ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced Maximus VIII Extreme/Assembly and Matrix GTX 980 Ti, our flagship Z170 gaming motherboard primed for epic gaming performance and overclocking, and the enthusiast graphics card that delivers record-breaking performance and extreme overclocking potential - both finessed with ROG's all-new futuristic Plasma Copper scheme for color-matched extreme gaming and overclocking rigs.

Introducing the stunning Plasma Copper color scheme, ASUS ROG's Global Marketing Director, Derek Yu, said: "To be ROG is to be the rebel. To be ROG is to break every rule. We are rebellious ROG, breaking our own rules to envision a new future. A future forged with striking distinction. ROG is red. ROG is black. And now ROG is also Plasma Copper: elite assemblies for elite gamers. This is our mark of invincibility - and the new emblem of dominance for the world's best gamers."

AMD "Zen" CPU micro-architecture has a design focus on significantly increasing per-core performance, particularly per-core number-crunching performance, according to a 3DCenter.org report. It sees a near doubling of the number of decoder, ALU, and floating-point units per-core, compared to its predecessor. In essence, the a Zen core is AMD's idea of "what if a Steamroller module of two cores was just one big core, and supported SMT instead."

In the micro-architectures following "Bulldozer," which debuted with the company's first FX-series socket AM3+ processors, and running up to "Excavator," which will debut with the company's "Carrizo" APUs, AMD's approach to CPU cores involved modules, which packed two physical cores, with a combination of dedicated and shared resources between them. It was intended to take Intel's Core 2 idea of combining two cores into an indivisible unit further.

AMD is planning to play a neat branding game with Intel. Branding of the company's 2016 lineup of CPUs and APUs will emphasize on "generation," much in the same way Intel does with its Core processor family. AMD will mention in its PIB product packaging, OEM specs sheets, and even its product logo (down to the case-badge), that its 2016 products (FX-series CPUs and A-series APUs) are the company's "6th generation." 2016 marks prevalence of Intel's Core "Skylake" processor family, which is its 6th generation Core family (succeeding Nehalem/Westmere, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell, and Broadwell). AMD is arriving at its "6th generation" moniker counting "Stars," "Bulldozer," "Piledriver," "Steamroller," and "Excavator," driving its past 5 generations of APUs, and the occasional FX CPU.

It turns out that the emphasis on "generation" is big with DIY and SI retail channels. Retailers we spoke with, say that they find it easier to break through Intel's often-confusing CPU socket change cycle, which ticks roughly every 18-24 months. Customers, they say, find it easier to simply mention the "generation" of Core processor they want, to get all relevant components to go with them (such as motherboard and memory bundles). While AMD's FX brand clearly didn't see generations beyond "Piledriver," the company's decision to unify the socket for its FX and A-Series product lines next year, with AM4, makes "6th generation FX processor" valid.

In its Investor Day presentation, led by CEO Lisa Su, and CTO Mark Papermaster, AMD made a slew of careful, near-term product announcements, and market strategies. One of its announcements that strike us, is the company's emphasis on getting the CPU core design right. The company talked about its "Zen" CPU core architecture, not from a technical standpoint, on how it fits into the company's near-term. It turns out that the company is betting on a massive performance increase.

AMD announced that its "Zen" CPU core, will offer a massive 40 percent increase in IPC (instructions per clock) or in other words, performance/clock, over the existing "Excavator" CPU core architecture. Zen will introduce features such as SMT (simultaneous multi-threading), a brand new low-latency cache system, and will leverage the 14 nm FinFET process. The first products based on Zen will be desktop CPUs in the 6th generation FX processor family, which will be launched in 2016. AMD plans to unify the CPU and APU into one socket, which will be called AM4 (and not the previously thought of "FM3"). You'll be able to install both CPUs (which lack integrated graphics, but feature more CPU cores); and the company's 7th generation A-series APUs (which integrate both CPU and iGPUs), on the same kind of motherboards.

MSI, world leading in motherboard design, debuts the world's first USB 3.1 featured AMD GAMING motherboard, the 990FXA GAMING. Delivering blazing fast USB performance, up to 2 times faster than USB 3.0, the new 990FXA GAMING motherboard offers two USB 3.1 ports, which are fully backwards compatible with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 devices.

Inheriting the outstanding DNA of MSI's award winning GAMING family, the new MSI AM3+ 990FXA GAMING motherboard features Killer LAN for the best online GAMING experience, Audio Boost 2 powered by Creative Sound Blaster Cinema 2 for astonishing sound quality that gives you the upper hand on the battlefield, USB Audio Power and a completely new hardware and software design for enhanced gaming performance. Get ready for high-end AMD GAMING with MSI.

HP today announced a new family of all-in-one desktop and tower PCs designed to fit beautifully in the home for back to school. The new desktop lineup offers customers power and flexibility to scale for next-level productivity and entertainment.

"The desktop PC continues to be an important form factor for customers who want to get things done and be entertained, but lack style and as a result are often hidden in basements and dens," said Kevin Frost, vice president and general manager, Consumer Personal Systems, HP. "With our 2015 desktop family, we are breathing new life into the category by giving customers more capabilities wrapped in colorful and premium designs that they will be proud to place in kitchens, living rooms and other public spaces in their homes."

Ahead of its June 23 release, the minimum- and recommended-system requirements of Rocksteady's next installment to the super-hit Batman: Arkham franchise, Arkham Knight, was disclosed by NVIDIA. The PC version appears to have some clear visual benefits over the console variants of this game, given its steep storage requirements. Given that it will get an NVIDIA GameWorks varnish, PC gamers can expect eye-candy that won't make it to the console versions, including support for high-resolution display standards, such as 4K Ultra HD.Without further ado, the system requirements lists.

In an industry presentation on why the company is excited about Microsoft's upcoming DirectX 12 API, AMD revealed its most important feature that could impact on not only its graphics business, but also potentially revive its CPU business among gamers. DirectX 12 will make its debut with Windows 10, Microsoft's next big operating system, which will be given away as a free upgrade for _all_ current Windows 8 and Windows 7 users. The OS will come with a usable Start menu, and could lure gamers who stood their ground on Windows 7.

In its presentation, AMD touched upon two key features of the DirectX 12, starting with its most important, Multi-threaded command buffer recording; and Asynchronous compute scheduling/execution. A command buffer is a list of tasks for the CPU to execute, when drawing a 3D scene. There are some elements of 3D graphics that are still better suited for serial processing, and no single SIMD unit from any GPU architecture has managed to gain performance throughput parity with a modern CPU core. DirectX 11 and its predecessors are still largely single-threaded on the CPU, in the way it schedules command buffer.

GIGABYTE introduced its latest socket AM3+ motherboard, and its first in a long while, the 990XA-UD3 R5. Built in the standard ATX form-factor, the board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS connectors, and conditions it using a 10-phase CPU VRM. The board, however, does not support FX-9000 series chips. Based on AMD 990X chipset, featuring AMD SB950 southbridge, expansion slots of the board include two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (x8/x8 when both are populated), supporting NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFireX, a third PCIe 2.0 x16 slot (electrical x4, wired to the southbridge), and two each of PCIe 2.0 x1 and legacy PCI slots.

Storage connectivity on the 990XA-UD3 R5 include six SATA 6 Gb/s ports. The board's onboard audio solution features a Realtek ALC1150 CODEC, offering 115 dBA SNR, audio-grade electrolytic capacitors on the audio circuit, a TI-made headphones amplifier with support for headphones impedance as high as 600Ω, and PCB ground-layer isolation. Also on offer are a gigabit Ethernet connection, driven by a Realtek-made controller, four USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear panel, two by headers), and PS/2 mouse/keyboard combo port. The board is driven by AMI UEFI BIOS, and supports Windows 8 SecureBoot and FastBoot. Expect this board to be priced around US $130.

With spring nearly upon us, it's time to give the old horses crunching overclocked through the winter one grand, last run. TechPowerUp World Community Grid (WCG) team, one of the world's top-10 teams, with over 4,000 years of aggregate CPU time, and over 20 million results submitted; brings to you the Winter's End WCG Challenge.

Simply crunch for the TechPowerUp WCG Team between 26th Feb (00:00 UTC) and 6th Mar (00:00 UTC), and multiple winners along the leaderboard stand to win some sick community-sponsored prizes, including an AMD FX-8350 CPU + ASUS Crosshair V Formula motherboard combo, a fully-built crunching rig, numerous SSDs, CPU coolers, and more. So what are you waiting for?! For more information, and to participate, visit this page.

Leading German manufacturer of high quality gaming peripherals, ROCCAT, hits glitzy Las Vegas for CES 2015 with an expanded range of connected devices. The ROCCAT Phobo concept made its debut in 2012, as a gaming keyboard with a slot-integrated smartphone. ROCCAT is proud to announce that this concept has been reborn as the Ryos Phobo, refined and perfected by our creative design engineers to reflect ROCCAT's Future Ready philosophy.

"When concepting Phobo, we knew we had a strong vision," explains René Korte, CEO and Founder of ROCCAT. "Still, we brought it back to the drawing board to expand and perfect the design." The changes are there, but the heart remains the same; combine an amazing gaming keyboard with smartphone tech, injecting it with software that gives amazing gaming horsepower. Smartphones of all brands and sizes rest in a wireless Ipuri setup, connected to your Ryos Phobo via two Bluetooth channels. This allows gamers to place their smartphone anywhere on the gaming surface for optimal play. Cherry MX Switch Mechanical keys, two USB ports and a tenkeyless design make the Ryos Phobo a powerful but compact gaming keyboard, with ROCCAT's new unified Swarm Driver Software built in. ROCCAT is also bolstering its strong mechanical keyboard lineup with the Ryos MK FX and, Ryos TKL FX, both with Cherry MX Switches and RGB LEDs.

Finnish overclocker "The Stilt" overclocked his brand new AMD FX-8370 to a record-breaking 8722.78 MHz. The target was achieved using a base-clock of 276.91 MHz, and a multiplier of 31.5x, core voltage of 2.004V, and DRAM frequency of 1107 MHz (2214 MHz DDR). Other hardware included an ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z motherboard, and 2x 4 GB of AMD made DDR3 memory. The setup was cooled by a liquid nitrogen evaporator. Find the validation and other details here.

AMD is planning to launch its next performance-segment CPUs alongside its Radeon R9 285 graphics card; the FX-8370 and its energy-efficient variant, the FX-8370E. Based on the 32 nm "Vishera" silicon, the FX-8370 is an eight-core socket AM3+ processor, featuring out of the box clock speeds of 4.10 GHz, with TurboCore frequencies of 4.30 GHz. The standard variant features 125W TDP, while the FX-8370E features 95W. The two will sell at the same price-points as the FX-8350. The FX-8370E will sell at a slight premium.

AMD is preparing to expand its performance-segment socket AM3+ processor lineup, steering clear of the 220W TDP of its FX-9000 series. The two chips are the FX-8370, and the FX-8370E. The FX-8370 will likely replace the FX-8350 around the $180 mark; while the FX-8370E will be its energy-efficient variant. Both chips offer clock speeds of 4.10 GHz, with 4.30 GHz TurboCore frequencies. While the FX-8370 has a rated TDP of 125W, the FX-8370E features 95W, without a reduction in clock speeds. The FX-8370E could hence come at a slight premium.

Both the FX-8370 and FX-8370E are eight-core processors based on the 32 nm "Vishera" silicon, featuring four "Piledriver" CPU modules that have 2 MB of L2 cache each, and 8 MB of L3 cache shared between the four modules. The chips feature dual-channel DDR3 integrated memory controllers, with native support for DDR3-1866 MHz, and 5.2 GT/s HyperTransport 3.1 system bus. Instruction-sets include AVX, AES, SSE4.2, FMA3, and XOP. The chips will run on all existing socket AM3+ motherboards, with some needing BIOS updates.

CyberPower Inc., a global manufacturer of custom gaming PCs, gaming laptops, and performance workstations, today unleashed its all-new Raven X6 - a powerful and stylish gaming notebook featuring NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M graphics cards and the 4th Generation Intel Core i7-4710HQ mobile processor. By leveraging the latest processor technology from Intel and NVIDIA, the Raven X6 sips very little power from the socket until you need it. That's when NVIDIA Optimus Technology, and Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 Technology kick in to send your computer into overdrive to power through games and applications that require more performance.

Raven X6's gaming merit is shown on the brilliant 15.6-inch Full HD (1080p) IPS panel display, featuring accurate color reproduction and crisp image quality. Incredibly detailed, high-resolution frames are pushed to the display by the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M graphics card with 4GB of GDDR5 memory. The GTX 860M uses all of the great NVIDIA technologies, like TFXAA, Adaptive VSync, and PhysX to tear through the latest demanding games. Even on the road, NVIDIA Battery Boost technology will kick your GTX 860M into a reduced power mode, so you can still get your game on without instantly draining your battery.

AMD is preparing a new retail package of its feisty FX-9590 eight-core processor, in a bid to woo crowds away from Intel's Core i7-4790K "Devil's Canyon" processor. The package combines an FX-9590, which till now was sold chip-only (without a cooling solution), with an Asetek-made liquid CPU cooler, for US $359. Given that without the cooler, the FX-9590 costs $319, the extra $40 for a liquid cooler adds great value. Based on the 32 nm "Vishera" silicon, the FX-9590 features eight CPU cores based on the "Piledriver" micro-architecture, clocked at 4.70 GHz, with Turbo Core speeds of 5.00 GHz; a dual-channel DDR3 integrated memory controller that natively supports DDR3-1866 MHz, 8 MB of total L2 cache, 8 MB of L3 cache; and modern instruction sets such as AVX, AES, FMA3, etc.

ASRock updated its Fatal1ty branded socket AM3+ motherboard. The new ASRock 990FX Fatal1ty Killer gives AMD platform gamers most advancements in onboard connectivity. To begin with, the board is based on the AMD 990FX chipset, with SB950 southbridge. It draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors, and conditions it for the CPU with a 10-phase VRM. The CPU is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting up to 64 GB of dual-channel DDR3-2400 memory.

Expansion slots include two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 wired to the AMD 990FX northbridge, a PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x4) wired to the southbridge; and two PCI-Express 2.0 x1 slots. Storage connectivity includes five SATA 6 Gb/s, and one M.2, with a combination of PCIe 2.0 x2 and SATA 6 Gb/s link layers. The board features Realtek's latest ALC1150 HDA CODEC, which boasts of 115 dBA SNR; equipped with ground-layer isolation, and a headphones amp. Wired networking is care of a Broadcom Killer E2200 controller. Four USB 3.0 ports, and gaming peripheral-optimized USB 2.0 ports (stabilized power); make for the rest of it. The board is driven by AMI Aptio UEFI BIOS, supporting Windows 8 Secure Boot.

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today introduced its new 2014 Performance Mobile APUs designed for ultrathin and high-performance mobile PCs, bringing the features and capabilities of the popular and powerful AMD A-Series APU family (codenamed "Kaveri") to power-efficient notebooks for both personal and professional use. The new mobile APUs mark the debut of Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) features and Graphics Core Next (GCN) Architecture for mobile devices, establishing them as AMD's most advanced mobile APUs to-date. Notebook and desktop systems powered by AMD's entire 2014 APU lineup, including systems from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Toshiba and others also debuted at COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2014.

"AMD takes a major step forward today on our journey to transform and enhance the computing experience with the launch of the 2014 Performance Mobile APU family," said Bernd Lienhard, corporate vice president and general manager, Client Business Unit, AMD. "With a combination of superior total compute performance, stunning graphics and efficient power use alongside industry-first technologies, these new APUs set a new bar for cutting-edge consumer and commercial PCs."
The announcement of the 2014 Performance Mobile APU family features AMD's first FX-branded enthusiast-class APU for notebooks, and follows the recent introduction of AMD's 2014 Low-Power and Mainstream APUs.

Sapphire's Atomic brand often sprung up some surprising products in the VGA space, including some of the very first graphics cards with factory-fitted liquid-cooling solutions. Its latest creation is the Atomic 990FX, a socket AM3+ motherboard in the ATX form-factor, with a full-coverage water-block. "Full coverage and motherboards?" you ask? Yes! This board features a full-coverage block that features coolant channels that pass through not just the CPU, but also CPU VRM, and the chipset. It features three PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots, four DDR3 DIMM slots, six SATA 6 Gb/s ports, gigabit Ethernet, and 8-channel audio.

MSI unveiled its first socket AM3+ motherboard bearing its coveted Gaming Series badge, the 970 Gaming. Based on AMD 970 chipset with SB950 southbridge, the board offers most modern gaming features for the AM3+ platform. It supports FX "Vishera" eight-core processors. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS connectors, and features a strong 8-phase CPU VRM that's cooled by a massive heatsink. The AM3+ socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting up to 64 GB of dual-channel DDR3-2400 MHz memory.

Expansion slots include two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (x8/x8 when both are populated), and two each of PCI-Express 2.0 x1 and legacy PCI. Storage connectivity includes six SATA 6 Gb/s ports. There are four USB 3.0 ports on offer. Things get interesting with its Qualcomm Killer E2200 gaming-optimized wired NIC, the same one featured on its flagship Z97 Gaming 9 AC; and Audio Boost HD audio, which features a 115 dBA SNR CODEC, ground-layer isolation, a 600Ω headphones amp, electrolytic capacitors, and gold-plated jacks. MSI didn't disclose pricing.

Here's the first detailed body-shot of ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Killer, which was teased by the company earlier today, and which could end up being one of the most feature-rich socket AM3+ motherboards, if the end is neigh for AM3+. Designed for gaming PCs with up to two graphics cards, although it features three long x16 slots, the Fatal1ty 990FX Killer is a full-size ATX motherboard. It's design appears to be more gamer-centric than overclocker-centric. It draws power from 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS connectors, with an optional 4-pin Molex connection to stabilize power to add-on cards; and conditions it for the AM3+ CPU using a 10-phase VRM that's cooled by an heatsink that's independent from that which cools the AMD 990FX northbridge (i.e. no heat-pipe linking the two). The AM3+ CPU socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, which support up to 64 GB of dual-channel DDR3-2400 MHz memory; and to the 990FX northbridge over a 5.2 GT/s HyperTransport link.

The AMD 990FX chipset puts out two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots, the third slot is electrical PCI-Express 2.0 x4, and possibly wired to the SB950 southbridge. The southbridge handles five internal SATA 6 Gb/s ports, the sixth port is wired out as eSATA. The Fatal1ty 990FX Killer, as teased this morning, is among the first motherboards to feature an M.2 slot, extended out of a PCI-Express link. PCIe SSDs tend to be faster, as more interface bandwith is on tap. As many as six USB 3.0 ports are on offer, of which one switches between header and internal type-1 port (for those tuck-away software license keys) all of which are driven by third-party controllers. Wired networking is care of a Killer E2200 network controller, that's optimized for gaming. The board features 7.1-channel HD audio, with a high SNR CODEC, PCB ground-layer isolation (to prevent electrical noise), and an EMI shield for the CODEC; which ASRock collectively labels "Purity Sound." The board is driven by AMI UEFI BIOS, with full support for Windows 8 Secure Boot.

We'd feared something like this would happen for some time now, but leaked AMD product roadmaps confirmed it that AMD FX "Vishera" is the last line of CPUs from AMD. The company will only focus on APUs from here onward, and at the very most, one could expect CPU core counts to go up from their current quad-core stale-meat since A-series "Llano," which will continue into the 2014 A-Series "Kaveri," too.

The alleged AMD roadmap slide leaked to the web by ProHardver.hu points out that socket AM3+ "Vishera" will exist on AMD's product stack for as far as AMD's eye can see - looking deep into even 2015. Unless AMD is planning on hanging its towel with AM3+, it wouldn't mark its roadmap slide out in this way. 2015 will see the introduction of "Carrizo," an APU that succeeds "Kaveri," which will be based on future-generation "Excavator" CPU micro-architecture, and a future-generation GPU architecture, along with full HSA programming model implementation. "Kabini" will have its spell running into mid-2014, at which point "Beema" will succeed it.

AMD FX-9370, which has been available only through the OEM channel, could soon be generally available in its PIB (processor-in-box) packaging. The chip will bear the retail SKU "FD9370FHW8KHK," and retail at a price point that's just under $270 (excl. taxes). There's no clarity on whether the PIB package will include a cooling solution, given that the chip retains the 220W TDP figures from other FX-9000 series parts, such as the FX-9590. Based on the 32 nm "Vishera" silicon, the FX-9370 is an eight-core socket AM3+ processor based on the "Piledriver" micro-architecture. It features out of the box clock speeds of 4.40 GHz, with 4.70 GHz maximum TurboCore frequency. It features 16 MB of total cache (L2 + L3).

At the OC Main Event in San Francisco, co-hosted by ASUS, Corsair and Intel, the ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) Rampage IV Black Edition motherboard was used to break five overclocking world records. Combining the Rampage IV Black Edition motherboard with ASUS GeForce GTX Titan graphics cards, the latest 4th generation Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition processors and Corsair Vengeance Extreme and Dominator Platinum DDR3 memory, world-renowned members of the international overclocking community worked with ROG engineers to claim new top scores with the 3DMark 11Entry, 3DMark 11 Performance, 3DMark Fire Strike, Cinebench, and quad-channel memory frequency.

"We are proud that previous ASUS X79 motherboards have dominated overclocking rankings by breaking 26 world records since the chipset launch," said Jackie Hsu, ASUS Corporate Vice President and General Manager of Worldwide Sales, Open Platform Business Group. "The accomplishments we demonstrated here at the OC Main Event San Francisco are a testament to what is achievable by combining world-class R&D with incredible talents from the enthusiast community." Xavier Laurent, Director of Product Marketing for Corsair adds "As a company that creates products by enthusiasts for enthusiasts, collaborating with like-minded partners ASUS and Intel to break world benchmarking records using Corsair Dominator Platinum and Vengeance Pro memory was a natural fit. The success of the OC Main Event San Francisco demonstrates the continued strength of the enthusiast community and validates our commitment to this portion of the ecosystem."

Cooler Master, a leading PC technology brand has tested its entire range of high-performance CPU cooling solutions and is proud to announce full support for AMDs upcoming FX9590 and FX9370 high-end processors. "All our high-end coolers are designed and built with headroom to support overclocking. We want our customers to get the most out of their system, and many of our coolers can actually handle even significantly higher thermal loads - so there is still some room to tweak the latest FX processors, especially with our liquid cooling units" said Sascha Krohn- Technical Marketing Manager at Cooler Master .

Cooler Master is a leader in the PC cooling industry selling a wide range of CPU coolers ranging all the way from the incredibly popular Hyper 212 mainstream series, to high-end TPC Tower coolers equipped with vapor chambers and our Eisberg liquid cooling units - the only modular and expandable pre-filled LCS on the market.