Gigabyte's new Stealth series of motherboards has to date only had a single product, the Z690 Aorus Elite Stealth, but now, Gigabyte has added its first Stealth board for AMD CPUs. The B650E Aorus Stealth Ice not only has all of its connectors on the back of the board, but it also has a white/silver PCB with a similarly coloured front and back cover. Apart from the DIMM slots, all connectors are also in somewhat matching colours, although judging by the pictures, the colours don't quite match on all the connectors and slots. That aside, the B650E Aorus Stealth Ice is a pretty competent board, as long as you're not interested in adding anything more than a graphics card and some NVMe SSDs, as it has zero additional PCIe expansion slots. It's a rather bold move by Gigabyte, but at the same time, most gamers and consumers don't tend to add PCIe devices to their computers outside of additional storage these days.

Besides the PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, you get two M.2 sockets wired to the CPU, one PCIe 5.0—with its own, larger heatsink—and one PCIe 4.0, as well as a third PCIe 4.0 M.2 socket via the chipset. There's also support for four SATA 6 Gbps drives if more storage is needed. Gigabyte has also added an internal HDMI 1.4 port that's limited to 1080p30, which is intended to be used with Gigabyte's LCD Edge View display. Other connectivity on the back of the PCB includes a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) port, a USB 3.2 (5 Gbps) pin-header as well as the usual USB 2.0, fan headers and LED headers that you'd expect from a modern motherboard. The VRM design is a 12+2+2 design with a 60 Amp DrMOS configuration for the 12+2 phases for the CPU and GPU.

ASUS Republic of Gamers today announced the launch of the ROG NUC gaming PC. The first-ever ROG NUC PC is packed with cutting-edge technology and performance for AAA gaming and more.

Gaming, redefined
Featuring Intel Core Ultra 9 or Intel Core Ultra 7 processors and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 or 4060 discrete graphics, the ROG NUC PC is a compact powerhouse that delivers unmatched gaming experiences. The high-performance hybrid architecture of Intel Core Ultra processors provides gamers with the power needed to stream, edit, record and play without skipping a beat. The 2.5-liter chassis is designed for quick system access to make upgrades and cleaning easy. Plus, the compatible ROG Raikiri Pro controller can be used to deliver a console-like experience for gamers seeking uncompromised performance and flexibility in a compact form factor.

SK hynix announced today that it developed PCB01, an SSD product with the industry's best specifications, for on-device AI PCs. The product marks the first case where the industry adopts the fifth generation of the 8-channel PCIe technology and brings innovation to performance including the data processing speed. The company expects the latest advancement in the NAND solution space to add to its success stories in the high-performance DRAM area led by HBM, enhancing its leadership in the overall AI memory space.

With a validation process with a global PC customer underway, SK hynix plans to mass produce and start shipping the products to both corporate customers and general consumers within this year. PCB01 comes with the capabilities of sequential read and write speeds of 14 GB and 12 GB per second, respectively, bringing the performance of an SSD to the level unseen before. The speeds allow the operation of a large language model or LLM, for AI training and inference, in a second.

In the contemporary digital landscape, Solid State Drives (SSDs) play a pivotal role by providing crucial attributes such as speed, reliability, and efficiency. These attributes facilitate rapid data retrieval, elevate system responsiveness, enable seamless multitasking, and significantly reduce boot times and application launch delays. Among the top contenders in the SSD market, Acer's FA100 M.2 SSD has successfully secured the top place, capturing the discerning consumer's attention with its cutting-edge performance and unwavering reliability. It stands out as the preferred choice for users who demand excellence in their storage solutions.

Acer FA100 NVMe PCIe SSD
The Acer FA100 M.2 SSD is renowned for its exceptional speed and efficiency, boasting read speeds up to 3300 MB/s and write speeds up to 2700 MB/s. It supports ECC error correction technology and the S.M.A.R.T. function, based on 4K LDPC, which enhances error correction capabilities and ensures secure data storage. Additionally, it supports multiple technologies such as modern standby and ultra-low power consumption. Designed to elevate user experience, the Acer FA100 combines high performance with robust durability, making it ideal for gamers, content creators, and professionals alike.

Western Digital has released a new budget friendly SSD that got a serious jump in model number, since the company decided to call it the SN5000. Its predecessor is the SN580 launched just under a year ago and price wise, it's the better option of the two. The new SN5000 uses the same BiCS 5 TLC NAND as the SN580 on the 500 GB to the 2 TB SKU, but according to Anandtech, the 4 TB uses BiCS 6 QLC NAND. The SN5000 is still a PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe drive, but the overall performance has been significantly improved. If we use the 1 TB SKU for comparison, then the sequential read speeds have gone up by 1 GB/s from 4150 MB/s to 5150 MB/s. The sequential write speed is up 750 MB/s from 4150 MB/s to 4900 MB/s.

As for random performance, the read IOPS are up from 600K IOPS to 730K IOPS and the write IOPS are up slightly from 750K to 770K. The 4 TB QLC SKU is said to deliver even better performance with the exception of the random read IOPS. The 1 TB SKU is said to have a write endurance of 600 TBW, but the 4 TB SKU only offers 1200 TBW. That's 0.33 drive writes per day (DWPD) for the 1 TB SKU vs. 0.16 DWPD for the 4 TB SKU, showing the weakness of the QLC NAND. A new feature for the SN5000 series compared to previous WD Blue NVMe drives is support for TGC Pyrite 2.01 encryption. The WD SN5000-series starts at US$70 for the 500 GB model, going up to US$80 for 1 TB, US$140 for 2 TB and topping out at US$280 for the 4 TB model. WD only seems to have the 500 GB model in stock, with all the others being available in 3-4 weeks time. All SKUs come with a five year warranty.

Panasonic Connect Canada, Division of Panasonic Corporation of North America, today announced enhancements to the fully rugged and modular TOUGHBOOK 40 laptop. This second generation of the TOUGHBOOK 40, the Mk2, is the company's first PC to feature Intel Core Ultra processors, incorporating the latest CPU, GPU, and NPU technology advancements and up to 16 cores. Its dedicated NPU accelerates artificial intelligence (AI)-driven tasks for customers across law enforcement departments, federal agencies, and utility companies. Compared to the previous generation of Intel processors, these new processors deliver up to 143% faster AI application performance, 73% faster generative AI, and up to 40% lower processor power for AI-enhanced collaboration.

"We are dedicated to developing solutions that not only address the current needs of our customers, but also anticipate their future requirements," said Dominick Passanante, Vice President and GM of Panasonic Connect. "The TOUGHBOOK 40 Mk2, equipped with advanced AI capabilities, is another example of how we're providing the mobile workforce with tools to enhance productivity and efficiency on the job."

Gigabyte has quietly added a new SSD to its growing lineup and this time around it's something quite different. The drive is part of Gigabyte's new AI TOP (Trillions of Operations per Second) and was announced at Computex with little fanfare. At the show, the company only announced that it would have 150x the TBW compared to regular SSDs and that it was built specifically for AI model training. What that 150x means in reality is that the 2 TB version of the AI TOP 100E SSD will deliver no less than 219,000 TBW (TeraBytes Written), whereas most high-end 2 TB consumer NVMe SSDs end up somewhere around 1,200 TBW. The 1 TB version promises 109,500 TBW and both drives have an MTBF time of 1.6 million hours and a five-year warranty.

Gigabyte didn't reveal the host controller or the exact NAND used, but the drives are said to use 3D NAND flash and both drives have a LPDDR4 DRAM cache of 1 or 2 GB depending on the drive size. However, the pictures of the drive suggest it might be a Phison based reference design. The AI TOP 100E SSDs are standard PCIe 4.0 drives, so the sequential read speed tops out at 7,200 MB/s with the write speed for the 1 TB SKU being up to 6,500 MB/s, with the 2 TB SKU slightly behind at 5,900 MB/s. No other performance figures were provided. The drives are said to draw up to 11 Watts in use, which seems very high for PCIe 4.0 drives. No word on pricing or availability as yet.

EVGA designed an enthusiast segment AMD X670E chipset motherboard for the Socket AM5 platform, which never made it to the mass market. It had even planned to give the board its coveted Classified brand, and sell as the X670E Classified. Prototypes of this board fetched over $1,300 in auction. The board is built in the E-ATX form-factor like most of the EVGA Classified series motherboards; and packs a powerful CPU VRM, besides several overclocker-friendly features, such as top-oriented DDR5 memory slots, side-facing I/O (including power inputs), and in general, a decluttered layout that won't get in the way of extreme cooling solutions.

There were four such prototypes with Jiacheng Liu, a hardware enthusiast, each of which went under the hammer. The only trouble with these prototypes is that they're bare—they don't include heatsinks for the CPU VRM or the chipset, let alone heatsinks for the two M.2 Gen 5 NVMe slots that don't eat into the Gen 5 x16 PEG. Another problem with these boards is that they're not supported by EVGA, and only come with their initial BIOS that supports Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" processors, but not the upcoming Ryzen 9000 "Zen 5." We doubt if these even support the Ryzen 7000X3D series, which is probably the main reason the boards didn't fetch way more than $1,300 a piece at the auctions. Enthusiasts might still figure out a way to BIOS-mod and encapsulate the latest AGESA.

Currently, only Phison offers widely available performance PCIe 5.0 NVMe controllers for consumer SSDs, although the competition is heating up and Chinese SSD controller makers MaxioTek and InnoGrit, as well as Taiwanese Silicon Motion either have or will be releasing competing controllers this year. However, it also looks like Taiwanese Realtek will be joining the fray, albeit a tad late, as their upcoming RTS5782 PCIe 5.0 NVMe controller, but the company didn't reveal a release schedule. Although Realtek is known as a more budget friendly chipmaker, regardless of the product segment, the RTS5782 will be an 8-channel controller with support for 3600 MT/s NAND, and it will have a dedicated DRAM cache using either DDR4, LPDDR3, LPDDR4 or LPDDR4x memory. It's said to deliver sequential read speeds of up to 14 GB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 12 GB/s, with random read and write IOPS hitting 2500K.

Realtek is also working on a pair of new DRAM-less models, the PCIe 4.0 RTS5776DL and the PCIe r5.0 RTS5781DL, both having support for 4-channel flash, but still supporting NAND speeds of up to 3600 MT/s. Engineering samples of the RTS5776DL are expected to be available before the end of this year, and it's said to deliver sequential read and write speeds of up to 7400 MB/s and random read and write IOPS of 1200K. The RTS5781DL will enter the engineering sample stage in the beginning of 2025 and will up the sequential read and write performance to 10 GB/s and the random read and write IOPS to 1400K. In addition to the new NVMe controllers, Realtek also had its RTS5736DL on display at Computex, which the company claims is the world's lowest power DRAM-less SATA SSD controller, that also supports size of up to 8 TB. Realtek claims the RTS5736DL is an ideal solution to pair with a USB 3.x bridge chip for external drives.

At Computex last week, we got a first look at Gigabyte's new TRX50 AI TOP motherboard—where TOP stands for trillions of operations per second—designed for AMD's Threadripper and Threadripper Pro CPUs. Now the company has released the full specifications of the TRX50 AI TOP and the board is packed to the brim with features. The E-ATX board is home to four PCIe x16 slots, all of which can operate in PCIe 5.0, but one can be limited to PCIe 4.0, depending on your choice of CPU. There's also four NVMe M.2 slots, with CPU dependent functionality. Other features include eight DIMM slots, but these are again CPU dependent, two 10 Gbps Ethernet interfaces via a pair of Marvell AQtion AQC113C controllers, WiFi 7 via a Qualcomm QCNCM865 module and dual audio chips, one for the rear ports and one for the front panel audio.

As this is a 2024 model, USB4 is of course also part of the package, but only one of the two USB4 supports DP Alt-mode, due to there only being one DP input. The board also has an internal USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) header for a case mounted USB-C port, a further six rear 5 Gbps USB Type-A ports, plus a pair of internal headers for a further four 5 Gbps USB Type-A ports. The board also has four SATA ports, a 16+8+4 power phase design, a 14-layer PCB, a debug display and the now common easy release features for the M.2 drive heatsinks and the graphics card. The TRX50 AI TOP also sports what Gigabyte calls "UC BIOS" which has a "User-Centred intuitive UX with Quick Access function", but there's currently no details of how this differs from previous UEFI releases from Gigabyte. There was no word on pricing.

Silicon Motion's SM2508 was first revealed in August last year at the Flash Memory Summit 2023, but after that things went pretty quiet. However, the company was demoing the SM2508 up and running at Computex this past week and it's set to edge out Phison's E26 Max14um in the battle of fastest NVMe SSD controller. We're not talking about any massive gains here, but the reference drive from Silicon Motion was shown running CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4 at the show and if we do a rough comparison to a Phison E26 Max14um, the SM2508 beats Phison by about 800 MB/s in sequential read performance and 500 MB/s in sequential write performance.

This might not seem like a whole lot, but the SM2508 is built on TSMC's N6 node which results in a 3.5 Watt peak power consumption, or 7 Watts for the entire SSD at load. A typical Phison E26 based SSD draws in excess of 11 Watts of power at full load, which is a big difference in a mobile device. This should obviously also lead to lower thermals and we should finally see PCIe 5.0 drives that don't need massive heatsinks or active cooling. In fact, 7 Watts power draw is very similar to Phison's E18 PCIe 4.0 based SSDs. Silicon Motion is still working on fine tuning the firmware for the SM2508, so performance might yet improve to reach the promised 14 GB/s write performance. Currently the random performance is also looking a bit on the weak side compared to Phison. According to Tom's hardware, we should see the first drives with the Silicon Motion SM2508 appear in the market sometime in Q4 this year.

Fueling the next wave of AI innovation, Western Digital today introduced a six-stage AI Data Cycle framework that defines the optimal storage mix for AI workloads at scale. This framework will help customers plan and develop advanced storage infrastructures to maximize their AI investments, improve efficiency, and reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) of their AI workflows. AI models operate in a continuous loop of data consumption and generation - processing text, images, audio and video among other data types while simultaneously producing new unique data. As AI technologies become more advanced, data storage systems must deliver the capacity and performance to support the computational loads and speeds required for large, sophisticated models while managing immense volumes of data. Western Digital has strategically aligned its Flash and HDD product and technology roadmaps to the storage requirements of each critical stage of the cycle, and today introduced a new industry-leading, high-performance PCIe Gen 5 SSD to support AI training and inference; a high-capacity 64 TB SSD for fast AI data lakes; and the world's highest capacity ePMR, UltraSMR 32 TB HDD for cost-effective storage at scale.

"There's no doubt that Generative AI is the next transformational technology, and storage is a critical enabler. The implications for storage are expected to be significant as the role of storage, and access to data, influences the speed, efficiency and accuracy of AI Models, especially as larger and higher-quality data sets become more prevalent," said Ed Burns, Research Director at IDC. "As a leader in Flash and HDD, Western Digital has an opportunity to benefit in this growing AI landscape with its strong market position and broad portfolio, which meets a variety of needs within the different AI data cycle stages."

Handheld gaming devices are a dime a dozen these days and more and more companies are joining the fray on almost a weekly basis. At Computex, XPG was showing its upcoming handheld gaming device—currently known as the NIA—and it has several interesting features that most of their competitors haven't mentioned so far. The potentially most interesting feature that XPG has implemented is an LPCAMM2 module with support for up to 64 GB of LPDDR5x memory. XPG didn't list how much RAM the NIA will ship with, but 16 or 32 GB seems like the logical choices.

The device will be powered by AMD's Phoenix APU, but no details were given. XPG has implemented support for foveated rendering, which the company claims is an exclusive feature. This is courtesy of a front-facing camera with eye tracking, but it's unclear how exactly it'll work, since it won't be exactly the same as in a VR headset. The NIA will ship with an XPG Gammix S55 SSD, which is an M.2 2230 PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive with sizes of up to 2 TB. XPG also claims that the NIA is built for a "circular computing product lifecycle" whatever that means, but we're guessing it has something to do with using recycled materials and being recyclable. The screen size of the 1080p, 120 Hz display wasn't mentioned, but the screen can be tilted for better ergonomics and is supposed to deliver up to 500 nits brightness. The NIA also has a built-in kickstand.

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

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

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

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

Kioxia Corporation, a world leader in memory solutions, today announced that KIOXIA PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs have been successfully tested for compatibility and interoperability with the Xinnor, Ltd. ("Xinnor") RAID solution and achieved up to 25x higher performance running PostgreSQL than software RAID solutions with the same hardware configuration. This solution will be demonstrated in the KIOXIA booth at COMPUTEX TAIPEI, which is being held from June 4 to June 7. PostgreSQL (with the pgvector extension) and vector databases are becoming more important for generative AI and RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) systems than before, and these results demonstrate the performance gains utilizing Xinnor's xiRAID Opus and KIOXIA PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs solution for a generative AI and RAG application.

New servers with the PCIe 5.0 interface and corresponding high-speed SSDs are in demand for high performance applications, such as generative AI, and the importance of PCIe 5.0-compatible SSDs to support this demand is increasing. The Kioxia and Xinnor high performance software RAID solution maximizes the performance of PCIe 5.0 SSDs for AI, Machine Learning (ML), and data analytics applications in on-premises enterprise data centers. KIOXIA CM7 Series SSDs successfully completed compatibility testing performed by both parties.

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

Zotac took the plunge into the emerging market of Windows-based gaming handhelds that a lot of PC hardware brands are getting into off late. The device has a 7-inch 1080p AMOLED multi-touch display, but you can connect an external display using over DisplayPort. At the heart of the Zotac ZONE is the AMD Ryzen 7 8840U "Hawk Point" processor, with its Radeon 780M graphics. This chip is wired to 16 GB of LPDDR5X-7500, and a 512 GB M.2 NVMe SSD. The device features an M.2-2280 Gen 4 slot, so you are spoiled for choice with SSD upgrades.

The Zotac ZONE handheld console uses Windows 11 Home, but with its first-party One Launcher UI that organizes your games across DRM platforms, lets you configure input, tweak performance or battery life, and much more. The star attraction with this device's connectivity is its two USB4 type-C ports, one of which has DisplayPort passthrough), and PD 3.0. There's also a microSD UHS-II reader. A 4-pole 3.5 mm headset jack handles analog audio. Wireless connectivity includes Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2. Powering it all is a 48.5 Wh battery. The device measures 310 mm x 135 mm x 40 mm, and is expected to weigh under 700 g.

The subsidiary of MiTAC Holdings Corp, MiTAC Computing Technology and its server brand TYAN, the leading manufacturer in server platform design worldwide, unveil their new server systems and motherboards optimized for today's AI, HPC, cloud, and enterprise workloads at COMPUTEX 2024, Booth # M1120 in Taipei, Taiwan from June 4 to June 7. Harnessing the power of the latest Intel Xeon 6 processor and 4th and 5th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, these solutions deliver cutting-edge performance.

"For over a decade, MiTAC has worked with Intel at the forefront of server technology innovation, consistently delivering cutting-edge solutions tailored for AI and high-performance computing (HPC). The integration of Intel's latest Xeon 6 processors into our MiTAC and TYAN server platforms transforms computational capabilities, significantly enhancing AI performance, boosting efficiency, and scaling cloud operations. These advancements empower our customers with a competitive edge through superior performance and optimized total cost of ownership," said Rick Hwang, President of MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation.

MSI also brought plenty of SSD products to the Computex 2024 show, including the new SPATIUM M560 PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD based on the Phison E31T controller and Kioxia's 218-layer BiCS 3D TLC NAND, the new SPATIUM non-metal Vapor Chamber SSD Thermal Solution, and a couple of SSD accessories, including the DATAMAG Magnetic Portable SSD and the DATAVAULT SSD Enclosure.

As said, the new SPATIUM M560 PCIe 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD will use the Phison 7 nm E31T controller paired up with Kioxia 8th generation 218-layer BiCS 3D TLC NAND and offer transfer rates of up to 10,000 MB/s. The controller, according to MSI, should bring up to a 15 percent reduction in power consumption as well as "maximize bandwidths and link efficiency". It will be available in 1 TB, and 2 TB capacities, and MSI will probably have a version that will include the new SPATIUM non-metal Vapor Chamber SSD Thermal Solution which has been also showcased at the Computex 2024 show. MSI says that this is yet another world's first, which uses "a two-phase flow transition of gas and liquid with minimal signal interference, ensuring rapid and silent heat exchange." According to MSI, the new SPATIUM non-metal Vapor Chamber SSD Thermal Solution should provide up to 11 degrees lower temperature compared to a standard aluminium heatsink.

Lexar puts up on display two new M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 5 x4 NVMe SSDs at Computex, the NM1090 Pro and NM990. Both are capable of achieving up to 14 GB/s read, and 12 GB/s write performance. This makes it nearly twice as fast as PCIe Gen 4. A test system featuring the Lexar NM1090 Pro 2 TB model was available for live testing to support read/write performance claims. Alongside these two, we spotted another model of the Lexar NM1090 featuring a large heatsink with RGB lighting and 8 TB capacity to further extend existing family.

Lexar NM1090 Pro and NM990 are going to be available in Q4 2024 with 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB capacities respectively.

Getac today announced the launch of its brand-new AI-ready S510 rugged laptop, enabling organizations across industries such as utilities, public safety, manufacturing and automotive to utilise the power of edge AI on a daily basis. The new S510 enables workers to capitalise on the significant productivity benefits of AI-based applications. An Intel Core Ultra 5/7 processor with Intel AI Boost and Intel Graphics put powerful performance at users' fingertips, while a dedicated Microsoft Copilot key quickly awakens AI capabilities whenever needed.

The S510 combines this innovative feature set with MIL-STD-810H and IP53 certifications, alongside 3ft (0.9 m) drop and vibration resistance, giving users the peace of mind they need to work with confidence. The S510 also boasts a 15.6-inch display with 1,000 nits of brightness and Getac sunlight readable technology for optimal versatility in a variety of light conditions. In addition, the device provides robust connectivity options including WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 as standard, with optional 4G-LTE and 5G Sub-6 capabilities to keep users connected.

Acer today debuted two new premium Chromebook Plus laptops - the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 714 and Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE - that combine versatile designs with a 2x faster Intel Core processor and up to double the memory and storage, giving people the power to do even more all at once.

As Chromebook Plus devices, the two new models support enhanced generative AI features for connectivity, creativity, and collaboration, such as a "help me write" feature available with just a right click, Google Photos' Magic Editor, Gemini, and more. The Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 714 is a slim convertible optimized for on-the-go productivity and connectivity with a 360-degree hinge that allows it to be used in myriad ways and places, and the Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE is a next-generation cloud-gaming Chromebook with the latest gaming-centric hardware to stream and play AAA games with NVIDIA GeForce NOW, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Boosteroid, Amazon Luna and more.

BoostR is an Indiegogo crowdfunded project that seeks to integrate a multi-functional I/O dock with an external GPU. It's a rather brilliant idea—the dock draws connectivity from a USB4 (40 Gbps) connection, which it uses to connect an AMD Radeon RX 7600M GPU, an M.2-2280 NVMe SSD slot, a 1 GbE networking interface, an SD 4.0 card reader, and a bunch of USB 3.2 downstream ports.

The device comes with a power brick, and by default draws 100 W for all its functions, including the eGPU. You can boost the power limit to 120 W, which should improve the GPU's performance. The GPU puts out a couple of HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.0 connectors. BoostR was briefly available on Indiegogo at an early-bird price of $499, at which it would undercut the Ayaneo OneXGPU, a similar contraption of an eGPU+M.2+port dock that's priced at $699. One area where the BoostR has an edge over the OneXGPU is its 120 W mode that give the GPU improved boost frequency residency. It remains to be seen what the regular price of BoostR will be, but the company is offering a 5% discount on the final price if you sign up for their newsletter.

The Sabrent USB-C Enclosure for M.2 2230 PCIe NVMe SSDs is a simple and easy solution for managing your short-form factor drives. Need to prepare your M.2 2230 SSD for installation into your Steam Deck, ASUS ROG Ally, Surface Pro 9, or other portable device? Pop it into this enclosure and secure the latch, plug it in via USB-C, and off you go. The enclosure supports all major operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and anything built on Linux. The experience is simplified with an integrated cable and plug-and-play operation, as it is bus-powered with no drivers required.

The enclosure specifically supports M.2 2230 PCIe NVMe SSDs, not SATA, so be sure to check your drive beforehand - drives like our Rocket 2230 and Rocket Q4 2230 are a perfect pairing for this enclosure.