An intriguing entry has appeared on the Geekbench Browser site, the information was uploaded with a timestamp from this morning (11:07 am on April 20 to be specific) pointing to a mobile ASUS device that was tested in GeekBench 5. The archived info dump reveals that the subject matter of the benchmark was the ASUS ROG Ally handheld gaming console, which has received a lot of attention in recent weeks - with it being touted as a very serious alternative to Valve's Steam Deck, a handheld gaming PC that is quite popular with enthusiasts. The ROG Ally will need to offer a potent hardware package if it stands to compete directly with the Steam Deck, and the latest information confirms that this new contender is very promising in that department. Geekbench 5 awarded an impressive OpenCL score of 35498 to the RC71L variant of the ROG Ally, an RC71X-assigned model is known to exist but details of its exact nature have not been revealed. This particular ROG Alloy unit was running Windows 11 Home (64-bit) under the operating system's performance power plan.

The new entry on Geekbench Browser shows that the Ally is packing an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU, which appears to be a customized version of the Ryzen 7 7840U APU mobile platform chipset - previous rumors have indicated that the latter would be in the driving seat. Both Phoenix range SoCs share the basic 8 cores and 16 thread makeup, but the Z1 Extreme is capable of boosting up to 5.062 GHz from a base frequency of 3.30 GHz. AMD's Radeon 780M iGPU (RDNA 3) is expected to deal with the Ally's graphical aspect, but the benchmark info dump only provides scant details about the GPU (codenamed "gfx1103") - most notably the presence of six computer units, an 800 MHz max frequency, and access to 8.20 GB of video memory. Number crunching boffins have calculated that the Ally could field 768 FP32 cores, courtesy of the dual issue SIMD design inherent to RDNA 3.

As expected, based on yesterday's press release from AUO, its new 540 Hz gaming panel is based on E-TN technology. The E simply stands for Esports and AUO has never really mentioned what the difference is between its E-TN and its regular TN panels. In this case, we already know who AUO is working with, as the monitor on display at Touch Taiwan was the ASUS ROG Swift Pro PG248QP, which was announced at CES earlier this year.

As ASUS has as yet to release the ROG Swift Pro PG248QP, we do at least have some very minor, additional specs of the display panel now. As expected, this is a 1080p panel and AUO claims a sub 1 ms response time, which is hardly unexpected considering the refresh rate. It also has a brightness of 400 cd/m², which is about 50-100 cd/m² better than the best TN panels on the market and it's said to deliver up to 99 percent of the sRGB colour gamut. No other details were provided, so we're just going to have to wait for ASUS to launch the PG248QP before we get the full specs.

Since the ASUS ROG Ally has already shown up on certification sites, it is not surprising that the first specifications have been leaked, including the information that it could come with AMD's Ryzen 7840U Phoenix APU. When the product number has leaked online, it is easy to find traces of it moving between ASUS headquarters. So far, the ASUS ROG Ally has been spotted at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) site with two product codes, the RC71L and the RC71X, which could easily be different memory and storage configurations or even a different color.

While these pre-productions samples shipped around clearly show that the ASUS ROG Ally is powered by AMD's Ryzen 7 7840U APU, the company did mention a "custom" APU, which means that the final product might end up with something different, maybe even just a higher clock. In case you missed earlier leaks, as the AMD Ryzen 7040 U-series is yet to be officially announced, the Ryzen 7 7840U fits into AMD's thin and light segment with TDP ranging from 15 W to 28 W. It is rumored to be an 8-core/16-thread Zen 4 CPU with a 3.3 GHz base clock and features AMD Radeon 780M RDNA 3 architecture GPU with 12 Compute Units (CU), or a total of 768 stream processors. Of course, ASUS might have a different deal with AMD and could use a completely different APU for the final product, but so far, pre-production samples show the Ryzen 7 7840U. ASUS has previously announced that the ROG Ally will be available worldwide and could launch sooner than expected.

ASUS is keeping the hype up for its upcoming ROG Ally handheld console, and now it has confirmed the worldwide release and teased that it could come sooner than anyone expected, which is pretty impressive. Announced on April 1st, the ASUS ROG Ally has impressive specifications, running on yet to be detailed AMD 4 nm custom APU based on Zen 4 CPU and RDNA 3 GPU architecture.

The ASUS ROG Ally measures at 280 x 133 x 39 mm and weighs 608 grams, making it shorter, narrower, thinner, and lighter than its competitor, Valve's Steam Deck. It has a 7-inch display with 1920x1080 resolution, 120 Hz refresh rate, 5 ms response time, and 500 nits of brightness. According to earlier hands-on previews of the prototype from Dave2D and LinusTechTips, ASUS did a great job with the dual-fan cooling solution, making it very quite. It will also have a dedicated PCIE Gen 3 x8 XG connector, which allows it to connect to the recently launched XG Mobile GPU, an external RTX 4090 GPU which retails at $1999.99 in the US. Linus also noted that the ROG Ally will offer 50 percent higher performance at 15 W and twice the performance at 35 W, compared to the Steam Deck. As noted, ASUS has now confirmed that the ROG Ally will launch worldwide, and that it might be sooner that we expect, linking to Best Buy for those that live in North America.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced the all-new ROG Phone 7 series of gaming smartphones at its For Those Who Dare virtual launch event. The ROG Phone 7 series includes the ROG Phone 7 and ROG Phone 7 Ultimate models and is the latest step in the high-performance evolution of the world's greatest gaming phone. This futuristically-styled phone—which sports a new two-tone design—combines the game-winning power of the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform with the advanced GameCool 7 thermal system and special ROG tuning to deliver a truly breathtaking mobile gaming experience—and impressively low power consumption. The key to this power efficiency is the revolutionary new rapid-cycle vapor chamber design, which increases heat dissipation efficiency by up to 168%, allowing the ROG Phone 7 series to run games at full speed while maintaining low temperatures.

To make ROG Phone 7 a powerful and portable theater, we've increased the effective volume of the ROG Phone 7 series' speakers by 50% and tuned the system in cooperation with audio specialists Dirac. ROG Phone 7 series now delivers amazing 2.1-channel sound when the new AeroActive Cooler 7 accessory—which houses a powerful subwoofer—is attached.

ASUS today announced four new NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics cards: the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4070, TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4070, ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 4070 and Dual White GeForce RTX 4070.

The GeForce RTX 4070 GPU includes all the advancements of the NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture, including the new standards in gaming such as DLSS 3 neural rendering and real-time ray tracing technologies. Starting at $599, the GeForce RTX 4070 runs most modern games at over 100 frames per second at 1440p resolution.

As it turned out that ASUS ROG Ally handheld console is not actually an April Fools' Day prank, more details have started to appear about this Steam Deck competitor, and these first details look pretty promising. According to the Dave2D video, showing the prototype unit in full details, the ASUS ROG Ally will indeed be based on a 4 nm custom AMD APU, featuring Zen 4 CPU and RDNA3 iGPU, so we are most likely looking at a custom AMD Phoenix APU.

The video had a few nice pictures of the pre-production PCB as well as the cooling setup as well as details on the screen, and some performance of the ASUS ROG Ally. The ROG Ally measures at 280 x 133 x 39 mm and weighing 608 grams. This makes it shorter, narrower, thinner, as well as lighter, compared to the Steam Deck. It also comes with 7-inch display, but this time around, it is a 500 nits, 1920x1080 resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio, display with a 120 Hz refresh rate and 5 ms response time, which makes it much better compared to the Steam Deck.

Update: LinusTechTips is the second one to get access to ASUS ROG Ally prototype and has provided a bit more details on specifications, performance, and other things about the upcoming handheld console.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced the second project in its ongoing collaboration with ACRONYM, a leading technical apparel company, to create the ROG Flow Z13-ACRNM RMT02 - bringing together the world of fashion, art, tech, Web3 and gaming in a powerful tablet.

Available for sale worldwide starting April 3, 2023, the device features pro-level specs, including an Intel Core i9-13900H processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU. Containing that outsized power is a tablet-sized chassis that's designed to encourage portability and real-world use. The beautifully intricate, custom-machined aluminium creates rigidity. An ingeniously designed integrated carry system uses a versatile strap that lets the device become its own transport system and allows use in multiple modes. Rubber holds are inset to provide grip in every orientation, and the corners are reinforced to keep the machine safe from accidental bumps or drops.

ASUS ROG has started selling its RTX 4090 XG Mobile external graphics card in China and Japan this week. Japanese customers are being charged a cool $3000 for the pint-sized powerhouse external GPU, and Chinese buyers are getting a slightly better deal at $2700. It should be noted that this eGPU is the (GN21-X11) mobile variant of the GeForce RTX 4090, and not the full fat desktop version. The newly updated XG Mobile enclosure can only be connected to an ASUS Flow laptop, which limits the scope of compatibility to an already very expensive range of devices. The proprietary connection standard will keep customers in the ASUS ROG mobile hardware ecosystem - but their higher end laptop models can be configured with the very capable GeForce RTX 4070 mobile GPU, so the RTX 4090 XG Mobile seems to appeal to a very small buying niche.

The XG Mobile interface uses the PCIE Gen 3 x8 standard of connection, and the GPU has access to a dedicated 63 GB/s of bandwidth. This beats the Thunderbolt 4 standard of 40 Gb/s, by a 57% margin. The enclosure acts as a docking station - its features include an up to 2.5 Gbit Ethernet, a single HDMI 2.1 port, one DisplayPort 1.4 with G-Sync support and three USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports (3x Type-A + 1x Type-C). ASUS ROG has engineered the docking station/enclosure to be as compact as possible (21.7 cm x 16.5 cm x 3.26 cm), when compared to competing products from other manufacturers. The whole package weighs in at 1.3 kg, which will ensure decent portability for gamers on the move.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced a partnership with NRG, the legendary esports organization whose top-tier pro gamers have won awards and championships around the world with their play in Apex Legends, VALORANT, Rocket League and more. This year, NRG will have one of only five teams from North America participating in the exclusive VALORANT Champions Tour. Millions of followers have viewed their content over two billion times across TikTok, Twitter, YouTube and other social media. ROG has sponsored NRG teams before and will be sponsoring them once again this year, this time with premium gaming gear including keyboards, mice, headsets and mousepads from its own award-winning arsenal.

ROG is committed to gamers and the gaming community, and peripherals are critical factors to esports performance. With innovative tech built into its latest gaming gear, ROG is combining forces with the elite NRG teams to help pro players perform even better, creating a win-win scenario. The esports-focused peripherals that NRG will receive include the ROG Falchion Ace gaming keyboard, ROG Harpe Ace Aim Lab Edition gaming mouse, ROG Delta S Wireless gaming headset and the ROG Hone Ace Aim Lab Edition mouse pad.

It was only Monday this week that ASUS announced the official launch of the ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM, but now retailers have started to put the display up for pre-order and it looks like for once, ASUS hasn't priced its products higher than the competition. In the US, it appears that the PG27AQDM will retail for US$999, which is the same price that LG is asking for its equivalent Ultragear OLED 27GR95QE-B. ASUS does claim to have higher typical brightness at 450 cd/m² vs a mere 200 cd/m² for the LG, yet somehow also claim to have half the power consumption.

A swift jump over the pond and the PG27AQDM looks a little less exciting, with it coming in at £1,098.95 in the UK and €1,299.99 in Germany and as much as 14,990 kr in Sweden, which puts all three nations at well over US$1,100 excluding any local VAT. That makes LG's Ultragear OLED the far more attractive option in Europe, as it's cheaper in all three countries by the equivalent of around US$100. For those still interested, the bad news is that the display won't arrive in retail until sometime in mid or end of April, depending on the country you live in.

ASUS today formally launched the ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM Monitor. We first spotted this monitor on the show-floor at the 2023 International CES back in January. It is one of the company's fastest monitors with an OLED display panel. The 27-incher offers WQHD (2560 x 1440 pixels) resolution, with a blistering 0.03 ms response time, and 240 Hz refresh rate, and 1,000 nits peak brightness and DCI-P3 coverage of 99%. OLED panels tend to produce more heat than LED-backlit LCD panels, and so ASUS introduced a passive cooling solution to cool it. The monitor supports NVIDIA G-SYNC (compatible), along with VESA Adaptive Sync. Display inputs include a DisplayPort 1.4, and two HDMI 2.0. The company didn't reveal pricing.

ASUS introduced the ROG Strix Impact III, a lightweight, compact, quasi-ambidextrous, wired gaming mouse. Measuring 126 mm x 62 mm x 39 mm (LxWxH), and weighing just 59 g, the mouse is optimized for mainly claw and fingertip grip types, as its slender design may not be the best fit for palm grips. FPS is the most suitable game genre for this mouse. It features a 5-button layout—two main buttons, two left-side buttons, and the middle-click, along with a vertical scrollwheel. There's also a physical button to cycle among dpi presets, which is set in the ROG Armory app. Under the hood, the ROG Strix Impact III rocks a PixArt PAW3318 optical sensor with 12,000 dpi hardware resolution, with 300 ips top speed, and 35 ips acceleration, along with a USB polling rate of 1000 Hz. The main buttons are backed by 70 million-click rated ROG microswitches. PFTE gliding feet, and a braided USB cable makes for the rest of it. The company didn't reveal pricing.

ASUS today announced BIOS updates for its Intel 700 and 600 series motherboards in partnership with Corsair, adding support for up to 192 GB of DDR5 memory and support for the new Corsair Vengeance DDR5 48 GB (2 x 24 GB) 7000 MT/s modules.

When builders acquire a 700 or 600 series Intel motherboard from the ROG Maximus, ROG Strix, ProArt, TUF Gaming or Prime lineups, they often have a choice to make: grab an option with support for budget-friendly last-gen DDR4 memory, or future-proof their purchase with a DDR5 model. As the market for DDR5 RAM has matured, it has become difficult for enthusiasts to ignore the performance potential of next-generation memory. With this latest BIOS update, ASUS motherboards with DDR5 support are formidable options. The entire selection of ASUS 700 and 600 series motherboards now supports the latest 24 and 48 GB DDR5 memory modules.

Over the past month, memory manufacturers started releasing DDR5 memory modules of 24 GB and 48 GB densities, which make up 48 GB (2x 24 GB), 96 GB (2x 48 GB or 4x 24 GB) and even 192 GB (4x 48 GB) capacities. There's only one catch—these modules only work with 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" and 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" processors, as their memory controllers support a maximum of 192 GB of memory, and 24/48/96 GB DIMM densities. MEGAsizeGPU decided to find out what happens when one of these kits is installed on an AMD Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" platform.

A Corsair Vengeance DDR5-5600 48 GB (2x 24 GB) memory kit was installed on a machine consisting of an AMD Ryzen 5 7600X processor, and an ASUS ROG Strix B650E-E Gaming motherboard (BIOS version 1222). It turns out that the machine POSTs, and is able to start the UEFI setup program. Here, the program is able to display the correct 48 GB memory amount, and the memory density of each of the two modules. The trouble is, Windows would not boot, and does not go past the Boot Manager. It halts with an error message that indicates a hardware problem.

ASUS today announced availability of a BIOS update for its X670 and X670E motherboards that enables full compatibility with the latest AMD Ryzen 7000 Series X3D CPUs featuring AMD 3D V-Cache technology.

The proven gaming performance of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU made it a long-standing favorite for PC builders. ASUS motherboards gave those builders high-performance, feature-rich options for assembling a potent gaming machine built around one of these chips. Now, AMD is upping its game with two new Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs with AMD 3D V-Cache technology: the Ryzen 9 7950X3D and the Ryzen 9 7900X3D. Combining a 3D vertical cache and all the advantages of the cutting-edge X670 platform, these chips are poised to seize the gaming performance crown.

EK, the premium PC liquid cooling gear manufacturer, is launching the EK-Quantum Momentum² Strix X670E-I Gaming D-RGB - Plexi, the latest AMD AM5 socket-based monoblock. It is engineered specifically for the ASUS ROG STRIX X670E-I GAMING motherboard and features the latest EK Velocity² cooling engine for top-level CPU cooling. This Quantum line monoblock has addressable D-RGB LED compatible with ASUS Aura Sync RGB control, offering complete lighting customization for every diode at any time. It is also EK-Matrix7 compatible and doesn't require removing the factory-mounted heatsink before installation.

For those that find a 270 Hz refresh rate a bit on the laggy side when gaming at 2560 x 1440, ASUS has updated its ROG Strix series of monitors with the XG27AQMR model. The R on the end of the model name denotes the higher refresh rate, as well as support for DisplayHDR 600 over the previous model in the series. Although the two monitors are said to be using a Fast IPS panel, the new model has a 1 ms Grey to Grey response time, whereas the older model is rated at 0.5 ms.

All the gaming features you'd expect to find are of course included, such are FreeSync Premium Pro and G-Sync compatibility, ELMB which can be combined with FreeSync and various other ASUS specific features such as GameFast Input technology and GameVisual. The inputs haven't changed from the previous model in the series either, which means there's one DP 1.4 port and two HDMI 2.0 ports, as well as a USB-B input and two USB-A ports, all supporting USB 3.2 Gen 1 speeds, or 5 Gbps. The stand supports tilt, swivel, pivot and height adjustment. No word on pricing, but the previous model retails for around US$650, so we'd expect a small price premium on top of that for the higher refresh rate and improved HDR support.

Eiswolf 2 AiO - now also for custom designs of RTX 4080/4090 and RX 7900XT/XTX GPUs! Alphacool presents additional innovative solutions for cooling Nvidia's Geforce RTX 4080 and 4090 and AMD's RX 7900XT/XTX graphics cards.

The enormous waste heat of the new graphics card generation is excellently dissipated with these coolers. The very good water flow and the large cooling surface are due to the particularly filigree fin structure. The jet plate with revised inflow engine also distributes the water perfectly on the cooling fins. The complete chrome plating of the cooler not only provides resistant protection against acids, scratches and damage, but also achieves a beautiful homogeneity and remarkable shine. The Aurora design of the cooler is kept visually calm and simple. This is evident not only in the cooler's design, but also in the wonderfully even lighting achieved via digitally addressable RGB LEDs.

AMD's high-end X670E motherboard chipset combines two Promontory 21 chips working together to deliver a single solution. With regularly-sized ATX motherboards, having two chips to form a chipset is fine, as there is much room on the PCB. However, with Mini-ITX motherboards, packing two Promontory 21 chips is difficult as the PCB area is limited. To combat this, ASUS introduced an interesting solution to solve the problem and allowed the company to ship the high-end X670E chipset inside a Mini-ITX form factor. Thanks to UNIKO's Hardware's findings, we look at the exciting solution ASUS used to solve this problem.

Instead of two Promontory 21 chips side by side, one is placed on the motherboard directly, while the other stands vertically attached by M.2 PCIe slot. Below, the chipset's pictures and the highlight show how it looks disassembled.

ASUS at the 2023 International CES showed off its first gaming-grade next-generation WiFi 7 (802.11be) routers. These include the ASUS RT-BE96U dual-band WiFi 7 router under the company's main marquee, and the ROG Rapture GT-BE98, which the company says is the world's first quad-band WiFi 7 gaming router. The RT-BE96U features two 10 GbE ports, and has a total network switching bandwidth of 19 Gbps. The router includes a 6 GHz frequency band with 320 MHz radio band and 4096 QAM, which doubles the data-rate over WiFi 6E. The router supports WiFi 7 MLO (multi-link operation), allowing data-transmissions to span multiple frequency bands at the same time. The WLAN module also supports Multi-RU punctuating that works to reduce channel interference. The ROG Rapture GT-BE98 supports nearly all the features of the RT-BE96U, but with a quad-band radio setup, with peak switching bandwidth of 25 Gbps. Besides these, the router gets the distinctive ROG product styling, several game-specific QoS optimizations, game console optimizations, and Aura RGB LED setup that can sync with your PC's Aura setup over network.

ASUS ROG showed off a slender lineup of gaming input devices at the 2023 International CES. These included the ROG Azoth wireless keyboard, and the ROG Harpe Ace Aim Lab Edition wireless mouse. Both of these are being offered as tournament-grade peripherals for e-sports professionals, implementing the ASUS ROG SpeedNova ultra low-latency wireless technology. The ROG Azoth is a slick compact wireless keyboard with an 81-key set (not including the volume rocker). It is characterized by an monochrome OLED display that can be programmed to display real-time HUD information from the game, hardware monitoring, or just about anything.

The ASUS ROG Azoth features hot-swappable, ROG NX mechanical switches that are factory pre-lubed; along with ROG keyboard stabilizers, and PBT doubleshot keycaps. The keyboard features a gasket-mount design with 3-layer dampening. The switches can be re-lubricated, a starter kit is included with the keyboard. The ROG SpeedNova wireless module supports RF, Bluetooth, as well as USB direct connection. The ROG Harpe Ace Aim Lab Edition is a 54 g ultra-lightweight wireless gaming mouse with a 3+2 button set, along with Aim Lab Settings Optimizer. Under the hood is a 36,000 dpi ROG Aimpoint sensor, and the ROG SpeedNova wireless tech. The mouse offers up to 90 hours of playtime in its 2.4 GHz RF mode (with the lighting turned off).

ASUS today announced the ROG Rapture GT-BE98, the world's first quad-band WiFi 7 gaming router, and the ASUS RT-BE96U, a tri-band WiFi 7 router for home and business, at CES 2023. Both routers feature the latest technologies exclusive to WiFi 7, including extended 320 MHz channels in the 6 GHz band, 4K QAM modulation, Multi-Link Operation and Multi-RU Puncturing.

For businesses, ASUS is also unveiling three new ExpertWiFi devices: the EBM68 mesh system, EBR63 router and EBA63 access point, with more networking solutions to follow in the second half of 2023. These devices support the highest number of SSIDs in the industry, self-defined networks, up to 12 mesh nodes, and enterprise-grade network security. Each device can be easily managed using the free ASUS Router mobile app. For locations impacted by thick walls made of brick or concrete, ASUS offers the ZenWiFi Hybrid XC5, the world's first Multimedia over Coaxial (MoCA) mesh router, which provides four ways to connect to hybrid backhauls while supporting up to 2.5 Gbps connections through wired backhauls.

ASUS and ROG today announced an exciting lineup of displays for gaming, professional content creation, hybrid work, and entertainment. ROG continues to drive display innovation with the introduction of Swift OLED PG27AQDM, the first ROG 1440p OLED gaming monitor, and Swift Pro PG248QP, the world's fastest esports gaming monitor that delivers supersmooth visuals at an astounding 540 Hz. Also on show were the new ultra-wide curved 49-inch Strix XG49WCR, the Swift PG32UQXR DisplayPort 2.1 gaming monitor, and TUF offerings for mainstream gamers.

Content creators will appreciate the latest ProArt Display OLED PA32DCM and ProArt Display PA279CRV. The former is an advanced 4K UHD DCI-P3 professional monitor that features an RGB Stripe OLED panel with 700 nits maximum brightness. ProArt Display PA279CRV is a 4K UHD IPS monitor that features 99% DCI-P3/Adobe RGB, and includes USB-C with 96 W power delivery, so it's perfect for MacBook and Windows laptop users. Plus, it meets EPEAT Gold, ENERGY STAR, and TCO global environmental standards.

ASUS showed us its GeForce RTX 4080 Noctua Edition graphics card that it formally announced yesterday. To call this card thick would be an understatement, as it's possibly the first graphics card that is 5 slots thick! The card easily overshoots what constitutes 4 slots, and is technically 4.2 to 4.3 slots; but then expansion slot counts are whole numbers rounded to the next digit despite what marketing says.

This card combines an ASUS ROG Strix RTX 4080 PCB with an air-based cooling solution designed by Noctua. The cooler has two large aluminium fin-stacks that have been skewered by eight 6 mm-thick nickel-plated copper heatpipes, and ventilated by a pair of Noctua's top-of-the-line NF-A12x25 120 mm fans that feature fluid-dynamic bearings. The fan-tuning for this card is a Noctua-ASUS collaboration, and promises to make this the quietest air-cooled RTX 4080 you can buy.