GPU-accelerated crypto-currency mining poses a threat to the consumer graphics industry, yet the revenues it brings to GPU manufacturers are hard to turn away. The more graphics cards are bought up by crypto-currency miners, the fewer there are left for gamers and the actual target-audience of graphics cards. This is particularly bad for AMD, as fewer gamers have Radeon graphics cards as opposed to miners; which means game developers no longer see AMD GPU market-share as an amorphous trigger to allocate developer resources in optimizing their games to AMD architectures.

To combat this, both AMD and NVIDIA are innovating graphics cards designed specifically for crypto-currency mining. These cards are built to a cost, lack display outputs, and have electrical and cooling mechanisms designed for 24/7 operation, even if not living up to the durability standards of real enterprise-segment graphics cards, such as Radeon Pro series or Quadro. NVIDIA's "Pascal" GPU architecture is inherently weaker than AMD's "Polaris" and older Graphics CoreNext architectures at Ethereum mining, owing in part to Pascal's lack of industry-standard asynchronous compute. This didn't deter NVIDIA from innovating a lineup of crypto-mining SKUs based on its existing "Pascal" GPUs. These include the NVIDIA P104 series based on the "GP104" silicon (on which the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 are based); and P106 series based on the "GP106" silicon (GTX 1060 series is based on this chip). NVIDIA didn't tap into its larger "GP102" or smaller "GP107" chips, yet.

MSI is proud to officially announce the latest of its legendary LIGHTNING graphics cards. Built to be perfect, the new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti LIGHTNING Z combines cutting edge new technology with proven features such as TRI-FROZR design with TORX 2.0 Fans, SuperPipe technology and Military Class 4 components. The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti LIGHTNING Z is nothing short of an engineering masterpiece.

MSI's reputation in thermal design is well-known to be excellent. The improved TRI-FROZR design on the GTX 1080 Ti LIGHTNING Z utilizes two 10cm and one 9 cm TORX 2.0 Fans combining the advantages of both traditional fan blade and dispersion fan blade, generating huge amounts of airflow while remaining virtually silent. Two 8mm SuperPipes transfer heat much faster to the fins, enabling up to a whopping 700W of heat dissipation.

MSI today introduced the X299 Tomahawk Arctic motherboard. A near-identical variant of the X299 Tomahawk, the board features a mostly-white color scheme with grey and black accents. It features a white PCB with grey streaks. The white scheme carries over to the chipset and VRM heatsinks, the rear I/O shroud, the eight DDR4 DIMM and four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots. The heatsinks and rear I/O shroud also feature brushed-aluminium inserts for added style.

The X299 Tomahawk Arctic is a bustling metropolis which draws power from a single 8-pin EPS connector besides 24-pin ATX. The board features a 9-phase CPU VRM, and 4-phase memory. The CPU socket is wired to eight DDR4 DIMM slots, and four PCIe 3.0 x16 (x16/NC/x16/NC or x16/NC/x8/x8 or x8/x8/x8/x8 with 44-lane CPUs; x16/NC/NC/NC or x8/NC/x8/x4 with 28-lane CPUs). The first and third slots feature metal reinforcement. Storage connectivity includes two 32 Gb/s M.2 slots, a 32 Gb/s U.2 port, and eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports. Networking is care of a single GbE connection driven by Intel i219-V controller. The onboard audio solution combines a Realtek ALC1150 (up to 115 dBA SNR) CODEC with audio-grade capacitors, and ground-layer isolation. The company didn't reveal pricing.

EK Water Blocks, the Slovenia-based premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer, is proud to introduce a new Full-Cover water block designed and engineered to fit four MSI GEFORCE GTX 1080 Ti based graphics cards. This kind of efficient cooling will allow your high-end graphics card to reach higher boost clocks, thus providing more performance during gaming or other GPU intense tasks.

This water block directly cools the GPU, RAM as well as VRM (voltage regulation module) as water flows directly over these critical areas, thus allowing the graphics card and it's VRM to remain stable under full load and high overclocks. EK-FC1080 GTX Ti TF6 water block features a central inlet split-flow cooling engine design for best possible cooling performance, which also works flawlessly with reversed water flow without adversely affecting the cooling performance. Moreover, such design offers great hydraulic performance allowing this product to be used in liquid cooling systems using weaker water pumps.

In this issue of the Ryzen BIOS update digest, we have the latest updates. Our BIOS update digest lets you keep track of crucial BIOS updates that improve stability of your AMD Ryzen machine. As per usual, only updated BIOSes from the last digest are listed. Changes are listed after each BIOS, sans beta BIOSes which do not always include change logs. You can find it all below.

MSI today announced its Infinite A Gaming desktop PC. The desktop is build around a custom-design chassis by MSI, which incorporates RGB LED elements along a stylish front-bezel, with a tempered glass side panel, with lighting controlled by MSI Mystic Light RGB software. The Infinite A is positioned in MSI's "Enthusiast Gaming" segment for gaming desktops, which includes the likes of the Aegis Ti3.

Under the hood, the Infinite A features a micro-ATX motherboard, although the primary graphics card is flipped vertical (along the plane of the motherboard), using a PCIe riser. This, MSI states, is the reduce graphics card PCB bending over time. The Infinite A is driven by a 7th gen Core "Kaby Lake" quad-core processor (various Core i5 and Core i7 options available); up to 64 GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory (options); NVIDIA GeForce GTX 10-series graphics (Gaming series graphics cards); M.2 NVMe SSD; wired GbE, and WLAN with 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.1.

Toppc Pushes the X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC Motherboard to Reach New DDR4 Frequency Milestone
One year ago, MSI's in-house overclocker, Toppc, broke the DDR4 5GHz barrier using G.SKILL memory and the MSI Z170I GAMING PRO AC motherboard. Today, 1 year later, he raises the bar once again and became the first ever to push DDR4 speeds to 5.5GHz under liquid nitrogen cooling using the new MSI X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC motherboard. With the MSI X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC, MSI's most customizable high-performance Intel X299 based motherboard, Toppc was running G.SKILL DDR4 memory with an unbelievable DDR4-SDRAM clock speed of 5500MHz. This world record shows MSI's dominant position on performance for X299 by using MSI's unique and patented DDR4 Boost technology. The MSI X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC is not only feature packed for gamers and great for case modding, it is also perfectly suited to deliver power for heavy gaming & overclocking sessions.

G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world's leading manufacturer of extreme performance memory and gaming peripherals, is excited to announce the DDR4 frequency world record at DDR4-5500MHz. This astonishing achievement was accomplished by the Taiwanese professional overclocker, Toppc, using G.SKILL DDR4 built with Samsung 8Gb ICs, on the latest MSI X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC motherboard and Intel Core X-series processor.

Just last year, one week before Computex 2016, the renowned Taiwanese overclocker, Toppc, broke the DDR4 5GHz barrier using G.SKILL memory and MSI Z170I GAMING PRO AC motherboard. A year after, he raise the bar once again and became the first ever to push DDR4 speed to 5.5GHz under liquid nitrogen cooling. This tenacity demonstrates his overclocker's spirit of pursuing faster speed and greater performance of the latest computer hardware. This record has been validated by HWBOT.

EK Water Blocks, the Slovenia-based premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer is proving its market leadership once again by releasing a new AM4 socket based monoblock tailor made for the MSI X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium motherboard. The EK-FB MSI X370 XPower RGB Monoblock has an integrated 4-pin RGB LED strip which makes it compatible with MSI Mystic Light Sync, thus offering a full lighting customization experience.

This is a complete all-in-one (CPU and motherboard) liquid cooling solution for the new AMD X370 Chipset AM4 socket based MSI X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium high-end motherboard that supports the latest generation of AMD Ryzen and 7th Generation A-series/Athlon processors.

In this issue of the Ryzen BIOS update digest, we have the latest updates. Our BIOS update digest lets you keep track of crucial BIOS updates that improve stability of your AMD Ryzen machine. As per usual, only updated BIOSes from the last digest are listed. Changes are listed after each BIOS, sans beta BIOSes which do not always include change logs. You can find it all below.

We have now moved to a "rolling-release" model for our digest to better track releases as they happen. Today we have some releases and betas from a broad range of manufacturers.

Special shout out to @nemesis.ie for tipping our local news editor off to some stealthy ASRock betas. Please note that although I have included those betas, they have a german zip self-extractor, so some language-fu may be required to extract them.

MSI is proud to unleash a complete line-up of next generation high-end X299 motherboards during COMPUTEX 2017. With the inclusion of the most popular models from MSI's Enthusiast, Performance and Arsenal GAMING Series there is a gaming motherboard available for any type of gamer, PC enthusiast, or case modder. Also content creators and professionals have a great, feature packed option ready to assist them with to the addition of the MSI X299 SLI PLUS motherboard.

MSI showed off three of its premium-segment socket LGA2066 motherboards, the X299 Gaming Pro Carbon, X299 Gaming M7, X299 SLI Plus, and X299 Tomahawk. All four boards are based on a common PCB, with subtle variations to the designs of the PCH/VRM heatsinks, I/O shroud, and PCB paintjobs, besides some included accessories. Kudos to MSI engineers for minimizing R&D costs, let's just hope that these boards are priced within 10 percent of each other.

The board draws power from 24-pin ATX, 8-pin EPS, and 4-pin ATX (on some of the higher-end models). A 9-phase VRM conditions power for the CPU. Eight DDR4 DIMM slots, and four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots are wired to the CPU. Three 32 Gb/s M.2 and one 32 Gb/s U.2 are common across all boards. Also common here is the Audio Boost IV onboard audio solution, with a 120 dBA SNR CODEC, audio-grade capacitors, and OPAMP. Some of the models feature just the one GbE interface driven by i219-V controller, some feature two; and some of the higher-end models such as the Gaming M7 and Gaming Pro Carbon even feature Killer 802.11ac+BT4.1 WLAN cards. The higher-end boards also feature a bigger spread of RGB LEDs. Pricing-wise, one can expect the X299 SLI Plus to be the cheapest, followed by the X299 Tomahawk, X299 Gaming Pro Carbon, and the X299 Gaming M7. We wonder why.

Here's the first picture of MSI's flagship socket LGA2066 motherboard, the MSI X299 XPower Gaming AC. It features a polarizing silvery/white design, which you'll either love or hate. Built in the ATX form-factor (well, midway between ATX and E-ATX), the board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, 4-pin ATX, 8-pin EPS, and an optional 4-pin Molex. A 14-phase VRM conditions it for the CPU, which is wired to eight DDR4 DIMM slots, and four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (x16/NC/x16/NC or x16/NC/x8/x8 or x8/x8/x8/x8).

Can you imagine five M.2 SSDs in your rig? MSI can, and besides three 32 Gb/s M.2 slots on the board (two 110 mm and one 80 mm), an included PCIe 3.0 x8 riser card gives you two additional 110 mm 32 Gb/s slots. Other storage options include a 32 Gb/s U.2 port, and ten SATA 6 Gb/s. The board supports NVMe RAID and Optane. Networking is care of two Intel i219-V driven GbE interfaces, and an Intel-driven 802.11ac WLAN with Bluetooth 4.1 connection. MSI Mystic Light RGB software marshals not just a splattering of RGB LEDs all over the board, but also an "art in motion" LED ornament on the PCH heatsink.

It looks like MSI is re-positioning the "Z" brand extension from its Gaming series over to its more coveted Lightning series. The company unveiled its flagship GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card, the GTX 1080 Ti Lightning Z. This air-cooled monstrosity is over 30 cm long, 1.5x standard height, and close to 4 slots thick. Its combines a custom-design PCB MSI hasn't used on any of its cards, yet, with its new-generation Tri-Frozr cooler.

The custom-design PCB features a massive VRM which draws power from a trio of 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Out of the box, the card runs at 1582 MHz core, 1695 MHz GPU Boost, and 11.12 GHz (GDDR5X-effective) memory; while a software-activated "Lightning" mode runs it at a staggering 1607 MHz core, 1721 MHz GPU Boost, and 11.12 GHz memory; putting it in the league with some of the fastest GTX 1080 Ti cards money can buy. This card could be priced close to the $1000-mark.

Disclaimer: It's currently unclear whether or not the majority of these are actual X299 motherboards. Remember MSI's GODLIKE tease, which was expected to be a X299 motherboard due to the number of PCIe slots on offer, but ended up being a Z270-based one? Well, we remember, hence why we start with this disclaimer to pour some cold water on expectations. However, there is one model that can be said to be a X299 offering pretty confidently: MSI's tease of a new Gaming Pro motherboard, which shows the four RAM slots as close to the I/O bracket: a design usually reserved for quad-channel supporting platforms. Port design in the PCIe and M.2 fronts seems similar to the GODLIKE Z270, but it would seem that MSI has designed another kind of an M.2 Shield interface, which now encircles a PCIe port while cooling two simultaneous M.2 SSDs.

The next motherboard, which we can't confirm is really a X299 based-one, is teased by ASUS, under its Republic of gamers branding, which shows the integration a an LCD screen in the motherboard footprint. The LCD seems basic enough, and could be useful so as to visually check operating frequencies and temperatures, though ASUS naturally had to add their ROG bling to it. Seems like simple LED support was too 2016 for them.

In this issue of the Ryzen BIOS update digest, we have last week's latest updates. Our BIOS update digest lets you keep track of crucial BIOS updates that improve stability of your AMD Ryzen machine. As per usual, only updated BIOSes from the last digest are listed. Changes are listed after each BIOS, sans beta BIOSes which do not always include change logs. You can find it all below.

MSI is set to make a debut of their top-tier, latest-generation graphics card under the Lightning branding, the GTX 1080 Ti Lightning Z, at this year's Computex. The new Lightning Z makes use of three TorX 2.0 (the same the company uses on its TWIN FROZR VI cooling solutions) fans, though the tripled configuration is set to use the TriFrozr moniker. This generation of the Lightning line of graphics cards sheds its iconic yellow streaks, however, in favor a RGB-capable LED lighting which supports MSI's own Mystic Light. This graphics card also makes use of MSI's Military Class 4 components.

The next MSI graphics card, however, promises to be the most interesting product. Even though MSI's Gaming X lines of graphics cards and Twin Frozr VI coolers are already well-known, those are not the highlights of the 1080 Ti Gaming X the company will be presenting at Computex. Rather, it's its adoption of a USB Type-C connector that's worth talking. This is something that is long overdue, with some monitors already offering this choice of interface, which promises to be the end-all be-all of display protocols, since it can leverage DisplayPort, Thunderbolt and HDMI. Let's see if this move by MSI sets off a trend. We suppose it will, considering how the industry works

MSI expanded its Gaming series CPU cooler family with the new, larger, Core Frozr XL CPU cooler. This tower-type air cooler features a simple aluminium fin-stack heatsink covered by an ABS plastic shroud, and two 120 mm fans in push-pull configuration. The cooler features a nickel-plated copper base, from which eight 6 mm-thick nickel-plated copper heat pipes pass, conveying heat to the aluminium fin-stack. MSI innovated in giving the cooler motherboard clearance on two fronts - the heatsink itself is off-center, so it adds clearance to the topmost expansion slot on the motherboard.

Further, the fan can be elevated slightly, to add clearance to the memory slots or large VRM heatsinks. The fin-stack is capped off by a detachable cooler shroud, with an MSI Gaming dragon logo that's lit by RGB LED, controllable using MSI Mystic Light RGB software. The included fans feature 4-pin PWM inputs, fluid-dynamic bearings, spin between 500 to 1,500 RPM, pushing 19.79 to 71.27 CFM of air, with a noise output ranging between 17.2 and 33.6 dBA. The cooler supports all modern CPU socket types, including AM4, AM3(+), FM2(+), LGA2011(v3), LGA115x, LGA1366, and LGA775. Measuring 150.4 mm x 170.0 mm x 129.8 mm (WxHxD), the cooler weighs about 1,295 g. It is designed for thermal loads of up to 250W. The company didn't reveal pricing or availability information.

MSI, the leading gaming motherboard brand, is proud to announce the all-new Z270 GOLDIKE GAMING motherboard. As the pinnacle of GAMING in terms of design, performance and features, the new Z270 GODLIKE GAMING raises the bar once again for motherboard development. With plenty of world's first and exclusive technologies such as Killer xTend and the new ASMedia 3142 USB 3.1 Gen2 controller, the new Z270 GODLIKE GAMING motherboard closely follows the GODLIKE standard.

With our continuous strive to push the gaming industry forward, we are excited to once again work close with Rivet to be world's first motherboard brand to launch Killer xTend on our new Z270 GODLIKE GAMING. With GODLIKE at the heart of a gaming rig, it allows it to act as a Killer fueled router to pass on and strengthen the internet signals, with lower latency, offering the best online experience when gaming on LAN or WIFI. Like GODLIKE GAMING, Killer's new technology is packed with new cutting-edge technologies, such as their exclusive gaming bandwidth management. The MSI and Killer gaming experience has now been expanded throughout the complete household.

Taking a blanketing approach to the GT 1030 market, MSI has announced a further five SKUs based on NVIDIA's GT 1030 silicon, which will join the company's already announced full height, passive-cooled GT 1030 2GH OC offering. MSI is catering to one and every need their users could possibly have with this line-up: from a half-height, passive-cooled solution, passing through a full-height, still passively-cooled solution, and a full-height, actively-cooled one. The only thing missing seems to be a water-cooled version.

MSI's line of GT 1030 graphics cards are available now from various retailers at around the $75 price-bracket.

MSI today introduced the Radeon RX 560 Aero ITX series graphics cards. These factory-overclocked cards are available in two identical looking variants that differ by memory size - 2 GB and 4 GB. The cards are characterized by a short-length PCB measuring 15.5 cm, making it ideal for cubical ITX cases; mated to a 2-slot thick cooler. This cooler features a simple aluminium monoblock heatsink ventilated by a 90 mm fan. The card draws all its power from the PCI-Express bus. The MSI RX 560 Aero ITX features factory-overclocked speeds of 1196 MHz core, 1320 MHz boost, and 7.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective) memory. Display outputs include one each of DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0, and dual-link DVI. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Back in April, we reported motherboard manufacturer MSI bundling Intel's Optane cache SSD with a few of its mid-range motherboards. While not free, the bundle would be slightly cheaper than the sum of its parts (buying the board and SSD separately). At the time we predicted that other motherboard vendors could launch similar bundles. It turns out that Intel is indeed coordinating motherboard + Optane SSD bundles.

In a bid to boost sales of its 200-series chipset motherboards and Core "Kaby Lake" processors, Intel is coordinating bundles of motherboards across brands with its Optane cache SSDs. Analysts predict that this could be an inventory-clearing exercise by Intel, because it plans to launch its next-generation Core "Coffee Lake" processors by late-August, 2017. "Coffee Lake" will see the introduction of six-core processor SKUs to Intel's mainstream-desktop platform, which is currently led by the quad-core i7-7700K "Kaby Lake."

MSI posted its third teaser pic for one of its upcoming socket LGA2066 motherboards, which is likely the X299 Gaming Pro. Designed for Core i7 "Kaby Lake-X" and Core i9 "Skylake-X" processors, the board appears to feature eight DDR4 DIMM slots (four slots on the left side of the socket). The teaser also gives us a glance of the LGA2066 socket, which could feature a similar retention mechanism to the current LGA2011v3 socket, even if the cooler support isn't consistent, given that some cooler manufacturers such as Noctua are already giving away LGA2066 brackets. The teaser pic also reveals two CPU power inputs, an 8-pin EPS and 4-pin ATX. This is unusual for a "mid-range" brand extension such as Gaming Pro, unless some of the Core i9 "Skylake-X" chips really do have >140W TDPs that demand more power inputs than your run of the mill single 8-pin EPS.

MSI rolled out a full-height, passive-cooled GeForce GT 1030 graphics card. The MSI GT 1030 2GH OC features a large, 2 slots-thick monoblock aluminium heatsink cooling the GPU and memory. Armed with 2 GB of memory, it features factory-overclocked speeds of 1265 MHz core, 1518 MHz GPU Boost, and an untouched 6.00 GHz (GDDR5-effective) memory. With a typical board power of 30W, the card relies on the PCI-Express bus for all its power. Based on the GP108 silicon, the GeForce GT 1030 features 384 CUDA cores, 24 TMUs, 16 ROPs, and 64-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 2 GB of memory.

In this issue of the Ryzen BIOS update digest, we have last week's latest updates. Our BIOS update digest lets you keep track of crucial BIOS updates that improve stability of your AMD Ryzen machine. There have been a lot of updates this week corresponding with manufacturers still catching up with the AGESA 1.0.0.6 update. As per usual, only updated BIOSes from the last digest are listed. Changes are listed after each BIOS, sans beta BIOSes which do not always include change logs. You can find it all below.