Since the introduction of the NUC by Intel some years ago, the mini PC space has taken off and one of the more popular NUC alternatives has been the BRIX series from Gigabyte and the company has just announced the BRIX Extreme. This is Gigabyte's first BRIX series based on the AMD Ryzen 5000U series of APUs and three different options will be available, in the shape of the R3-5300U, R5-5500U and the R7-5700U. This translates to four, six and eight core CPUs with a 15 W TDP, although these are all Zen 2 based, rather than Zen 3, which is slightly disappointing.

This is also one of the first device we've seen that uses the new AMD RZ608 WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 module which was announced a little while back. Other features include 2.5 Gbps Ethernet, an M.2 PCIe 3.0 NVMe slot for an SSD, two HDMI 2.0a ports, a mini DP port port and a USB-C port with DP Alt mode, both supporting DP 1.4 and all display outputs can be used concurrently with four 4K displays. Gigabyte will offer the BRIX Extreme in a low profile chassis as well as a slightly bigger chassis that can either house a 2.5-inch SATA drive, or an optional expansion module.

GIGABYTE joined the 12 GB GeForce RTX 2060 comeback party with two custom-design graphics card models, the RTX 2060 D6 12G, and the larger RTX 2060 WindForce OC 12G. NVIDIA formally released the RTX 2060 12 GB on December 7. This isn't just an RTX 2060 with double the memory amount (12 GB vs. 6 GB), but also an increase in CUDA cores, to 2,176, up from 1,920 on the original. What sets the RTX 2060 12 GB apart from the RTX 2060 SUPER is that the memory bus is still 192-bit wide, compared to 256-bit on the latter.

The GIGABYTE RTX 2060 12 GB D6 features a more compact (22.4 cm long) WindForce 2X cooling solution that uses a pair of 90 mm fans. This SKU sticks to NVIDIA-reference clock speeds of 1650 MHz boost. The RTX 2060 12 GB WindForce OC, on the other hand, features a larger 26.5 cm-long board design, with 100 mm fans, and a heavier heatsink. This card packs a mild factory-overclock, running the GPU at 1680 MHz boost. Both cards rely on a single 8-pin PCIe power connector for power. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Gigabyte has recently listed several new graphics cards with the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) confirming the existence of various upcoming models from NVIDIA and AMD. Gigabyte has initially listed 10 RTX 3080 12 GB cards across various levels including AORUS Xtreme, AORUS Master, Gaming, Vision, Eagle, and Mini-ITX. The entry also includes 6 RTX 3070 Ti 16 GB models without any AORUS Xtreme or Mini-ITX cards initially planned. These upcoming cards from NVIDIA follow their recent release of the RTX 2060 12 GB where they have bumped the memory capacity on existing cards. The AMD RX 6500 XT which is rumored to launch in January 2022 with 4 GB of memory also makes an appearance with 3 models listed. The full list of all registered cards from Gigabyte can be found below.

Based on the Intel 600-series chipset leak earlier today, it was easy to conclude that all 600-series motherboards would be getting PCIe 5.0 support, but alas, that is not the case. We've already seen some rock bottom Z690 without PCIe 5.0 and thanks to Videocardz we now know that Gigabyte's B660 Gaming X DDR4 will also lack PCIe 5.0 support.

How do we know this board doesn't support PCIe 5.0? First of all, the x16 slot closest to the CPU uses one of Gigabyte's older reinforced PCIe 4.0 slots, whereas all of its Z690 boards with PCIe 5.0 support uses a new, white type of slot. These slots use a visually different kind of reinforcement as well, even if it's only marginally different. However, Gigabyte doesn't appear to be silk screening PCIe 5.0 on supported boards and it's possible that they're using a different slot vendor for the B660 boards.

With Intel's Alder Lake processors released, the company introduced a rather interesting concept of mixing high-performance and high-efficiency cores into one design. This hybrid approach combines performance P-cores based on Golden Cove architecture with high-efficiency E-cores based on Gracemont design. While Intel dedicated a lot of effort to optimizing software for Alder Lake, there are sometimes issues that persist when playing older games. At the heart of ADL processors, a thread scheduler decides which task is running on P or E-cores and ensures the best core gets selected for the job.

However, many users know that E-cores can be recognized as another system by DRM software and cause troubles on the latest 12th Generation machines. GIGABYTE has designed a software tool for its Z690 motherboards to fix this issue, which allows on-demand enablement of E-cores. Users can easily "park" or "unpark" E-cores and enable some older game titles to run efficiently with the help of P-cores. This DRM Fix Tool is a lightweight utility that unfortunately runs exclusively on GIGABYTE motherboards. It is less than a megabyte in size and requires no particular installation. However, it is an excellent addition to GIGABYTE's customers, and all that it needs is the latest BIOS update to run. Here you can download the tool, and below, you can see the list of the latest BIOS versions of GIGABYTE Z690 motherboards that support this tool.

Intel's upcoming lineup of mobile processors with the novel hybrid core technology are codenamed Alder Lake-P. Contrary to the desktop Alder Lake-S, the P variant was envisioned with a lower power budget in mind to fit various form factors. Today, we get to see some of the first benchmarks of the Alder Lake-P processors and get to compare them to AMD's competing products. In the Geekbench 5 listing discovered by BechLeaks, Intel's Core i7-12800H processor with six performance and eight efficiency cores appear. The CPU ran at a base frequency of 2.8 GHz, while Geekbench didn't show boosting clocks in the submission.

The CPU managed to score 1654 points in single-core results and 9618 points in multi-core runs. If we compare this to AMD Ryzen 7 5800H, a direct competitor, the CPU is faster by 25% and 35% in single-core and multi-core results, respectively. If the previous Tiger Lake-H generation is a reference, the Alder Lake-P chip manages 12% and 20% higher single-core and multi-core scores. This specific processor is part of the GIGABYTE AORUS 15 YE4 laptop used for the Geekbench 5 benchmark test run.

With AMD's Ryzen 5000 series of processors, you needed 400 or 500 series chipset to run the latest generation. However, some reports of users enabling their Ryzen 5000 series processors to run on some 300 series chipset motherboards. And this made everyone curious if AMD's partners will ever bring proper firmware support to run Ryzen 5000 processors on AMD 300 series chipsets. According to today's round of news, ASUS and GIGABYTE have released a firmware update for their A320 boards that enabled Ryzen 5000 processors to run at their total capacity.

Added support means if you have a system with an A320 chipset and plan to upgrade your processors, you may not need to buy a whole new platform for the Zen3-based processors, and you could update your BIOS version to the latest version and perform an upgrade. Check your board's BIOS version and see if you are eligible for an upgrade on ASUS and GIGABYTE websites.

A couple of days ago, GIGABYTE boasted with an overclocking record made using one of the company's motherboards. Allegedly, the company has achieved a world record of Alder Lake overclocking, causing the CPU to go up to 8 GHz frequency. However, such a claim was rather sketchy, according to the CPU-Z developer "Doc TB." In the later investigation, he concluded that the submission took advantage of a false reporting algorithm that gave HiCookie and GIGABYTE a chance to submit a world record as validated by the CPU-Z validator program. Further investigation concluded that the program reported incorrect numbers, and GIGABYTE's world record of 8 GHz on Alder Lake had been made invalid as of now.

The CPU-Z validation team is working hard to update the validation algorithm and make it more challenging for false submissions to appear valid. One interesting thing to point out is that HiCookie and GIGABYTE have already attempted to post false records with the launch of AMD's Ryzen 5000 series of processors, where they claimed that the CPU managed to reach 6,362.16 MHz, where in reality it was running at 5,683.94 MHz. This overclocker submitted those faulty results to HWBot as fake at the time and has now done it again.

GIGABYTE Technology, today announced at OCP Summit support for the Ampere Altra Max processor and unveiled the new GIGABYTE high-density server, H262-P60, that embodies performance and scalability for HPC clusters and HCI. The Ampere Altra processor has also shown great power efficiency in cloud and edge applications while gaining momentum as it uses Arm architecture to give x86 a run for its money.

The competitiveness of Ampere Altra processors and ARMv8 64-bit architecture has become even more apparent as the Ampere Altra Max processor maintains the same 250 W TDP as Ampere Altra and is pin-to-pin compatible, yet it is able to add 60% more cores for up to 128 cores. For networking, storage, or accelerators the single socket supports 128 PCIe lanes, while the dual socket configuration for Altra Max will support 192 PCIe lanes. The H262-P60 will ship with updated support for Altra Max.

NVIDIA today announced NVIDIA Quantum-2, the next generation of its InfiniBand networking platform, which offers the extreme performance, broad accessibility and strong security needed by cloud computing providers and supercomputing centers.

The most advanced end-to-end networking platform ever built, NVIDIA Quantum-2 is a 400 Gbps InfiniBand networking platform that consists of the NVIDIA Quantum-2 switch, the ConnectX-7 network adapter, the BlueField-3 data processing unit (DPU) and all the software that supports the new architecture.

GIGABYTE Technology, one of the top global manufacturers of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, announces today Z690 AORUS TACHYON motherboard with the latest 12th generation Intel Core i9 12900K processor and LN2 liquid nitrogen heat dissipation set the world-leading overclocking records of dual 8 GHz, which is 8000 MHz on i9-12900K CPU and 8300 MHz on DDR5 memories. GIGABYTE Z690 AORUS TACHYON motherboard designed by world-famous overclocker equips with plenty functions exclusively for extreme overclockers, which promise overclockers higher scores with easier operation, establishing GIGABYTE's leading role in overclocking on the Z690 motherboards.

"GIGABYTE demonstrate its determination of returning to the overclocking glory with the launch of the Z590 AORUS TACHYON motherboard, and the release of the Z690 AORUS TACHYON further verified the continuation of GIGABYTE's overclocking pedigree on motherboards." said Jackson Hsu, Director of the GIGABYTE Channel Solutions Product Development Division. "Z690 AORUS TACHYON proves GIGABYTE's strong R&D strength on LN2 overclocking by the world records it created. We will definitely use Z690 AORUS TACHYON to create better overclocking performance, and can't wait to see that overclockers around the world use this motherboard to break more world records.

The launch of Intel's Alder Lake processsors has opened an exciting chapter for team blue and motherboard makers who are finally transitioning to new technologies like DDR5 and PCIe Gen5 standards. Today, GIGABYTE AORUS has prepared a complete lineup of motherboards designed to satisfy all kinds of workloads powered by Alder Lake processors as these AORUS Z690 motherboards are about to hit the market. These new boards include an upgraded feature set like 16+ phases power delivery on all boards, upgraded heatsinks to keep VRM temperatures under control, and built-in DDR5 overclocking features.

The event will be live-streamed on YouTube, so tune in to the First Look Event as the AORUS team gives an in-depth overview and cover the performance increase you can experience with Intel 12th gen CPU and DDR5 memory on the AORUS Z690 platform. They will be going over the new platform's entire lineup and feature set, so make sure you get to the event on time. It will start at 18:00 UTC zone, and you can tune in to watch here: AORUS Z690 First Look Event.

Alphacool today presents the Eiswolf 2 "All-in-One" solution for Geforce RTX 3080/3090 Gigabyte Aorus Master/Xtreme and Radeon RX 6800XT/6900XT Sapphire Nitro+graphics cards. The Eiswolf 2 uses the Alphacool 360 mm NexXxoS ST30 full copper radiator. For the fans, we use the 120 mm Alphacool Aurora Rise. This impressive fan with a max. static pressure of 3.17 mm/H2O, offers a max. air flow of 119.8m³/h. The speed range of the fan, from 0-2500rpm, is adjustable via PWM. The AIO is completed by the Eisblock Aurora water cooler. This not only cools the GPU chip, but actively cools all relevant components such as the memory and VRAM. It also has brilliant aRGB lighting.

All components used (radiator, fan, cooler, DC-LT 2 pump) including fittings and tubing are part of the Alphacool DIY range and are therefore available separately. The combination of all components results in a solution that is as easy to install as an AIO, but offers the performance of a pre-assembled and pre-filled custom loop. Only the pump housing for the DC-LT 2 pump is a custom-made item that is only part of the scope of delivery of the AIO solution and is therefore not available separately.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions today announced all AIO liquid coolers lineup, including AORUS WATERFORCE series and AORUS WATERFORCE X series are attached with brackets for Socket LGA1700 to support the latest 12th gen Intel Core processors, which provides the optimal flexibility and compatibility in the market. Enhanced by the enlarged tube diameter and top quality components, these two cooler series fully support the latest 12th gen. Intel Core processors to pass Prime 95 non AVX stress test by Turbo Boost Technology. Users can enjoy gaming or working with stable performance without worries about throttling caused by the overheating on processors.

"With the launch of the latest Intel Z690 chipset and 12th generation Core processors, most of the existing liquid coolers in the market are unable to support it due to the socket change. GIGABYTE AORUS WATERFORCE and AORUS WATERFORCE X series took into account the structural changes of coming platform at the initial stage of development, and designed the visionary accessories with brackets for LGA 1700 which let users embrace the new platform easily without updating water cooling devices." said Jackson Hsu, Director of the GIGABYTE Channel Solutions Product Development Division. "GIGABYTE AORUS WATERFORCE and AORUS WATERFORCE X series AIO liquid coolers follow the praise of the previous generation AIO cooling, and keep the notable exclusive design with bunch of enhancements in response to users' feedback. In addition to the durability and high compatibility, they can pass the Prime 95 non AVX stress test with the 12th gen. Intel Core processor by Turbo Boost Technology which ensure users a stable use without any concerns."

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions today announced AORUS DDR5 5200 MHz 32 GB Memory Kit to support the latest Intel Z690 platform for the brand new level performance. AORUS Memory DDR5 32 GB 5200 MHz features two 16 GB DDR5 XMP 5200 MHz design to provide higher frequency and performance than native DDR5 memories. With GIGABYTE Z690 motherboards, it can further unlock the limitation of memory clock to enhance performance by DDR5 XMP Booster and XMP 3.0 User Profile. The new On-Die ECC feature of DDR5 highlights error correction which can detect and correct most common memory data damage to improve the stability of data. In addition, the copper-aluminium heatspreader with the nano-carbon coating can effectively reduce the heat generated by the memories under high-speed operation, offering excellent performance and avoiding instability from overheating.

AORUS DDR5 5200 MHz 32 GB Memory Kit features two 16 GB DDR5 XMP 5200 MHz dual-channel design, and just fit the support of DDR5 memory on Intel Z690 platform. The brand new memory architecture features high memory clock speed, low power consumption, which enable DDR5 XMP Booster function on AORUS DDR5 5200 MHz 32 GB Memory Kit with GIGABYTE Z690 AORUS motherboards. "DDR5 XMP Booster" can detect the brand of memory IC in the BIOS setting to allow users chose quickly from multiple built-in and pre-tuned memory overclocking profiles, boosting the native DDR or XMP DDR memory speed. Furthermore, "XMP 3.0 User Profile" enable users to create and store XMP profile on their own to unleash the extreme performance of memories.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, today announced the Z690 AORUS gaming motherboards which perfectly support the latest 12th Gen Intel Core processors. Featuring up to 20+1+2 phases digital power VRM design with each phase holding up to 105 amps and an improved Fins-Array III heatsink design, GIGABYTE's Z690 AORUS lineup is geared with the best power design and thermal management to unleash the extreme performance and optimized overclocking ability on the new generation multi-core K series Intel Core processors. The PCIe 5.0 PCBs, slots, and components are also implemented in GIGABYTE's Z690 AORUS motherboards for enhanced performance and stability. The exclusive SMD memory slots with metal shielding mask for anti- interference and the BIOS setting of DDR5 memory overclocking offer more stable signals to memory, which enable users to boost XMP and overclocking performance with stability. Select GIGABYTE Z690 AORUS motherboards offer feature-rich I/O with an integrated I/O shield as well as the newest Thermal Guard III design, Smart Fan 6 and much more. Performance, power management, thermals, audio, GIGABYTE Z690 AORUS motherboards check all the boxes for users seeking to take their computing firepower to the next level.

Although we're going to try and cover all the newly launched Intel Z690 based motherboards more thoroughly before the retail availability date, we had a quick look already on what's on offer and we were struck by something rather odd when it comes to Gigabyte, most of their new boards only have two 3.5 mm audio jacks around the back. This is not limited to their cheaper SKUs, but is found through the entire product stack.

We're not entirely sure what's going on here and will check with Gigabyte once someone is awake that we can talk to about it, but we're fairly certain that this is going to cause a bit of a backlash from their customers. This was actually something we kind of saw in the leaked image of one of the Aero boards, as it didn't look like it had any audio jacks at all, but that wasn't the case. Instead, it seems to have something to do with Gigabyte's move away from the Realtek ALC1220 Intel HD audio based codecs that the company have been using for the past few generations of boards.

Newegg has been on a roll this week when it comes to leaking pricing of upcoming motherboards and this time they've managed to out no less than seven upcoming models from Gigabyte. Unfortunately we didn't get a first hand view of the leaks, so we have to make do with what little information is available for now.

The pricing of the seven leaked boards ranges from US$199.99 to US$469.99, which is less painful than what we've seen so far from other brands. The base model is the Gigabyte Z690 UD DDR4, which even at US$199.99 is almost $50 more than the current Z590 UD board from the same retailer. Moving up a step, we have the Z690 Gaming X DDR4 at US$229.99, followed by the Z690 Aorus Elite AX DDR4 at US$269.99 and the Z690 Aero G DDR4 at US$289.99.

GIGABYTE is ready with its first AORUS-branded DDR5 memory kits. Pictured below is the first of its kind, which should give you an idea of the design for the series. The one pictured below is a DDR5-5200 two-module kit with 16 GB DIMMs, making up 32 GB, which is this generation's mainstream memory amount, as 16 GB (2x 8 GB) was for DDR4, and 8 GB for DDR3 (2x 4 GB). It features XMP 3.0, letting you effortlessly enable the advertised frequencies on a Z690 chipset motherboard. It's likely that the company designs other models with 8 GB DIMMs that have higher frequencies, or even 64 GB kits using "dual-rank" 32 GB DIMMs.

GIGABYTE's AERO line of motherboards and notebooks target creators who like to game. The company is ready with a premium motherboard based on the Intel Z690 chipset, the Z690 AERO D. This has to be the prettiest looking motherboard we've come across in a long time, and it appears to have the chops to match this beauty. The Socket LGA1700 motherboard uses large ridged-aluminium heatsinks over the chipset, M.2 NVMe slots, and a portion of the rear I/O shroud. Aluminium fin-stack heatsinks fed by heat-pipes, cool the CPU VRM. You get two PCI-Express 5.0 x16 slots (x8/x8 with both populated). As an AERO series product, the board is expected to be loaded with connectivity relevant to content creators, although the box is missing a Thunderbolt logo. We expect at least 20 Gbps USB 3.2x2 ports, and 10 GbE networking, Wi-Fi 6E.

GIGABYTE Technology, an industry leader in high-performance servers and workstations, today announced a new server, GIGABYTE R282-Z9G, that gets around hardware and software RAID limitations that bottleneck RAID when used with NVMe SSDs. Continuing in the success of the R282 series, the new SKU was designed to house an all-in-one server solution that specifically targets high performance NVMe (Gen4) SSDs for RAID by incorporating the GRAID SupremeRAID solution into the R282-Z9G. This is the first GIGABYTE server to incorporate a GRAID Technology solution and has proven to be highly successful with Kioxia CM6-R SSDs.

More and more companies are using flash storage and doing so on a larger scale; however, there may be pitfalls when using RAID, such as limitations in computing performance or consuming a large amount of CPU resources. To solve these problems and to do so with a large amount of drives, the GRAID SupremeRAID works by installing a virtual NVMe controller on the OS while integrating a PCIe device for high performance. With this GIGABYTE solution over 100 GB/s of throughput is possible for workloads in HPC, 4K/8K video editing, high-frequency trading, online transaction processing, or database processing.

Gigabyte, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, showcased a new concept 5G gaming PC, Project Cielo by AORUS. Combining 5G connectivity, modular design, and portability, Project Cielo, which stands for sky in Spanish, gives an intriguing depiction of the future of PC gaming with endless possibilities.

Project Cielo is a gaming PC with built-in 5G connectivity. Compared to the traditional wired or 4G wireless networks, 5G makes PC gaming on the go possible by offering greater bandwidth, ultra-low latency and near-instant access to cloud gaming. Project Cielo comes with an accommodating falcon-wing antenna that symbolizes AORUS. The design also cleverly integrates the 5G antenna into PC chassis. Players can save the expense of purchasing additional 5G antennas and the trouble of cable arrangement; at the same time they can enjoy the ultimate gaming experience on the go brought by 5G.

If the amount of upcoming Z690 was anything to go by, one could presume that the motherboard makers are backing Intel's upcoming platform to the max, as a leaked list of what should be close to every Z690 that will hit the market, counts a total of 98 boards. The list covers ASRock, ASUS, Biostar, NZXT, Gigabyte and MSI, but not EVGA and some other smaller players.

ASUS is apparently planning no less than 30 different models/SKUs, since some are clearly DDR4/DDR5 SKUs of the same model or SKUs with or without Wi-Fi, but even so, that's a massive launch lineup. Gigabyte isn't far behind with 27, followed by MSI at 24 and ASRock at 14, if we didn't count wrong. There isn't much news in terms of details of each of the boards here though, but it's clear that the high-end SKUs are mostly DDR5, while the mid-range and standard models are mostly using DDR4. The only slight surprise here is that only ASRock has more DDR4 than DDR5 models, with ASUS having exactly half of each, but Gigabyte and MSI are going with a preference for DDR5. ASRock, ASUS and Gigabyte appear to have liquid cooled SKUs, but it's not clear if MSI will offer such a SKU of its Godlike board.

Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of premium gaming hardware, today announced a new AMD Radeon RX 6600 graphics card - the Gigabyte Radeon RX 6600 Eagle 8G. The Eagle graphics card is the best choice for those who desire a unique design optimized for power efficiency and durability, and the ability to experience incredible high-framerate 1080p gaming.

AMD Radeon RX 6600 graphics cards are based on the breakthrough AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, designed to deliver the optimal balance of performance and power efficiency. Offering 32 MB of high-performance AMD Infinity Cache, 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, AMD Smart Access Memory technology and other advanced features, the new graphics cards are designed to bring next-generation desktop gaming experiences to the midrange market. They also support AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution, an open-source spatial upscaling solution designed to increase framerates in select titles while delivering high-resolution gaming experiences.

It would appear that Gigabyte's German Twitter account has gone rogue and posted pictures of a yet to be announced Aorus gaming chair from the company. Although it's not Gigabyte's first gaming chair, the new design is rather different from anything we've seen so far and it looks like it's extremely portable.

Not much information was provided, but we'd guess the new gaming chair is mainly designed for console gamers, based on the overall design. Gigabyte went for a simple two-tone black and white design and the seating area appears to be covered in velour. Two ports are provided for ease of assembly, but we find the lack of adjustments a bit troubling. No word on when Gigabyte's new gaming chair will be available, but we expect further information to be revealed in due time. The tagline for the new chair appears to be "Game like a pro, sit like a boss!"