024 Computex. We begin our tour with the most eye-catching of them all, the Rebel C70 RGB. This case has some real wood embellishments along its front-panel, which gives it a very Scandinavian look. The four included RGB fans put out a warm tone out of the box to add to this look. There are two variants, one with a tempered glass side-panel, the other solid-metal. There are a total of 11 fan mounts, and you can install up to three large radiators. A detachable mounting frame helps with radiator installation. Some other neat touches include a graphics card reinforcement brace.

The Elite Shark CA500 is a beautiful ATX mid-tower with a pillarless front-left corner, with the front- and left side glass panels being a single continuous panel that curves around the edge, rather than two panels meeting at the edge, causing a seam to form. Although a proper mid-tower with glass panels extending to the entire height of the case, and over 16 cm clearance for CPU coolers, this is a "slender" case, with no vertical expansion slots. There's also the Elite Shark CM100, a compacted Micro-ATX version of the CA500, with the same essential design, including the seamless pillarless edge. Both these cases support backside connector motherboards such as the ASUS BTF. The AK5 RGB is a bolt mid-tower case with glass panels making up the front- and left panels, but this isn't pillarless. The front fans breathe through intakes along the trapezoid structure. The case comes in black and white colors, with a contemporary layout.

ENERMAX unveiled a couple of new PC cases at the Computex 2024 show, including the Air240 mid-tower case, the Pano270 and the Pano D58. The new cases feature enhanced cooling performance, modular internal structure for easier installation and cable management, as well as support for motherboards with back connectors.

The new ENERMAX Air240 is a mid-tower case supporting up to ATX motherboards, and featuring standard three-side mesh panel design, which should enhance overall cooling performance, according to ENERMAX. The Air240 is pretty much a standard PC case, but it does have a unique feature which allows the PSU compartment baffle to be redirected in order to provide more airflow to the graphics card. The new ENERMAX Pano270 and Pano D58 PC cases certainly attracted a lot of attention as these are following the current design trend with a 270-degree curved glass panel, which provides a panoramic view of key hardware. The Pano270 supports motherboards with backside connectors, and while it is a smaller case that supports up to a Micro-ATX motherboards, it still supports up to 360 mm AIO coolers and up to nine fans. It also has 37 mm of cable management space, and can support up to 170 mm tall CPU air coolers. The Pano D58 is a slightly different and bigger counterpart and while it has the same panoramic glass, it isn't a curved one. Of course, since it is bigger, it supports ATX motherboards, up to 360 mm AIO coolers on the side and top, and up to nine fans. It supports up to 250 mm long PSUs, up to 420 mm long GPUs, and up to 180 mm tall CPU coolers. All three CPU cases should be available soon.

Noctua unveiled its new Ampere Altra family of CPU coolers for Ampere Altra and Altra Max Arm processors at the Computex 2024 show, as well as the upcoming NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper superchip cooler. In addition, it also showcased its new cooperation with Seasonic with PRIME TX-1600 Noctua Edition power supply and a rather unique Kaelo wine cooler.

In addition to the new and upcoming standard CPU coolers and fans, Noctua also unveiled the new Ampere Altra family of CPU coolers at the Computex 2024 show, aimed to be used with recently launched Ampere Altra and Altra Max Arm processors with up to 128 cores. The new Noctua Ampere Altra CPU coolers are based on the proven models for Intel Xeon and AMD Threadripper or EPYC platforms. The Noctua Ampere Altra family of CPU coolers use Noctua's SecuFirm2 mounting system for LGA4926 socket and come with pre-applied NT-H2 thermal paste. According to Noctua, these provide exceptional performance and whisper-quiet operation which are ideal for Arm based workstations in noise-sensitive environments. The Ampere Altra lineup should be already available over at Newegg. In addition, Nocuta has unveiled its new prototype of NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper superchip cooler, which integrates two custom NH-U12A heatsinks in order to cool both the Grace CPU and Hopper GPU. It supports up to 1,000 W of heat emissions, and aimed at noise-sensitive environments like local HPC applications and self-hosted open source LLMs. The NVIDIA GH200 cooler is expected in Q4 this year and offered to clients on pre-order basis.

After recent troubles, EK is certainly not going anywhere and it came to the Computex 2024 show in force, showing off several new products, including the whole new line of liquid cooling products, the EK Nexe. The brand-new product line is, according to EK, designed from scratch, and unlike standard custom loop products, the critical components of EK Nexe, water blocks and combo units, are injection molded, just like the rest of the AIO products. This should provide the best ratio between performance, design, and price, making the EK Nexe lineup both accessible and quite popular among both consumers and system integrators.

In order to make it as simple and accessible as possible, EK Nexe does not use standard threads and fittings, but rather push-in fittings that lock in place, creating an airtight seal and allowing tubes to rotate freely. The EK Nexe line also uses a modular approach, which means that the GPU water block will be using a universal cooling core or platform specific to certain GPUs and a heatsink that covers the entire PCB. The core will cover entire graphics card and cool both the GPU and the VRM while the heatsink, which is CNC-milled for every GPU model specifically, will handle other critical components on the graphics card PCB. Those two will be joined and offer a design similar to a water block with an acetal top.

In addition to the thermosiphon liquid cooler project, Noctua also brought several upcoming air CPU coolers and fans to the Computex 2024 show, including the new NH-D15 G2, the NF-A14x25 G2, as well as next-generation dual-tower 120 mm CPU cooler and next-generation 120 mm fan.

The new NH-D15 G2 is the upgraded version of the popular NH-D15, which now gets a new fin stacks with reduced fin pitch, leaving it with 20 percent more surface area, 8 heatpipes (instead of 6 on the NH-D15), new fans with both higher performance and acoustic optimization, and offset design for better PCI clearance. It will use Noctua's Torx based SecuFirm2+ mounting system with offset option for AM5, as well as come bundled with NT-H2 thermal paste, NA-TPG1 thermal paste guard for AM5, and NA-ISW1 shim-washers for improved contact on LGA1700 sockets. Noctua will launch three different versions, the standard version with medium base convexity, as well as two new versions LBC and HBC, with low base and high base convexity. The new NH-D15 G2 should launch later this month.

While Silverstone's Computex 2024 booth is dominated with a new line of cases for AI workstations and servers, they also had several new white-themed gaming PC cases. These include the FARA 515XR, FARA 514X, SETA H2, and SETA H2M. The FARA 515XR is a mid-tower case for conventional-sized ATX setups, without the side-facing fan vents. Your radiator mounting options include a 360 mm (or smaller) radiator along the front panel, and a 280 mm (or smaller) along the top panel. You get four 120 mm RGB LED illuminated fans with the case. Clearances include graphics cards up to 36 cm in length, and CPU coolers up to 16.4 cm in height. The FARA 515X is a variation to this case, with 20 mm additional width, and the flat front panel making way for a trapezoid one, which has fine perforations.

Next up, is the SETA H2M, a Micro-ATX variant of the SETA H2, which retains wide proportions of the original, so you could give it CPU coolers as tall as 180 mm, and a 120 mm rear fan. With the right floor planning, you can get a 360 mm radiator mounted along its front mesh intake that resembles the trapezoid intake of the FARA 515X; besides an additional 280 mm radiator along its top exhaust. The SETA H2 is its larger sibling with not just similar width and clearances, but also room for up to six 3.5-inch drive caddies that can be individually detached. So this case should favor those with lots of local storage.

Kingston at the 2024 Computex showcased its latest flash storage and SSD products. The lineup is topped by the company's popular IronKey series of storage devices with enterprise-grade security, some even with on-device physical keypads to unlock the first layer of security. The IronKey VP80 has a touchscreen UI with which you set and unlock passwords. The drive takes advantage of the USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), offering sequential transfer speeds of 230 MB/s to 250 MB/s. Capacities range between 960 GB to a massive 7.68 TB. On device encryption options include XTS-AES 256-bit. The IronKey Keypad 200 is a thumb stick with a physical keypad to unlock the first ring of security. Capacities range between 8 GB to 512 GB, with interface options that include USB 3.2 Gen 1 type-A, and type-C. Transfer speeds on offer are 145 MB/s to 280 MB/s. Encryption includes XTS-AES 256-bit. Lastly, there's the IronKey Vault Privacy 50. This one lacks a physical keypad, but has on-device encryption, and software level protections against password bruteforcing and BadUSB attacks.

The Kingston Swift XS1000 and XS1000 Red are a line of consumer pocket-sized portable SSDs, with a weight of just 29 g. These come in 1 TB and 2 TB capacities, take advantage of the 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2, and offer sequential transfer speeds of up to 1,050 MB/s. The Swift XS2000 is what Kingston dubs as the "vlogger's best companion." This device has similar dimensions to the XS1000, but with capacities ranging between 500 GB to 4 TB. It takes advantage of the 20 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interface to offer sequential speeds of up to 2,000 MB/s. DataTraveler is the company's most popular USB storage brand, and Kingston is seen taking advantage of 10 Gbps and 20 Gbps USB3 interfaces for speeds in the gigabytes of second. Kingston also showed us a line of SD cards for content creators, drone photography, adventure cameras, etc., spanning the Creative React Plus V60, Canvas Go! Plus, and Canvas Select Plus lines.

At Computex 2024, we paid a visit to the Patriot booth and found a few new product announcements from the company. From record-shattering DDR5 memory speeds to next-generation Gen 5 SSDs, the company has prepared it all. Headlining the showcase is the Viper Xtreme 5 DDR5 memory series, achieving regular speeds of up to 8,200 MT/s and an astonishing 11,500 MT/s when overclocked. Patriot is also launching something for professional workstations with its overclockable ECC RDIMM modules, offering error correction, larger capacities, and the ability to exceed industry specifications through overclocking.