High-dynamic range or HDR is all the rage these days as the next big thing in display output, now that hardware has time to catch up with ever-increasing display resolutions such as 4K ultra HD, 5K, and the various ultra-wide formats. Hardware-accelerated HDR is getting a push from both AMD and NVIDIA in this round of GPUs. While games with HDR date back to Half Life 2, hardware-accelerated formats that minimize work for game developers, in which the hardware makes sense of an image and adjusts its output range, is new and requires substantial compute power. It also requires additional interface bandwidth between the GPU and the display, since GPUs sometimes rely on wider color palettes such as 10 bpc (1.07 billion colors) to generate HDR images. AMD Radeon GPUs are facing difficulties in this area.

German tech publication Heise.de discovered that AMD Radeon GPUs render HDR games (games that take advantage of new-generation hardware HDR, such as "Shadow Warrior 2") at a reduced color depth of 8 bits per cell (16.7 million colors), or 32-bit; if your display (eg: 4K HDR-ready TV) is connected over HDMI 2.0 and not DisplayPort 1.2 (and above). The desired 10 bits per cell (1.07 billion colors) palette is available only when your HDR display runs over DisplayPort. This could be a problem, since most HDR-ready displays these days are TVs. Heise.de observes that AMD GPUs reduce output sampling from the desired Full YCrBr 4: 4: 4 color scanning to 4: 2: 2 or 4: 2: 0 (color-sub-sampling / chroma sub-sampling), when the display is connected over HDMI 2.0. The publication also suspects that the limitation is prevalent on all AMD "Polaris" GPUs, including the ones that drive game consoles such as the PS4 Pro.

In January 2016 Club 3D brought a solution to the market as an upgrade since GPU solutions were not bundled with HDMI 2.0 connectors. Users needed to spend a lot of money for the latest graphics card, Notebook, Ultrabook or MiniPC, that were equipped with up to date technology HDMI 2.0 output for 4K@ 60Hz.

With the introduction of the CAC-1070 (DP 1.2 to HDMI 2.0 Adapter) and CAC-1170 (MiniDP to HDMI 2.0 Adapter) Club 3D has been the first company in the market to fulfil this demand. These 2 products have become our star products for 2016. Now it is time to develop things further and introduce the next products for this demand.

AOC today announced availability of the AGON AG352QCX, its premium 35-inch curved gaming monitor. The monitor features a VA (vertical alignment) ultra-wide display panel with 2560 x 1080 pixels resolution, 4 ms response time, 2000:1 contrast-ratio, and a staggering 200 Hz refresh-rate. Its gaming credentials are further bolstered with support for AMD FreeSync technology. The monitor takes input from DisplayPort 1.2a (needed for FreeSync), HDMI 2.0, and D-Sub. Other features include a 4-port USB 3.0 hub, a headset stand, and 5W stereo speakers. Expect this monitor to be priced around the $600 mark.

GIGABYTE has announced the newly updated AERO 14 professional laptop, now equipped with the latest NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 VR Ready graphics. The original light and thin professional workstation has just gotten even better. The new graphics is not the only thing worth mentioning, the AERO 14 comes with QHD IPS display, up to 1TB M.2 PCIe SSD plus 32GB DDR4-2400 memory, and a 94.24 Wh large capacity battery to further extend mobile usage. All this is packed within an ultra-slim 19.9 mm chassis.

Powered by the most advanced NVIDIA Pascal architecture, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 dilivers unparelleled graphics performance and exceeds VR Ready specifications. The AERO 14 is a mobile powerhouse when it comes to gaming and professional work. Not everything is only focused on performance, GIGABYTE has also put emphasis on the aesthetics. With three colors to choose from, each color is finished with "Nano-Imprint Lithography" (NIL) top aluminum cover, showcasing fine details and textures that screams unique qualities.

AMD announced the AMD Embedded Radeon E9260 and E9550 graphics processing units (GPUs), the industry's first discrete embedded graphics cards leveraging the new AMD Polaris architecture. The cards are ideal for applications requiring rich multimedia and 4K video in power-constrained embedded environments. Use cases include immersive casino gaming, digital signage, 4K teleconferencing and interactive digital whiteboards, enhanced medical imaging for clinical diagnoses, and transportation instrumentation.

The Polaris GPU architecture leverages an optimized 14nm FinFET process designed to deliver a dramatic performance-per-watt gain over previous generations of embedded GPU architecture. Providing up to 5.8 TFLOPS performance in a sub-95W TDP power profile, the new embedded GPUs offer advanced 4K encode/decode multimedia processing capabilities and support for up to six displays on the E9550.

LG Electronics unveiled the 24UD58-B, its entry-level 24-inch 4K Ultra HD monitor, which could be priced around the $300 mark. Its specifications are anything but "entry-level," with an IPS panel that puts out 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) at 60 Hz, with 10-bit color support (1.07 billion colors), active blue light reduction, 5 ms response time, 250 cd/m² maximum brightness, 178°/178° viewing angles, and dynamic mega-contrast ratio. On the input side of things, the monitor supports AMD FreeSync technology, HDMI 2.0, and DisplayPort 1.2a.

NEC Display Solutions of America, a leading provider of commercial LCD display and projector solutions, today announced the MultiSync EA245WMi display, capable of simplifying multiple-monitor configurations with an improved, sleek cabinet and 3-sided ultra-narrow bezel design. The new 24-inch widescreen model features IPS panel technology, LED backlighting with wide viewing angles (178° horizontal/vertical), and 3 ultra-narrow bezels, each less than 1 mm thick, in order to create desktop configurations with little distraction so users in corporate, command and control, and financial industries can focus on their work.

Designed for multiple-monitor configurations, NEC's exclusive ControlSync technology allows users to automatically control settings on up to six displays from one primary monitor using the included ControlSync cable. Additionally, the DisplayPort 1.2 daisy chain capability allows for connectivity of up to four monitors through one DisplayPort 1.2 input, simplifying cable connections.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today announced the release of its next-generation, high-performance Thunderbolt 2 NAS TVS-x82T series. Available in three different models (TVS-1282T, TVS-882T and TVS-682T) the TVS-x82T series is powered by 6th Generation Intel 14nm multi-core processors that deliver higher system performance for CPU-demanding applications.

Featuring an advanced hardware design based on the concept of tiered storage, application-based partitioning, and network traffic distribution the TVS-x82T series achieves maximized storage efficiency and optimum performance. The TVS-x82T also features a HDMI 2.0 port for a prime viewing experience with smooth 4K 60 fps video transfer and display, while the new VJBOD function allows for maximized storage utilization by using multiple QNAP NAS to expand the storage capacity of the TVS-x82T.

Microsoft's new slim Xbox One S console achieves its slimness - including its inbuilt power-supply, by significantly reducing thermal load of its key components. This begins at the heart of the console, its SoC. A semi-custom chip by Microsoft and AMD, the SoC powering the Xbox One S is built on the 16 nm FinFET process at TSMC. The chip powering the original Xbox One was built on the same foundry's 28 nm node.

The new SoC isn't merely an optical shrink of the original 28 nm chip down to 16 nm FinFET, Microsoft added a few components to the chip, including an HEVC hardware decoder, hardware CODECs for Blu-ray UHD with HDR; and a revamped display controller with HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2. The chip also performs 1080p to 4K UHD upscaling, with a native upscaling algorithm. The eSRAM memory bandwidth is increased slightly from 204 GB/s from 219 GB/s.

Sapphire announced its premium Radeon RX 480 graphics card, the NITRO+. Featuring a completely custom design, the card features the company's latest Dual-X cooling solution that combines a dense aluminium fin-stack heatsink, with a pair of easily detachable 95 mm fans, and an air-channel that directs hot air towards the top; and a custom-design PCB with a strong VRM, which draws power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector.

The Radeon RX 480 NITRO+ comes in two variants, 4 GB and 8 GB. The 4 GB variant comes with clock speeds of 1208 MHz core, 1306 MHz boost, and 7 Gbps memory; while the 8 GB variant ships with 1208 MHz core, 1342 MHz boost, and 8 Gbps memory. Display outputs include two each of DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0b, and a dual-link DVI connector. The unique NITRO Glow feature lets you make the LED-lit Sapphire logo useful, by cycling it between its default blue color, to a random RGB color, gradients based on PCB temperature and fan-speeds, a Sapphire TriXX-set color, or stay off.

Here are some of the first detailed pictures of XFX Radeon RX 480 Double Dissipation graphics card. The card combines a custom-design PCB with a meaty custom cooling solution by the company, to support factory-overclocked speeds and overclocking headroom further still. The cooling solution, from which the card derives its name, features two aluminium fin-stacks, to which heat drawn from a copper base is conveyed by four 6 mm-thick copper heat pipes, and ventilated by a pair of 90 mm spinners.

These fans can be detached from the cooler without needing any tools, and without even having to detach the cooler shroud. A back-plate finishes off the cooling solution. The PCB draws power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, and uses a 6-phase VRM with high-end International Rectifier DirectFETs to condition it for the GPU. The card features factory-overclocked speeds in excess of 1300 MHz. The card features 8 GB of memory. Display outputs include a DVI connector, besides three DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI 2.0b. XFX could launch the card later this week.

NVIDIA today announced its third desktop consumer graphics card based on the "Pascal" architecture, the GeForce GTX 1060. NVIDIA aims to strike a price-performance sweetspot, by pricing this card aggressively at US $249 (MSRP), with its reference "Founders Edition" variant priced at $299. To make sure two of these cards at $500 don't cannibalize the $599-699 GTX 1080, NVIDIA didn't even give this card 2-way SLI support. Retail availability of the cards will commence from 19th July, 2016. NVIDIA claims that the GTX 1060 performs on-par with the GeForce GTX 980 from the previous generation.

The GeForce GTX 1060 is based on the new 16 nm "GP106" silicon, the company's third ASIC based on this architecture after GP100 and GP104. It features 1,280 CUDA cores spread across ten streaming multiprocessors, 80 TMUs, 48 ROPs, and a 192-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 6 GB of memory. The card draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector, as the GPU's TDP is rated at just 120W. The core is clocked up to 1.70 GHz, and the memory at 8 Gbps, at which it belts out 192 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Display outputs include three DisplayPorts 1.4, one HDMI 2.0b, and a DVI.

A Sapphire branded AMD reference design Radeon RX 480 graphics card was taken apart, giving us an early close look at the card and its key components. The pictures reveal pretty much the same details as the first close-up shot of the reference RX 480 / RX 470 common PCB, and the cooling solution was taken apart further, revealing more details than the first time we saw what's underneath.

To begin with, the reference RX 480 PCB features a 6-phase VRM that draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector. Display outputs include one HDMI 2.0 and three DisplayPort 1.4 connectors. One of the pictures features a close-up of the 14 nm "Ellesmere" silicon. The cooling solution is confirmed to feature a chunky monolithic aluminium heatsink with a copper core, cooling the GPU, with a metal base-plate conveying heat from the VRM and memory to it; ventilated by a lateral blower. The Radeon RX 480 is expected to launch on the 29th of June, 2016, priced at $199 for the 4 GB variant, and $229 for the 8 GB variant.More pictures follow.

AMD's all-important Polaris10 "Ellesmere" ASIC is pictured up close in a 3-quarter PCB shot of the upcoming Radeon RX 480 / RX 470. The picture reveals the ASIC with a die that's significantly smaller than that of the 28 nm "Tonga" silicon. The "Ellesmere" die is built on the 14 nm FinFET+ process. The die is seated on a substrate with a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface. This appears to be a common reference PCB between the RX 480 and the RX 470.

The RX 480 ships with a classy looking lateral-flow cooler that's longer than the PCB itself; while the RX 470 uses a more common fin-stack top-flow cooling solution. Of course both cards are expected to ship with custom-design boards and cooling solutions. The reference PCB draws power from a single 6-pin PCIe power connector, and uses a 6-phase VRM to condition it for the GPU and memory. Display outputs include three DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI 2.0a connectors. There are also unused traces on the PCB for a DVI connector, so it's likely that some custom-design cards could feature it.

AMD put out press pictures (for now renders) of its reference-design Radeon RX 480 board. The pictures reveal a very compact reference PCB, which draws power from just a single 6-pin PCIe power connector, and which uses a 5+2 phase VRM to power the card. The ASIC package is about the size of the "Tonga," and is surrounded by 8 memory chips. Display connectors include three DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI 2.0a. The blower-type reference cooler has to cope with a card with a typical board power of just 150W despite high clock speeds, and so we expect this to be a very cool and quiet card. We expect AMD to allow its add-in board (AIB) partners to come up with custom-design coolers from day one, and so the combination of this 150W card with the likes of IceQ X, VaporX, or TwinFrozr VI can only be blissful.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today announced the release of the powerful TVS-x82 series, aimed at business users in need of the utmost performance and storage efficiency. Available in three different models (TVS-1282, TVS-882 and TVS-682) the TVS-x82 series adopts the latest 6th Generation Intel 14nm multi-core processors and has been designed to meet specific usage scenarios to accomplish tiered storage, application-based partitioning, and network traffic distribution with outstanding performance. The TVS-x82 series also features HDMI 2.0 output for delivering an amazing 4K 60 fps viewing experience and allows storage expansion by using the storage capacity of other QNAP NAS through VJBOD technology.

The TVS-x82 features advanced hardware for greater efficiency, including built-in SATA M.2 SSD, 2.5" SSD slots, compartmentalized smart cooling, and tool-less HDD installation. QNAP's Qtier technology empowers the TVS-x82 with auto tiering that helps continuously optimize storage efficiency across M.2 SSD, SSD and SATA drives, and these different storage media can be configured as independent partitions for different applications to ensure a sufficient throughput level for every application. With multiple network ports, it allows applications to use dedicated interfaces to meet network traffic distribution requirements.

Industry sources revealed to TechPowerUp some pretty interesting specifications of AMD's two upcoming GPUs based on the 4th generation Graphics CoreNext "Polaris" architecture. The company is preparing a performance-segment GPU and a mainstream one. It turns out, that the performance-segment chip, which the press has been referring to as "Ellesmere," could feature 32 compute units (CUs), and not the previously thought 40.

Assuming that each CU continues to consist of 64 stream processors (SP), you're looking at an SP count of 2,048. What's more, this chip is said to offer a single-precision floating point performance of 5.5 TFLOP/s, as claimed by AMD. To put this into perspective, the company had claimed 5.2 TFLOP/s for the "Hawaii"/"Grenada" based FirePro W9100, which launched earlier this February, and that SKU featured all 2,816 SP present on the chip. So this chip is definitely faster than most "Hawaii" based SKUs.

NVIDIA appears to have done away with support for the legacy D-Sub (VGA) analog connector, with its latest GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card. The card's DVI connector does not have wiring for analog signals. Retail cards won't include DVI to D-Sub dongles, even aftermarket dongles won't work. What you get instead on the card, are one dual-link DVI-D, an HDMI 2.0b, and three DisplayPort 1.4 connectors. NVIDIA's rival AMD did away with D-Sub support on its high-end graphics cards way back in 2013, with the Radeon R9 290 series.

At its pre-Dreamhack launch event, we caught a glimpse of a GeForce GTX 1080 reference-design graphics card working. The card looks a lot better in the flesh than some of its early pictures, and in our opinion, looks better than even the NVTTM cooler NVIDIA used on some of its earlier generation graphics cards. It also features a solid-looking backplate.

There are two stunning attractions here - firstly, the GeForce GTX 1080 draws power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector! This speaks volumes about its energy-efficiency. Secondly, it features a similar display connector layout as the previous generation, but the connectivity is revamped. It features three DisplayPort 1.4 (that's right, one point four) connectors, which supports insanely high resolutions; an HDMI 2.0 connector and a dual-link DVI port.

AMD posted a new webpage for its upcoming "Polaris" GPU architecture, outlining its various innovations - 4th gen. Graphics CoreNext, 4K H.265 60 Hz game-streaming, next-generation display engine with support for DisplayPort 1.3 and HDMI 2.0, XConnect Technology, and the foundation of GPUOpen. In this page, the company inadvertently leaked pictures of its upcoming Polaris 10 "Ellesmere" and Polaris 11 "Baffin" ASICs.

The mast image of the page has a faded 3-quarter shot of a "small" GPU with a die that's almost 30% of the package area. This hints at Polaris 11 "Baffin." This chip is rumored to feature a 128-bit GDDR5/GDDR5X memory interface, and so its pin-count, and conversely, package-size is less. Then in its "4th gen GCN" heading image, AMD showed a picture of a bigger GPU. At first glance, you could assume that it's either "Tonga XT" or "Tahiti" looking at its support brace, but VideoCardz observed that the on-package electrical components in this image are arranged nothing like on the "Tonga" or "Tahiti." This could very well be Polaris 10 "Ellesmere."

PNY Technologies has today announced the launch of a new design to its XLR8 OC Gaming range, revamping the PNY GeForce GTX 960 and GTX 950 with a stunning fresh look to match its blazing speeds.

The new PNY GeForce GTX 960 XLR8 OC Gaming and GeForce GTX 950 XLR8 OC Gaming graphics cards are being released alongside PNY's new dedicated gaming website, where gamers can learn how to improve their gaming experience and deliver better results. You can visit the new site here: gaming.pny.eu

AMD finalized the GPU architecture roadmap running between 2016 and 2018. The company first detailed this at its Capsaicin Event in mid-March 2016. It sees the company's upcoming "Polaris" architecture, while making major architectural leaps over the current-generation, such as a 2.5-times performance/Watt uplift and driving the company's first 14 nanometer GPUs; being limited in its high-end graphics space presence. Polaris is rumored to drive graphics for Sony's upcoming 4K Ultra HD PlayStation, and as discrete GPUs, it will feature in only two chips - Polaris 10 "Ellesmere" and Polaris 11 "Baffin."

"Polaris" introduces several new features, such as HVEC (h.265) decode and encode hardware-acceleration, new display output standards such as DisplayPort 1.3 and HDMI 2.0; however, since neither Polaris 10 nor Polaris 11 are really "big" enthusiast chips that succeed the current "Fiji" silicon, will likely make do with current GDDR5/GDDR5X memory standards. That's not to say that Polaris 10 won't disrupt current performance-thru-enthusiast lineups, or even have the chops to take on NVIDIA's GP104. First-generation HBM limits the total memory amount to 4 GB over a 4096-bit path. Enthusiasts will have to wait until early-2017 for the introduction of the big-chip that succeeds "Fiji," which will not only leverage HBM2 to serve up vast amounts of super-fast memory; but also feature a slight architectural uplift. 2018 will see the introduction of its successor, codenamed "Navi," which features an even faster memory interface.

At its Capsacin event, AMD demoed one of the first DirectX 12 AAA games, Hitman (2016), on a machine running its next-generation GPU. This GPU is based on its "Polaris" architecture, and while the press got no specs to take home, they did catch a glimpse of the card's rear I/O panel. The display connector layout is unlike anything AMD has at the moment, on its reference-design cards, and looks similar to what NVIDIA offers on some of its high-end graphics cards.

The connector layout sees four connectors on the first slot (same level as the card's PCB), which includes three DisplayPorts and one HDMI port; and one DVI connector on the second slot, with an air-vent next to it. The "Polaris" architecture supports DisplayPort 1.3 and HDMI 2.0a standards. DisplayPort 1.3 serves up enough bandwidth for 5K (5120 x 2880 pixels) at 60 Hz, 4K-HDR (3840 x 2160 with HDR) at 60 Hz, or 4K-SDR at 120 Hz. The SFF desktop setup running this card was able to render Hitman with Ultra settings and 2560x1440 pixels resolution, over 60 fps.

ASUS rolled out a gaming-grade - although not ROG-branded - 24-inch Ultra HD monitor, the MG24UQ. This display features a 23.6-inch 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) IPS panel, with 4 ms response time, a wide color gamut with 100% sRGB coverage, 300 cd/m² maximum brightness, dynamic mega-contrast ratio, and a maximum color depth of 16.7 million. The monitor takes input from HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2. Gamer-friendly features include ASUS GamePlus - a set of six display presets that suit different game genres, and ASUS GameVisual, a feature which works to reduce LED flicker and blue light, over extended periods of gameplay. ASUS didn't reveal pricing.

Back in October 2015 Club 3D did introduce its first USB 3.1 Type-C Adapters. Those adapters did have a very good market acceptance directly from the beginning and with Type C featured Notebooks, Ultrabooks etc. having a wider spread from week to week we are sure that now is the right time to introduce the next USB 3.1 Type C Adapters to offer our customers the widest range of outputs that they can get with Type C.Those adapters do form an innovative new product segment with our existing range of high quality Audio/ Video Adapters like f.e. the first (Mini)DP 1.2 to HDMI 2.0 adapters (CAC-1070/1170) that were initially introduced by Club 3D in January 2016.

The USB Type-C connector was introduced in the first months of 2015. This completely new connector plug is smaller, reversible and capable of transferring more than data alone. It is expected that the USB Type-C connector will eventually replace the USB Type A and Type B connectors we have all been using over the past years. With the Type-C connector, the USB 3.1 standard was introduced as well. Compared to USB 3.0 the new standard offers twice the transfer rate of up to 10 Gbps and allows for three essential features to be used over a single cable: Video, Data and Power.