ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash products, today launched its XPG GAMMIX product series, first shown at Computex 2017. The debut consists of the GAMMIX S10 PCIe3x4 NVMe 1.2 M.2 2280 SSD, capable of 1800 MB/s read and 850MB/s write thanks to premium 3D NAND in up to 1TB capacity. The S10 features a stylish heatsink for expedited heat dissipation. It is joined by GAMMIX D10 DDR4 memory modules, which likewise boast a custom heatshield to ensure lower temperatures and more stable performance. They are offed in black and red colors, and in up to 3000 MHz factory speeds with a starting speed of 2666MHz on new Intel X299 motherboards. The GAMMIX line provides gamers, PC DIY enthusiasts, and overclockers with additional options that combine performance and design, stemming from the core XPG mission statement of ensuring better experiences.

MSI, the leading gaming motherboard brand, is proud to announce its newest X299 flagship motherboard, the X299 XPOWER GAMING AC. Designed for PC enthusiasts and overclockers who love sheer performance, the new XPOWER features an incredible 14 phase (12+1+1) DigitALL premium power design with Loadline Calibration to harness even the most powerful Intel Core X-Series processors. With the addition of MSI's Turbo Socket and External Clock Gen, powered by top quality components from Military Class 6, such as Titanium Choke II for higher efficiency and power delivery, even the most demanding overclockers are being challenged to push the new XPOWER to its limits.

Corsair has quietly added a new SSD to its portfolio which is currently available on Newegg. The new Neutron NX500 SSDs come in somewhat unusual 400 GB and 800 GB capacities, which likely means an overly increased over provisioning so as to ensure top endurance and performance. The Neutron NX500 SSDs come in the add-in NVMe card form factor, with a beefy heatsink to top it all up. That heatsink serves to cool not only the NAND chips, but also the Phison E7 controller that's lurking underneath.

Interestingly, and even though 3D TLC NAND is all the rage these days due to increased density on the same footprint, without bringing any serious, real-world problems related to endurance, as we've seen, the Neutron NX500 appears to pack MLC memory. Do you even remember that? That's part of the reason why performance is rated so high: there's 3,000 MB/s read, 2,400 MB/s writes, 300,000 IOPS in random read, and 270,000 IOPS on random write workloads. Though you will have to pay a pretty penny for this kind of performance: the 400 GB Corsair Neutron NX500 is currently retailing for $319.99, while the 800 GB version won't give you any benefits from the economy of scale: it retails for $699.99.

PNY Technologies (PNY) considered one of the worldwide leaders in consumer electronics market and flash memory products, is ready to take on the gaming industry by storm with the launch of the Gaming Series to Asia market. The PNY Gaming Series offers best-in-class PC components to deliver gaming performance ranging from affordable to the most intense for die-hard gamers. Scheduled to be released in the 2nd half of 2017, the product categories will include gaming grade graphics cards, SSDs, and PC memory products that promise to deliver the competitive edge advantage in PC gaming.

Apacer introduced the PT920 Commando, a PCI-Express SSD built in the add-on card form-factor, with PCI-Express 3.0 x4 host interface. The drive is characterized by a plastic shroud shaped like the top of an M4 or M16 assault rifle. Available in 240 GB and 480 GB capacities, the drive takes advantage of the NVMe 1.2 protocol. The company didn't reveal controller or NAND flash manufacturers.

The drives offer sequential reads of up to 2,500 MB/s, with up to 1,300 MB/s sequential writes for the 480 GB model, and up to 860 MB/s sequential writes for the 240 GB model. 4K random write performance is rated at up to 175,000 IOPS for the 480 GB model, and up to 160,000 IOPS for the 240 GB model. The drive feature most common SSD features such as ECC, NCQ, and TRIM. The company didn't reveal pricing, although it backs the drives with 3-year warranties.

Especially intended for out of the ordinary use in vertical markets, Shuttle is now offering a fanless barebone PC in a versatile 3-litre format. Under the name XC60J, the range of the mini PC manufacturer now adds a 7 cm tall mini PC with an Intel Celeron J3355 dual-core processor (2 GHz) in 14 nm architecture.

The virtually silent platform, which is suitable for constant operation (24/7) at an ambient temperature of up to 40 °C, boasts a total of eight serial interfaces (8x RS-232, one of which can be switched to RS-422/RS-485) as its key spec and is therefore aimed at the areas of automation, POS, industry and machine control in which USB or IP-based transmission will not apply.

Beijing Memblaze Technology Co., Ltd. today announced the launch of its next generation of PCIe NVMe SSD products, PBlaze 5 700 and 900 series, for hyper-scale data center deployment and for enterprise mission critical applications, respectively. PBlaze5 utilizes high-quality 3D Enterprise-level TLC NAND and supports NVMe 1.2a protocol, with SSD user capacities up to 11 TB.

PBlaze5 comes in 2.5-inch U.2 and HHHL add-in card form factors and provides high performance 6GB/s read bandwidth (128KB) and >1M IOPS random read (4KB), with typical read write latency of 90/15μs. PBlaze5 U.2 interface is hot plugable, hot removable and hot swapable, effectively reducing data center operation complexity.

FinalWire Ltd. today announced the immediate availability of AIDA64 Extreme 5.92 software, a streamlined diagnostic and benchmarking tool for home users; the immediate availability of AIDA64 Engineer 5.92 software, a professional diagnostic and benchmarking solution for corporate IT technicians and engineers; the immediate availability of AIDA64 Business 5.92 software, an essential network management solution for small and medium scale enterprises; and the immediate availability of AIDA64 Network Audit 5.92 software, a dedicated network audit toolset to collect and manage corporate network inventories.

The latest AIDA64 update implements optimized benchmarks for the upcoming Intel Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processors, and supports the latest graphics and GPGPU computing technologies by both AMD and nVIDIA.DOWNLOAD: Finalwire AIDA64 v5.92

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash products,today launched the industrial-grade IM2P3388 PCIe Gen3x4 M.2 2280 solid state drive. It employs 3D MLC NAND Flash and an SMI controller to deliver performance several times faster than SATA III SSDs, with read up to 2500MB/s and write reaching 1100MB/s. The M.2 2280 form factor fits easily in the IT setup of industrial and enterprise users, while the IM2P3388 can withstand a wide temperature range, shocks, and vibration. The IM2P3388 is offered in up to 1TB and supports a range of features such as S.M.A.R.T, TRIM, power fail protection, and secure erase.

The IM2P3388 complies with NVMe 1.2 specifications to provide performance optimized for low latency, big bandwidth PCI Express 3.0 x4 (four lanes). Users tap up to 2500MB/s read and 1100MB/s write, greatly accelerating data transfers to help increase productivity and efficiency. ADATA is offering the IM2P3388 in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. All models carry premium 3D MLC NAND that has been carefully sorted, tested, and verified to the highest standards. SLC and DRAM caching provide speed boosts for sustained performance during even the most intense activity sessions, preventing bandwidth or IOPS drop offs.

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.

PCI-SIG Developers Conference 2017 - PCI-SIG, the organization responsible for the widely adopted PCI Express (PCIe) industry-standard input/output (I/O) technology, today announced 32GT/s as the next progression in speed for the PCIe 5.0 architecture, targeting high-performance applications such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, gaming, visual computing, storage and networking. Slated for completion in 2019, the specification development is well underway with Revision 0.3 already available to PCI-SIG member companies.

"In our 25-year history, PCI-SIG has maintained its commitment to our rigorous specification development process, while delivering specifications that are in lock-step with industry requirements for high-performance I/O," said Al Yanes, PCI-SIG Chairman and President. "PCIe 5.0 technology is the next evolution that will set the standard for speed, and we are confident that its 32GT/s bandwidth will surpass industry needs."

The preceding PCIe 4.0 specification is designed with key functional enhancements that future-proof the PCIe architecture design, thereby accelerating future specification development. This undertaking, along with improved silicon design processes, serves as the foundation for the PCIe 5.0 specification.

Intel introduced the SSD DC P4501 series enterprise solid-state drives based on its latest-generation 3D TLC NAND flash memory. The drives are available in 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor with 32 Gb/s U.2 interface, and the M.2-2280 form-factor with 32 Gb/s interface. It takes advantage of PCI-Express 3.0 x4 with the NVMe 1.2 protocol.

Available in 500 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB capacities, the drives offer sequential transfer rates of up to 3,200 MB/s reads, with up to 900 MB/s writes. Their 4K random-read performance is rated at up to 360,000 IOPS, with up to 46,000 IOPS 4K random writes. Their endurance is rated at up to 1 DWPD (random) and up to 3 DWPD (mostly sequential). Both form-factor variants of the drives feature power-loss imminent protection, where a bank of capacitors gives the drives just enough power to finish its outstanding write operations in the event of a power-failure, to mitigate data-loss. The drives are backed by 5-year warranties.

At Computex 2017, Teamgroup put on a show with their products, hoping to place itself in consumers' eyes as having all the latest technologies they could possibly want. Starting with their SSD, there's the heatspreader-equipped M.2 NVMe SSD T-Force Cardea, an MLC SSD (so, a dying breed) with either 240 or 480 GB capacity, which includes a beefy red heatsink to reduce throttling possibilities.

At Computex 2017, Patriot put on a scorching show with their high-speed M.2 2280 NVMe SSDs, the Patriot Scorch. These leverage a Phison 5008-E8 controller to deliver up to 1200 MB/s reads and 800 MB/s writes at a 240 GB capacity. This controller is one of the only budget solutions to include a multi-core processor at its heart, which bodes well to the Scorch's rated speeds. MTBF operation is rated at over 2,000,000 hours, which is more than you'll ever need in your lifetime (and if it isn't, you really have to tell me your secret.) The Scorch will utilize Toshiba's 64-layer BiCS FLASH with 3-bits per cell (TLC) memory, which should decrease their cost, which should help Patriot release these Scorch SSDs on Q3 of this year, with a touted "attractive, budget" pricing.

Here are some of the first pictures of GeIL Shuttle series SSDs. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor with PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface, the drives take advantage of the NVMe 1.2 protocol, and are characterized by a prominent aluminium heatsink over the controller, DRAM, and NAND flash chips, which keeps temperatures of these chips below 38°C in a common work environment. The GeIL Shuttle series drives combine a Silicon Machines SM2260 controller with 3D MLC NAND flash (G2 variant) and 3D TLC NAND flash (G1 variant). The drives offer sequential performance of up to 2,000 MB/s reads, with up to 1,000 MB/s writes.

ECS took to Computex to showcase seven different motherboards from both AMD and Intel. First up we have the Z270 Lightsaber, which is great at deflecting laser blaster shots. It's an LGA 1151 socket motherboard, features 8-channel audio courtesy of a Realtek ALC 1150 audio chip, a Killer E2500 Gigabit controller, 1x M.2 slot with support for SATA, NVMe, and Intel Optane. There are 3x PCIe x16 slots, which work at x8 x8 x4 when all slots are populated, as is usual with Z270 motherboards.

Amidst the cutting-edge innovations in NAS, networking, and IoT presented by QNAP Systems, Inc. at COMPUTEX 2017, the announcement of the world's first AMD Ryzen-based NAS took center stage and underlined QNAP's commitment to push the boundaries of NAS performance and functionality.

The new TS-x77 series leverages the incredible power of Ryzen, featuring processors with up to 8-cores/16-threads with Turbo Core up to 3.7 GHz to greatly boost virtualization performance. The TS-x77 is designed as a high-performance, highly-capable tiered storage geared for I/O intensive and virtualization applications, and also supports AMD Radeon and NVIDIA graphics cards to satisfy resource-demanding video editing and playback.

ZOTAC broke new ground with its first tower-type SFF gaming PC, the ZOTAC Mek. This is one of the first ZOTAC PCs that isn't brick or box-shaped, and competes with your game console or the likes of Falcon Northwest Tiki in looks. It comes in white and black with blue LED accents. A sliding door up front covers the power button, status LEDs (ring-shaped), a pair of USB 3.0 type-A, and HDA jacks. Under the hood is some serious gaming hardware - an Intel Core i7-7700 quad-core processor, 16 GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory, and GeForce GTX 1080 graphics. Also featured is a 240 GB M.2 NVMe SSD. Powering it all is a 450W SFX power-supply.

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.

ADATA showed off a pair of mainstream M.2 PCI-Express SSDs, which could form the gateway to M.2 drives for those wanting a little more than SATA drives, and a price slightly above the fastest SATA solutions. The lineup consists of the XPG SX6000 and the XPG SX7000. The XPG SX6000 is based on a Realtek RTS5760 DRAM-less controller, mated to 3D TLC NAND flash. Available in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB, the drive serves up sequential speeds of up to 850 MB/s reads, with up to 850 MB/s writes, which is still higher than the fastest SATA drives, and its 570-ish MB/s rated speed. Add to this, the drive supports the NVMe protocol, and takes advantage of its huge command-queue depth.

The XPG SX7000 is positioned above the SX6000, and features Silicon Motion SMI2262G controller with a DRAM cache, mated with 3D TLC NAND flash. Available in the same capacities as the SX6000, the drive serves up over double its read performance, with up to 1,800 MB/s reads, yet the same 850 MB/s writes. ADATA had a live CDM session in its booth, and visitors could ask them to run the benchmark live, as you could see the drives in an open-air bench.

At the ADATA booth, we ran into two of the company's most exciting products, the XPG SX9000 and XPG SX8000 series M.2 PCIe SSDs. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor with PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface, and NVMe protocol support, the drives are positioned in the upper-performance/enthusiast segments. The XPG SX9000 combines a Marvell 88S1093 controller with planar MLC toggle-NAND flash, and comes in capacities of 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB. It offers sequential speeds of up to 2,800 MB/s reads, with up to 1,500 MB/s writes, and features an LDPC ECC engine.

Toshiba today unveiled the XG 5 series performance-segment SSDs in the M.2-2280 form-factor. These drives take advantage of the PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface, and the NVMe 1.2 protocol. At the heart of these drives is Toshiba's 64-layer BiCS Flash (3D TLC NAND flash) memory. Available in capacities of 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB, the drive offers sequential transfer speeds of up to 3,000 MB/s reads, with up to 2,100 MB/s writes. The drive features an SLC-cache feature, in which the drive treats a small portion of the TLC NAND flash as SLC NAND, by storing just 1 bit per cell, hot data is juggled in and out of this portion. The drives will go on sale in the first week of June.

In addition to the X299 Aorus Gaming 9, GIGABYTE showed off its Z270X Aorus Gaming 9, its flagship socket LGA1151 motherboard based on the current Z270 Express chipset. With its nomenclature, GIGABYTE appears to have relegated "Aorus" to a brand-extension, rather than an overarching brand by itself. The Z270X Aorus Gaming 9 is packed to the brim with features. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors; conditioning it for the CPU with a massive 24-phase VRM, with a liquid-cooling ready heatsink. This board features a PLX PEX8747 PCI-Express gen 3.0 x48 bridge chip, which takes in the x16 PEG link from the CPU, and puts out four x16 slots (x16/NC/x16/NC or x16/NC/x8/x8 or x8/x8/x8/x8), with support for 3-way and 4-way SLI and CrossFireX.

Storage options are aplenty, with two 32 Gb/s M.2 slots with NVMe RAID and Optane support, two 32 Gb/s U.2 ports, two 16 Gb/s SATA-Express ports, and ten SATA 6 Gb/s ports. This board features the same ultra high-grade AMP-UP onboard audio solution as the X299 Gaming 9, with a 127 dBA SNR CODEC made by ESS, the highest-grade audio capacitors money can buy, and three user-replaceable OPAMPs. The board will feature a plethora of CPU and memory overclocking features, and GIGABYTE's RGB Fusion LED lighting system. It goes on sale some time in June.

Here's the first picture of the GIGABYTE X299 Aorus Gaming 9 motherboard, a TechPowerUp-exclusive. This socket LGA2066 motherboard is ready for upcoming Core i7 "Kaby Lake-X" 4-core, and "Skylake-X" 6-core, 8-core, 10-core, and 12-core processors. Based on Intel X299 Express chipset, this board draws power from two 8-pin EPS power connectors, besides 24-pin ATX. This could become the norm with X299 motherboards. There could either be a second 8-pin EPS or a second 4-pin ATX connector. A 12-phase VRM conditions power.

The LGA2066 socket is wired to four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, which can be configured as electrical x8/x8/x8/x8 or x16/NC/x16/NC or x16/NC/x8/x8 with "Skylake-X" 10-core and 12-core chips; or x8/NC/x8/x4 or x16/NC/NC/x4 with "Kaby Lake-X" quad-core and "Skylake-X" 6-core and 8-core chips. The 5th x16 slot is electrical x4 and wired to the PCH. There are plenty of storage options, including two 32 Gb/s M.2 (up to 80 mm) slots, a 32 Gb/s M.2 (up to 110 mm) slot, with native NVMe RAID and Optane support; and eight SATA 6 Gb/s. The board features ASMedia ASM3142 USB 3.1 controller with type-A and type-C ports on the rear panel, as well as additional ports through headers.

NVM Express, the special interest group behind the NVMe protocol, which enables significantly higher performance on flash-based storage devices, compared to the AHCI protocol, published the NVMe 1.3 specification. This is the most significant update to the protocol since the NVMe 1.2 specification released in 2014. NVMe 1.3, which could be implemented in SSDs, motherboards, and HBA cards starting late-2017 or 2018, introduces several major features that increase performance, endurance, and manageability of flash-based storage devices, such as SSDs.

To begin with, NVMe 1.3 introduces a drive self-test feature similar to SMART. The host machine can now command the drive to perform a self-test without having to mount volumes and expose their contents to OS-based utilities. The self-test parameters could be left up to the drive vendor, and could include hardware tests in addition to data integrity tests. The protocol also adds much needed support for boot-partitions, without needing the motherboard UEFI firmware to store it. The current implementation of motherboards with NVMe booting support involves storing a tiny boot partition with the bootloader on the SPI flash chip of the motherboard which stores the UEFI firmware.