Thanks to the discovery of VideoCardz, we get a glimpse of MAXSUN's latest Arc 580 GPU with not only a GPU but extra room for two additional M.2 SSDs. The PCIe connector on the Intel Arc B580 has x16 physical pins but runs at PCIe 4.0 x8 speeds. Intel verified it runs only x8 lanes instead of the full x16 slot, leaving x8 lanes unsued. However, MAXSUN thought of a clever way to put the leftover x8 lanes to good use by adding two PCIe x4 M.2 SSDs to thelatest triple-fan iCraft B580 SKU. Power delivery for the M.2 drives comes directly from the graphics card, which is made possible by the GPU's partial PCIe lane utilization. This configuration could prove particularly valuable for compact builds or systems with limited motherboard storage options.

Interestingly, the SSD pair appears to have its own thermal enclosure, which acts as a heatsink. Having constant airflow from the GPU's fans, the M.2 SSD configuration should be able to maximize the full bandwidth of the SSDs without thermals throttling the SSD read/write speeds. The design follows in the footsteps of AMD's Radeon Pro SSG, which introduced integrated storage in workstation cards with PCIe 3.0 M.2 slots. Back then, it was mainly a target for workstation users. However, MAXSUN has envisioned gamers unusually expanding their storage space now. The pricing of the card and availability date remains a mystery.

At Computex this year, Biwin also showcases a range of PCIe M.2 2280 SSDs, spanning from PCIe Gen 5 and Gen 4 to PCIe Gen 3. The reason behind this diverse lineup seems to be Biwin's intention to cater to users who may not have newer systems but still wish to benefit from PCIe M.2 storage advantages at lower costs. For PCIe Gen 5, Biwin has the X570 M.2 SSDs (512 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB, 4 TB) that are capable of reaching speeds of up to 14500 MB/s sequential read, 14000 MB/s sequential write.

For users with PCIe Gen 4 platforms, Biwin shows the NV7400 M.2 (and NV7400 Heatsink) SSDs that reach speeds up to 7450 MB/s read, and 7200 MB/s write, and NV7200 (7200 MB/s read, 6200 MB/s write). Both come with 512 MB, 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB capacities. Now for even older platforms, Biwin has the NV3500 PCIe 3.0 SSD, capable of 3500 MB/s read, and 3000 MB/s write speeds (max), and is available with 512 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB capacities.

Radxa is a Chinese manufacturer of various Arm based devices and something of a minor competitor to the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The company has just launched its latest product which is called the ROCK 5 ITX. As the name implies, it's a Mini-ITX form factor motherboard, which in itself is rather unusual for Arm based hardware to start with. However, Radxa has designed the ROCK 5 ITX to be a NAS motherboard and this is the first time we've come across such a product, as most Arm based boards are either intended for hobby projects, software development or routers. This makes the ROCK 5 ITX quite unique, at least based on its form factor, as it'll be compatible with standard Mini-ITX chassis.

The SoC on the board is a Rockchip RK3588 which sports four Cortex-A76 cores at up to 2.4 GHz and four Cortex-A55 cores at 1.8 GHz. This is not exactly cutting edge, but should be plenty fast enough for a SATA drive based NAS. The board offers four SATA 6 Gbps connectors via an ASMedia ASM1164 controller, each with an individual power connector next to it. However, Radxa seems to have chosen to use fan-header type power connectors, which means it'll be hard to get replacement power cables. The board also has a PCIe 3.0 x2 M.2 slot for an NVMe drive. The OS boots from eMMC and Radxa supports its own Roobi OS which is Debian Linux based.

ADLINK Technology Inc., a global leader in edge computing, a global supplier of industrial PCs and motherboards, and a Titanium member of the Intel Partner Alliance, announces the launch of the new IMB-M47 industrial ATX motherboard for 12th and 13th Gen Intel Core i9/i7/i5/i3 processors. The IMB-M47 ATX motherboard delivers high-performance computing power, with multiple I/O and expansion ports, including three simultaneous independent displays, USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gb/s), up to 128 GB DDR5 4800 MHz, 3x 2.5 GbE, multi-M.2 Key M, TPM 2.0, and PCIe 5.0 high-performance add-on cards for complex Edge AIoT processing tasks in industrial automation, machine vision, factory automation, and logistics.

The IMB-M47 industrial ATX motherboard supports 12th and 13th Gen Intel Core processors that utilize a high-performance hybrid architecture with up to sixteen E-cores (Efficient-cores) for multi-threaded background task management and multitasking, and up to eight P-cores (Performance-cores) for demanding single-threaded work such as graphics and video rendering. The 13th Gen Intel Core processors speed up edge applications that benefit from faster memory performance with faster DDR5 memory.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices today, is excited to unveil the brand-new H610MS and H610MHD D5 motherboards designed to supplement the needs of modern day professionals and home users seamlessly. Built based on Intel H610 single-chip architecture, ready for 12th and 13th Gen Intel Core Processors, these motherboards are ideal for the working professional, making tasks such as web browsing, emailing, and document management a breeze. For the home user, it delivers an unparalleled experience whether watching movies on Netflix, listening to music, gaming, or even for HTPC uses like streaming, live TV recording, and more.

The H610MS motherboard supports the robust DDR4 memory modules. Users can utilize 2 DIMM slots with a capacity of up to 64 GB. Meanwhile, the H610MHD D5 motherboard is designed to handle the latest DDR5 memory modules across a similar 2-DIMM configuration of up to 96 GB of Memory, ensuring users have a breadth of choices for their distinct build preferences. These motherboards are brimming with cutting-edge features tailored to modern computing demands. Each board seamlessly supports USB 3.2 Gen 1, ensuring rapid data transfers and connectivity. Additionally, they are primed for the future with support for both PCIe 4.0 and PCIe 3.0 interfaces, offering enhanced versatility for expansions. Furthermore, they are equipped to accommodate the blazing speeds of PCIe 3.0 M.2 drives with a bandwidth of 32 Gb/s, catering to users who seek swift storage solutions.

Global memory provider, Team Group, has announced two high-end memory cards today under its creator sub-brand T-CREATE for high-resolution works: The T-CREATE EXPERT CFexpress Plus Type B and T-CREATE EXPERT CFexpress Type B Memory Cards. Designed to unleash the top performance of Digital Single Lens Reflex Camera (DSLR), cinema, and high-end SLR cameras, they fulfill the needs of creators that take continuous high-speed shots and can handle the shooting of 4K and 8K RAW high-bitrate videos over long periods, allowing users to capture every key moment.

The T-CREATE EXPERT CFexpress Plus Type B card and the T-CREATE EXPERT CFexpress Type B card both use the CFexpress standard and offer write speeds of up to 1,700 MB/s and read speeds of up to 1,800 MB/s, excellent for file transfers to PCs and viewing all valuable files instantly and smoothly. The T-CREATE EXPERT CFexpress Plus Type B Memory Card adopts pSLC technology, which enables the CFexpress memory cards to have SLC-like read and write speeds in addition to superb durability.

The AS5402T and AS5404T are here! The all-new gaming-inspired AS54 series bring numerous improvements to deliver a phenomenal combination of performance and price. The AS54 series is powered by Intel's latest 10 nm Celeron N5105 Quad-Core that turbos up to 2.9 GHz. The N5105 represents a 31% performance uplift over the previous generation of Celeron CPUs while the included 4 GB DDR4-2933 of RAM that brings up to 20% more performance than DDR4-2400.

New to the AS54 are the addition of four M.2 slots for NVMe SSDs. These slots use PCIe 3.0 to allow for lightning-fast read and write speeds. Installed M.2 SSDs can be used for system storage, caching or both, and significantly enhances access speed for data on different types of volumes. This feature provides the AS54 series with the dual benefits of maximum speed and maximum capacity.

Details of ASUS' upcoming Prime N100I-D D4 Mini-ITX motherboard has made an appearance in official pictures posted over at Fanlesstech, although the board was apparently shown at Computex. The interesting part here is that it's under ASUS' Prime branding, which suggests that this will be a retail product, rather than something that would only be available to OEM partners. The Intel Processor N100 is a quad core 3.4 GHz chip based on Intel's Alder Lake-N and it has a 6 W TDP, which means it can be passively cooled.

Although the SoC supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory, at least for this specific SKU, ASUS went with DDR4 support in the shape of a single SO-DIMM slot which accepts up to 3200 MHz memory. The board also sports a single PCIe 3.0 x2 M.2 slot, an M.2 slot for an optional WiFi module, a PCIe 3.0 x1 slot and a single SATA connector and a USB 3.0 header. The odd thing here is that the SoC supports a total of nine PCIe lanes, but ASUS only appears to have made use of four of them. Around the back is a pair of 10 Gbps USB Type-A ports, a pair of 5 Gbps USB Type-A ports and two USB 2.0 ports, a PS/2 port, a serial port, a D-Sub VGA connector, a DisplayPort and an HDMI port of unknown version—although the SoC supports DP 1.4 and HDMI 2.1—a Gigabit Ethernet jack and three audio jacks.

Realtek has decided to take consumer Ethernet speeds to a new level later this year with a family of 5 Gbps parts that are unlike anything its competitors have announced so far. The RTL8126-CG PCIe 3.0 x1 controller is a tiny QFN56 chip that measures 8 by 8 millimetres and consumes up to 1.7 Watt in use. This is unheard of when it comes to 5 Gbps solutions today, most of which are based on cut-down 10 Gbps chips. Realtek has verified the RTL8126-CG with stacked connectors for motherboards, as this was a requirement from the motherboard vendors. This solution should be available on most of the boards that were announced at Computex with 2.5 Gbps Ethernet support.

The company also has the RTL8251B-CG single port PHY which comes in the same packaging and same size as the PCIe controller. It's intended for use in 5 Gbps switches and should help bring down the cost, power consumption and thermals. Finally Realtek was showing off the RTL8157-CG, which is a USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) based 5 Gbps Ethernet bridge, which comes in a slightly different QFN68 package, but still apparently measures 8 by 8 millimetres. This one is expected to launch sometime in Q4 of this year. All three solutions are capable of delivering 5 Gbps Ethernet over Cat 5e cables of up to a 100 meter in length. We weren't given an exact price point of these solutions, but it sounded like the RTL8126-CG should end up at US$5 or less, which should be compared to at least US$20-30 for most similar solutions in the market today. It looks like the market for faster Ethernet is really getting interesting and Realtek is apparently planning a 10 Gbps solution for next year.

SK Hynix seems to be getting into being a retail brand in the storage market space and its latest addition to its product range looks pretty interesting, in more ways than one. The compact 74 x 46 x 14.8 mm (WxDxH) SSD goes under the name of Beetle X31 and judging by the packaging, it's meant to look like a golden Egyptian scarab, although SK Hynix was clearly not bold enough to follow through with the housing design. Regardless, the small golden puck looks pretty nifty, but it also hides some rather interesting technology under its shell.

Fortunately for us, a Korean YouTuber has already disassembled the drive and based on the specs, it appears to have an ASMedia ASM2362 PCIe 3.0 x2 to USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) bridge chip, which allows the internal NVMe drive to interface with the USB Type-C port on the device. The internal NVMe SSD is also rather intriguing and it'll most likely be found in some other devices. It appears to follow the M.2 2242 form factor, but it's only equipped with a single chip, which is said to house not only the NAND flash, but also the SSD controller and some kind of DRAM, as this is not a DRAM-less SSD. The Beetle X31 will be available in 512 GB and 1 TB sizes, with the 1 TB model retailing for 138,000 Korean won, or around US$103. An optional protective case is also available as an accessory.

ASUSTOR Inc. today launched two of its fastest NAS devices ever, the all-NVMe Flashstor 6 and Flashstor 12 Pro. The biggest feature of the Flashstor series NAS is that this is ASUSTOR's first dedicated PCIe 3.0 M.2 NVMe SSD NAS, which brings unmatched performance in a NAS device. The Flashstor 6 has six M.2 slots for NVMe SSDs and dual 2.5GbE for amazing performance while the Flashstor 12 Pro comes with twelve M.2 slots for NVMe SSDs combined with 10GbE for unmatched speed. Both Flashstor models are equipped with Intel's newest generation of 10 nm Quad-Core Intel Celeron N5105 that boosts up to 2.9 GHz. With 4 GB of energy-efficient DDR4 -2933 RAM that provides 40% more efficiency and dual USB 3.2 Gen 2x1, the Flashstor ensures that bottlenecks are a thing of the past.

The advantages of the Flashstor include, but are not limited to, are its low weight to be used as portable storage while efficiently cooled and quiet. The Flashstor series is specifically designed M.2 SSDs and the chassis makes it easy to add or remove SSDs by removing the chassis screws. The design of the Flashstor not only makes it look great in any environment, but also contains efficient hardware that ensures it can chew through virtually any storage or editing workload thrown at it while keeping hardware and SSDs cool. For extra cooling, the Flashstor comes with heatsinks to help more powerful SSDs to receive the cooling they need for optimal performance while remaining quiet at as low as 18.7 decibels. This ensures that content creation and consumption is enjoyed without interference.

MINISFORUM is proud to announce the release of its latest device, the B550 PRO, an upgraded version of the B550 model. This Mini PC can be transformed into a full-sized gaming desktop when connected to an SFX power supply and discrete graphics card, offering users a versatile and powerful computing experience. Powered by the AMD B550 chipset and supporting Ryzen 5000 series CPU and APU (Up to 5800X processor), the B550 PRO is capable of handling daily office tasks and large-scale gaming.

This device's standout feature is its versatility, with a PCIe 3.0 x16 slot allowing direct connection of desktop discrete graphics cards through the PCIe 3.0 x16 interface on the chassis and the PCIe 3.0 x16 slot on the included expansion dock. The device also includes a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, which is added into the docking station, enabling the addition of an SSD or network card expansion card, and enhancing the device's overall versatility.

EdgeCortix Inc., the innovative Edge Artificial Intelligence (AI) Platform company, focused on delivering class-leading compute efficiency and ultra-low latency for AI inference; announced, it is shipping its industry leading, energy-efficient, turn-key, AI co-processor, branded as the EdgeCortix SAKURA-I, to its global Early Access Program members.

"We are very pleased to be announcing the fulfillment of our first-generation semiconductor solution, the EdgeCortix SAKURA-I AI co-processor. Designed and engineered in Japan, SAKURA-I features up to 40 trillion operations per second (TOPs) of dedicated AI performance at sub-10 watts of power consumption.", said Sakyasingha Dasgupta, CEO and Founder of EdgeCortix, "We are delivering a complete Edge AI platform to our Early Access Program members, comprising both software and hardware solutions, which includes our recently updated MERA software suite. Program members include numerous global industry leading enterprise customers across both the commercial and defense sectors. We developed the EdgeCortix Early Access Program (EAP) with a focus on offering customers the opportunity to assess EdgeCortix's products and services at scale, by deploying them within their own complex, heterogeneous environments. The goal of the EAP offering is three-fold: showcasing the ease of integration into customer's existing heterogeneous systems, enabling customers to prove-out the effectiveness and efficiency of EdgeCortix solutions versus competing products and facilitating a direct dialog with EdgeCortix product management, enabling tailor-made fit in certain cases."

ATP Electronics, the global leader in specialized storage and memory solutions, introduces the N600Si/Sc Series CFexpress cards Type B, the latest NAND-flash based high-speed memory cards to adopt the NVMe protocol over PCIe interface. Using the PCIe 4.0 x2 interface, they deliver superior, high-speed performance compared with other cards using the PCIe 3.0 x2 interface.

N600Si/Sc Series CFexpress cards offer convenient portability with enhanced sequential read/write performance of up to 3,500/3,200 MB/s. These removable storage devices are backward-compatible with XQD. The N600Si/Sc Series CFexpress cards sport the Gen. 4 x2 interface and are also backward compatible with CFexpress Gen. 3 x2. They are suitable for convenient movement among different devices and provide dependable access in environments with little or no network availability.

It appears that the microATX form factor is the way to go when it comes to AMD A620 chipset based motherboards and ASUS has no less than three new models, although one is technically with or without WiFi. The new models are the TUF Gaming A620M-Plus, the TUF Gaming A620M-Plus WiFi and the Prime A620M-A. All three boards sport six layer PCBs with what appears to be fairly basic power regulation, although ASUS doesn't mention how many phases either model has on its product pages. All boards feature a single PCIe 4.0 x16 slot and two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots, as well as two M.2 NVMe slots that support PCIe 4.0 x4 based drives. All models also have four DDR5 DIMM slots, four SATA 6 Gbps ports and front panel connectors for a 5 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C port and two 5 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports.

Around the back is where things differ a bit, as the TUF boards have two DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI port, as well as two 5 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, a PS/2 port and a 2.5 Gbps Ethernet port courtesy of a Realtek chip, as well a BIOS FlashBack button. The Prime board on the other hand replaces one DisplayPort output with a VGA connector for some reason and gets to make do with Gigabit Ethernet. The connectivity options aren't what we'd call impressive, but appears to be par for course compared to ASUS' competitors' products. Pricing appear to be in the range of €139-169.

Exascend, Inc., a leader in industrial-grade, enterprise-class and cinematography flash storage solutions, announces new ultra-high-capacity industrial- and enterprise-grade PCIe NVMe U.2 SSDs in 16 TB, or 15,360 GB capacity.

Performance and capacity that power cloud and edge servers
U.2 SSDs have some characteristics that give them an edge over M.2 SSDs, such as better thermal performance, high IOPs, low latency, low power consumption, and the ability to come out with higher capacities due to their 2.5-inch form factor - making U.2 ideal for enterprise data centers switching from traditional HDDs to high-performing SSDs.

Although we haven't been able to confirm these specs, full specifications of AMD's upcoming A620 chipset was posted on Twitter by @g01d3nm4ng0, who has proven to have solid details in the past. This is supposedly the cut-down version of the B650 chipset, due to the rumored delays of the actual A620 chipset. The A620 chipset will be identical to the B650 chipset when it comes to PCIe lane counts, but rather than PCIe 4.0 lanes, the chipset will only offer PCIe 3.0 lanes. What is unclear is if the PCIe 3.0 of the B650 chipset will remain or not, as they're not included in the leaked specs.

If not, then the A620 chipset will only have a total of eight usable PCIe lanes, but four lanes that are connected to the CPU, which will apparently also be limited to PCIe 3.0 speeds. There's also no mention of SATA port configurations. AMD has trimmed the amount of USB 3.x ports significantly, with the A620 chipset only getting two 10 Gbps and two 5 Gbps ports. USB 2.0 ports remain the same at a total of six. A620 motherboards will apparently also be limited to PCIe 4.0 for the lanes from the CPU, but this should be less of an issue for most consumers. As rumored, CPU overclocking is also said to be missing, but RAM overclocking will still be present.

Back in February 2022 SiFive announced its partnership with Intel Foundry Services (IFS), to bring its "Horse Creek" SoC to market and now SiFive has announced that it's getting ready to launch its first development board on said SoC. This summer, SiFive will launch the HiFive Pro P550 development board, which will kick things up a serious notch when it comes to embedded SoC development boards, regardless of the CPU core the SoC is built around. The HiFive Pro P550 will be one of few microATX based embedded SoC development boards out there and so far, to our knowledge, the only one with a RISC-V based SoC. The Horse Creek SoC sports quad core, 2.2 GHz, 13-stage, triple-issue, out-of-order pipeline RISC-V RV64GBC CPU built on the Intel 4 node. The SoC also has a DDR5 5600 MHz memory interface, support for eight lanes of PCIe 5.0 and comes in a 19 x 19 mm FBGA package.

The HiFive Pro P550 will offer 16 GB of DDR5 memory, but based on the render of the motherboard, this is soldered to the board, rather than relying on standard DDR5 DIMMs. Furthermore, the board has two x16 PCIe 3.0 expansion slots, although it's unclear how many PCIe each slot features, as well as a PCIe 3.0 M.2 2280 M-key slot for NVMe SSDs and a PCIe 3.0 M.2 E-key slot for a WiFi/Bluetooth module. The board also sports multiple USB/USB 3.0 ports and even a pair of USB-C ports. The press release also mentions both Gigabit and 10 Gbps Ethernet support, as well as support for onboard graphics and remote system management, without going into any further details. It'll be interesting to see if the Horse Creek SoC can deliver on its expected performance target, especially as SiFive has a lot to prove, especially as the company calls the RISC-V architecture inevitable.

The Fractal Design Ridge SFF tower-type case won critical praise including from us, for its unique design, well-planned interiors, and room for even triple-slot graphics cards with a little adjustments. The case relies on a PCIe riser cable to maintain its SFF form, since the graphics card has to be oriented vertically. The riser included with the case meets PCI-Express 4.0 standards, but end-users started experiencing problems running their latest-generation PCIe Gen 4 graphics cards with this case, with the problem being localized to the riser cable. Fractal investigated this issue, and confirmed the issue.

Apparently, the PCIe riser included with the Fractal Ridge, while rated for PCIe Gen 4, has a design flaw that affects signal integrity. The riser is found to be only stable with PCIe Gen 3 or lower. The company is recommending a workaround for end-users while it works on a solution: to confine PCIe to Gen 3 mode using the motherboard's UEFI setup program (BIOS setup program), in which you can restrict the x16 PEG slot to Gen 3 mode. "We are developing a solution to enable full PCIe 4.0 compatibility, but until that is ready, we will update our listings to reflect that only PCIe 3.0 compatibility is guaranteed," the company said in a statement.

Everyone is teleconferencing right now, and working from home is becoming common. That's why Minisforum is introducing an unusual computer MC560 today, a mini PC comes with a 2.5K QHD HDR webcam. It also belongs to a new lineup called Mars, which aims to combine trends and innovations between small form factor desktops and other superior technologies.

MC560 is powered by Ryzen 5 5600U, a 6-core/12-thread chip that clocked at 2.30 (guaranteed base clock) to 4.2 GHz (turbocharged) with 16 MB of level 3 cache. It integrates a Radeon RX Vega 7 integrated graphics card with 7 CUs at up to 1800 MHz. Measuring 4.2 x 2.7 x 6.0 inches, this computer is super compact and has a lower TDP at 15 W.

TrendForce reports that the recent easing of tight supply for components has led to rising shipments for enterprise servers. Furthermore, ODMs for the most part have been able to sustain the momentum of data center build-out with the demand from ByteDance and the tenders issued by Chinese telecom companies. Nevertheless, the performance of the enterprise SSD market on the whole has been impacted by falling NAND Flash prices. For 3Q22, the NAND Flash industry's enterprise SSD revenue dropped by 28.7% QoQ to US$5.22 billion. Furthermore, all enterprise SSD suppliers recorded a negative performance for the period as well.

Regarding individual enterprise SSD suppliers' revenue figures for 3Q22, Samsung posted around US$2.12 billion. Its market share also shrank to 40.6% from 44.5% in 2Q22. Samsung's performance was mainly dragged down by the decline in its NAND Flash ASP. In the aspect of product development, SSDs featuring 128L NAND Flash and PCIe 4.0 will remain Samsung's main offerings for enterprise storage during 2023.

US retailer B&H has kindly provided the first B650 motherboard pricing and it's something of a mixed bag. The company has listed no less than seven different models from MSI, ranging in price from US$199.99 to US$329.99. It doesn't appear as if any of these boards are based on the B650E chipset, but based on information TPU were given at Computex, we know that some higher-end B650 boards will cost around the same as some lower-end B650E boards.

As B&H has only listed key features of the boards, it's hard to tell what features some of the boards offer, but the base model is the mATX Pro B650M-A WiFi, which at the very least has one PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, one PCIe 4.0 x4 slot, one PCIe 3.0 x1 slot and two M.2 slots. The board obviously also has WiFi 6E and somewhat surprisingly has 2.5 Gbps Ethernet. On the other hand, it only has a front header for a USB-C port and none around the back. This type of board was supposed to start at or below the US$150 mark and we'll hopefully see a transition to there in due time.

It's not only Intel that has been showing off new graphics cards recently, as Chinese company Glenfly has revealed more details about its Arise-GT10C0 graphics card. To be clear from the start, this is not a graphics card for gamers, but rather for the PRC government and its computers, as the nation is trying to become self-sufficient when it comes to computer hardware for its government agencies and other government backed organisations. The 28 nm GPU has a clock speed of a whopping 500 MHz and delivers 1.5 TFLOPs of FP32 performance, which places it firmly in yesteryear's performance category. Glenfly claims support for up to 4K resolution, althought this is most likely only for desktop use.

The GPU is paired with 2 or 4 GB of DDR4 memory with a clock speed of 1200 MHz, using either a 64 or a 128 bit memory interface. The actual cards have a PCIe 3.0 x8 interface and have support for unspecified HDMI and DP interfaces, as well as D-Sub VGA ports. Driver support includes DirectX 11, OpenGL 4.5 and OpenCL 1.2. The GPU is also said to have hardware offload support for HEVC and H.264 hardware encoding, as well as decoding for both formats, plus most other common video formats, although, oddly enough, support for AVS, which is China's homebrewed video codec, is missing. OS support includes various Chinese flavours of Linux, Ubuntu and Windows according to Glenfly and outside of the x86 processor world, MIPS and arm based processors are said be supported.

Slowly but surely, we're getting more and more details about upcoming AM5 motherboards and ASRock has put up a very spec light page for its upcoming X670E Pro RS motherboard. Not much has changed since the Computex reveal, but the product page did contain a couple of extra board shots as well as a look at the rear I/O. This time around the M.2 WiFi card slot is also populated, suggesting that there will be a WiFi version of this model shipping. The board has a single "Blazing" M.2 slot for a PCIe 5.0 SSD as well as what should be three PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, of which two come with a shared heatsink and one has no heatsink at all. The final M.2 slot is limited to PCIe 3.0. As this is an X670E board, the PCIe x16 slot is of course PCIe 5.0.

Other features include Realtek's Dragon branded 2.5 Gbps Ethernet controller that has some gaming specific software. It appears that ASRock has trimmed the audio jacks to a bare minimum, with only a line out, a mic in and an optical S/PDIF being connected to the Realtek ALC897 audio codec. The board also has a single USB-C port around the back, although it's at least a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port (20 Gbps). There are a total of five USB-A 3.2 ports, of which one is capable of 10 Gbps speeds, with the other delivering 5 Gbps. There are also four USB 2.0 ports, a DP and HDMI port, as well as a UEFI/BIOS update button around the back. Other expansion options include an internal USB-C header and two PCIe x1 slots of unknown type, as well as six SATA ports and two USB 3.x type headers. This should be one of the more affordable X670E motherboards when the AM5 platform launches later this year.

For those wondering what happened to the Intel 12VO standard for motherboards, well, it's not dead, but it seems like the motherboard makers have chosen to largely ignore it. However, MSI has just launched a new 12VO motherboard, the PRO H610M 12VO, which is as the model name implies, a H610 based mATX motherboard. MSI is targeting the PRO H610M 12VO towards business computers and it's not hard to see why once you take a closer look at the specs. This is a bare minimum board in every aspect possible, with the chipset covered by the smallest of heatsinks and the VRMs getting none at all.

The board has a mere two DDR5 memory slots, one PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot for an NVMe drive, a single x16 PCIe 4.0 slot and a x1 PCIe 3.0 slot, as well as a second M.2 slot for an optional CNVi or PCIe based Wi-Fi module. There's also four SATA ports, an Intel based Gigabit Ethernet port, two rear USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, a PS/2 port and three audio jacks via an ageing Realtek ALC897 audio chip. Rather unusually for a budget board, MSI went with a DisplayPort 1.4 and an HDMI 2.1 port, although both are limited to 4K 60p output and there's also a VGA port, just in case. MSI only appears to provide one power adapter for SATA drives, which seems to be limited to two SATA power connectors, although there's a second connector on the board, for a second SATA power cable. Overall, not a particularly impressive product, but it does at least keep Intel's 12VO platform alive for another day.