ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced collaboration centered around EVA-02 and Asuka from the long-celebrated Evangelion anime series. PC DIY builders and anime lovers can now enjoy a second impact of premium ROG components and peripherals elevated by the classic EVA-02 red and orange colorway with a variety of custom Evangelion-themed decals and graphics. The new powerhouse arsenal includes a ROG Maximus motherboard, ROG Strix GeForce RTX graphics card, ROG Ryujin AIO cooler, ROG Hyperion gaming case, graphics card holder, peripherals and other gear.

ROG Maximus Z790 Hero EVA-02 Edition motherboard
This special version of the feature-packed ROG Maximus Z790 Hero arrives with EVA-02's signature red and orange theme, with traces of green. The backplate design comes with EVA-02 Beast Mode and Evangelion patterns, supporting this motherboard's immense power and control, as it takes 13th Gen Intel Core processors and DDR5 memory kit to the next level. And an A.T. Field design around the CPU socket and Polymo lighting on the I/O cover switches between Asuka and regular EVA-02 as another artistic flourish.

ASUS is readying a wider range of Evangelion-themed ROG product line, building on the collaboration the company built with the popular Japanese action anime in 2022. The 2023 lineup is comprehensive, and includes a special Evangelion edition of the ROG Maximus Z790 Hero motherboard, special edition variants of GeForce RTX 40-series ROG Strix graphics cards (could be anything from the RTX 4070 thru RTX 4090), a special edition ROG Hyperion GR701 case, themed ROG Ryujin II AIO CPU cooler, a themed ROG Thor ATX 3.0 power supply, and lastly, keycap and body panel sets for its various ROG gaming peripherals. ASUS is planning to showcase the 2023 Evangelion lineup at Bilibili World, later this month.

A few weeks ago, we reported that NVIDIA is already shipping its GeForce RTX 4070 Founders Edition cards with an improved 12VHPWR connector called 12V-2x6. However, today we learn that NVIDIA is also now shipping GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition with an improved 12V-2x6 connector. Thanks to the Reddit user u/prackprackprack posting in r/NVIDIA, the user reported that his Founders Edition RTX 4090 has shortened sensing pins on the connector. If not adequately plugged in, the sensing pins will not allow the card to draw full power and melt the connector. Besides RTX 4070 FE, the RTX 4090 FE is now updated as well, which makes sense as it is the most power-hungry card in the family. However, this may be a partial 12V-2x6 implementation. Below, you can see images showing shortened sensing pins.

An ASUS ROG MATRIX GeForce RTX 4090 overclocked by Splave became the first graphics card to break the 4 GHz GPU clock barrier. The card was overclocked to a blistering 4005 MHz GPU clock while leaving the memory untouched at 21 Gbps. The card was GPU Pi stable, and went on to set the single GPU record of 45.402 seconds. The ROG MATRIX was cooled using a liquid nitrogen evaporator, while the Core i9-13900K powering the rig was on AIO liquid CPU cooling. The CPU was left at stock frequency, and the memory ticked at vanilla DDR5-4800. The HWBOT validation of the feat can be accessed here.

GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4090 WindForce V2 may not be the company's most premium RTX 4090 custom-design graphics card, but it has arguably the best power connector design. Almost every custom RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 comes with a design where in the PCB is half or two-thirds the length of the card, and the remainder of the length is dedicated to the cooling solution, where the heatsink can extend along the thickness of the card. In case of the RTX 4090 WindForce V2, this extended portion of the cooler is recessed by half, exposing the tail end of the PCB. The 16-pin 12VHPWR power input is pointed toward the tail-end, rather than toward the top of the card.

This makes cabling very convenient, as it no longer needs to bend nearly 180° as it emerges from the back of your motherboard tray. The power cable goes straight into the connector with no bending up to a roughly 8 cm length, before making a 90° turn to the back of your motherboard tray, reducing mechanical strain on the connector. Even the NVIDIA-designed adapter included with the card (the one that converts 4x 8-pin to a 12VHPWR), should look neater. It's likely that as a WindForce-series product, this card offers the lowest tier of factory overclocks by GIGABYTE. You still get dual-BIOS, which lets you toggle between this factory-OC, and a Silent BIOS that runs the card at reference speeds, with tighter fan tuning. The selling point, however, is its unique power connector design.

With the HEATKILLER V Pro for ASUS RTX 4090 STRIX and TUF, WATERCOOL proudly presents its latest cooler generation suitable for the GeForce RTX 4090 High-End models from ASUS. For this purpose, the cooler has been redesigned from scratch and features a modular high-performance base plate as a special "highlight," which massively increases the cooling performance once again.

In addition, the cooler uses approved technologies like the dual layer inflow and symmetrically designed cooling channels. To keep the hot GDDR6X memory in control, special high-performance thermal pads are included in the scope of delivery. The HEATKILLER V Pro for ASUS RTX 4090 STRIX and TUF will be available in the coming days from select retailers as well as directly from Watercool's online store, but with some waiting time.

Here's the first picture of the bare PCB of the upcoming ASUS ROG MATRIX GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card, courtesy of der8auer, who was given access to the card as part of a G.Skill overclocking event. We spotted a fully assembled version of this card on the Computex floor earlier. The PCB is essentially of the same design as the ROG Strix RTX 4090, but with some major changes. The card draws power from a single 16-pin 12VHPWR connector, and we're hearing that the card's power limits will be the highest ever allowed by NVIDIA for any custom RTX 4090, perhaps even getting close to the 600 W continuous design limit of the connector.

The card features a 24-phase VRM for the GPU power phases, and a 4-phase VRM for the 24 GB of GDDR6X memory across a 384-bit memory interface. We cannot make out the exact DrMOS components for this VRM, but der8auer says these are 70 A-rated MPS-sourced DrMOS (the ROG Strix uses 70 A DrMOS sourced from OnSemi). Although one can't tell just by looking, ASUS says that it has deployed a network of SMD thermal sensors across the critical areas of the card, such as individual rows of memory chips, or DrMOS. This is essentially ASUS's inspiration of the late EVGA iCX. There is a physical dual-BIOS switch, some consolidated voltage measurement points, and some fan and lighting headers, but that's about it.

Leadtek revealed its GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Hurricane custom graphics card at the tail end of last month. The latest refresh of the company's Hurricane cooling solution looked very space age with its curved central X-formation design. Leadtek has chosen to expand upon this aesthetic with bigger brother NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40-series cards shown off at Computex this week. The company's WinFast GPU lineup has grown with the additions of RTX 4090 Hurricane 24G, RTX 4080 Hurricane 16G, RTX 4070 Ti Hurricane 12G and RTX 4070 Hurricane 12G models.

All of these units sport metal backplates, but there are some differences in the makeup of attached cooling solutions. The RTX 4090 and 4080 models are cooled by a triple (100 m) fan array and eight heat pipes. The RTX 4070 Ti sports three "large" fans (size not specified) and six heat pipes. The RTX 4070 (non-Ti) makes do with only a pair of "large" fans, but has the same number of heat pipes (six) as its immediate sibling, albeit packed into a much shorter surround.

Schenker XMG also unveiled the new PRO 16 Studio workstation laptop at the Computex 2023 event, which will be equipped with an Intel Core i9-13900H CPU and up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070. In addition, the company is announcing the new WORK Base series and Vision-series laptops that are available under the Schenker brand, introducing new form-factors and bringing several other updates.

The new XMG Pro 16 Studio promises to be quite a versatile workstation laptop aimed at content creators, using a 16:10 aspect ratio screen, and packing some serious power with Intel's Core i9-13900H CPU and up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card, as well as two DDR5 slots with DDR5-5200 support, and Thunderbolt 4. The XMG Pro 16 Studio also comes with NVIDIA Studio certification. Schenker also showed the efficient vapor chamber cooling that will be used in the XMG Pro 16 Studio. It also brings several upgrades compared to the current XMG Focus 16 laptop, which it can be compared to, at least performance-wise, including an additional USB-C power delivery, a Windows Hello camera, 2.5 Gbit LAN, longer battery life, and a slimmer aluminium body. Schenker notes that the XMG PRO 16 Studio should be available in Europe in late July or early August.

At the 2023 Computex, FSP showed us their CUT592 ATX mid-tower case designed for easy cable routing. Its core design innovation sees the right-side wall of the bottom partition pushed to the edge, with openings into the crawl-space behind the motherboard tray, minimizing at least one tight bend from the PSU cables from pushing against the right side panel. Also, not the entire motherboard tray has a crawl space, it's been recessed toward the front portion such that two 120 mm fans fit in there (from a 240 mm AIO), better utilizing that space. The case has been extensively tested with custom-design GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards to ensure clearance. The top- and front panels of the case each support 360 mm radiators. The front panel can be switched between a finer mesh and a coarser one. Front panel connectivity includes a 10 Gbps-capable USB 3.2 type-C port, besides type-A.

Akasa might be the most well known third party housing manufacturer for Intel's NUC series of devices, most of which offer passive cooling and full aluminium construction. At Computex, Akasa was showing off its Cypher X133 which the company has been selling to system integrators for some time already, but there hasn't been a public announcement. The reason for keeping this product on the low is because it's using a low profile, server grade liquid cooling solution which takes some skill to install in the compact chassis. That said, the entire internals slide out on rails, which should make most parts much easier to access than in a typical chassis this size.

Even though it's a compact chassis, it can house an NVIDIA RTX 4090 graphics card, in addition to the NUC 13 Extreme, which is no small feat. That said, the width limit sits at 3.9 slots for the GPU, so some custom models with wider coolers might not work. The chassis is very much a premium product with a very nice finish that is easily comparable to high-end notebooks. Hopefully Akasa will figure out a way to make a more DIY friendly version of this chassis, although it's possible that the price tag will be too high for this to make sense as a DIY build.

ASUS at the 2023 Computex launched the ROG MATRIX GeForce RTX 4090, its absolute top-end custom-design graphics card, designed to be the fastest money can buy. The card features the industry's highest factory-overclock for an RTX 4090, and has its power limits set squarely at 600 W, maxing out the single 16-pin 12VHPWR connector. The card also features the strongest VRM solution ever by ASUS for a graphics card, to hold this PL. The star attraction with this card is that it is marketed as the first graphics card that incorporates liquid metal technology.

What it essentially means, is that the cooling solution uses liquid-metal thermal interface material (TIM) for the GPU. The enthusiasts among you know how difficult it is to apply and maintain liquid metal, and ASUS is among the first companies to do this on an industrial scale, using a fully automated process. The company originally designed this mechanized liquid-metal TIM application technique for its high-end notebooks, but figured it could use it even for graphics cards. Liquid-metal TIMs offer the highest possible thermal conductivity as the TIM is pure metal. It's also electrically conductive, which is why application and maintenance is extremely difficult. ASUS innovated a cold-plate design specifically for this task, so the graphics card could survive international shipping from its factories. A third innovation by ASUS has been to develop a special multi-layer resin that protects the SMD components on the PCB against being shorted by the liquid-metal. ASUS is so confident in its liquid-metal technology, that the company is backing this graphics card with a comprehensive 5-year warranty.

At its Computex 2023 showcase and ASUS HQ tour for the press, the company has unveiled a new ASUS ROG concept graphics card based on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 design, that actually has no standard power connectors, but draws power from the motherboard via a proprietary slot.

As noted, the graphics card is still in its concept phase, and actually draws power from a special PCIe like slot connector at the bottom of the graphics card. Of course, this also means that it will need a special motherboard, which ASUS had on display as well. The motherboard is based on a Z790 TUF Gaming motherboard, with a design that had all the connectors at the back of the motherboard. In addition to the standard power and other connectors like SATA ports, it also includes three 8-pin PCIe and single 12VHPWR connector, which are meant to power the graphics card. Of course, such motherboard also requires a special PC case that have cut-outs for those connectors.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of premium gaming hardware, today launched the top-grade water-cooled external graphics - AORUS RTX 4090 GAMING BOX. AORUS RTX 4090 GAMING BOX is equipped with the most powerful NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture - GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card and the Thunderbolt 3 high-speed transmission interface. It endows ultrabooks with 3D computational performance beyond imagination, transforming ultrabooks into game platforms with full ray tracing and becoming a reliable assistant for creators, creating an unprecedented work efficiency experience. In addition, the AORUS WATERFORCE Cooling System is the only solution that combines performance and comfort, allowing users to enjoy a quiet and comfortable environment while handling heavy work.

The AORUS RTX 4090 GAMING BOX is the top-of-the-line water-cooled external graphics box in the market. It enables users to enjoy top-level GeForce RTX 4090 performance with independent high-wattage and stable power supply, while enjoying a quiet and comfortable environment. AORUS has minimized the size of the GAMING BOX, taking up minimal desktop space, making it the ideal companion for ultrabooks.

As COMPUTEX once again opens its door, MSI, the world leader in gaming, content creation, business & productivity, and AIoT solutions, is all geared up to dominate the show floor with a full slate of new lineup and its Best Choice Award honorees. "We are thrilled to be back at COMPUTEX," said Sam Chern, MSI Vice President of Marketing. "We expect to see users' tech experiences reinvented and MSI is at the forefront. Our COMPUTEX 2023 lineup showcases the ultimate fusion of breakthrough technology and everlasting aesthetics that surpasses all limits and indulges global users with the best possible experience like never before."

This year, MSI themes its booth around The Leap to Singularity, envisioning a future in which the technological singularity brings forth superintelligence to improve human lives. Among the highlights on display will be the Raider GE78 HX Smart Touchpad, Stealth 16 and Creator Z17 laptops powered by up to 13th Gen Intel Core i9 processors and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics, making them powerhouses for gamers and creators alike.

Galax has expanded its NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card lineup with a new Hydro models available in white or black - the latter will become available at a later date. The new design sports a 360 mm AIO liquid cooler with a triple-fan setup and 50 cm long tubing, which seems to be a first for Galax - all of its previously released GeForce RTX 40-series cards have been air-cooled. A full-cover aluminium alloy backplate is attached, according to Galax's product page.

It is not clear where the RTX 4090 Hydro cards sit in Galax's model rankings, but the pair look to be positioned below their flagship air-cooled HoF (Hall of Fame) sibling. The HoF boasts a 2595 MHz boost clock plus a 1-Click OC Clock of 2610 MHz (enabled via Galax's software), while the Hydro makes do with a 2580 MHz boost clock which aligns it with the 4090 SG 1-Click OC (air-cooled) variant, but the specification sheet points to the Hydro missing Galax's software-enabled overclock feature.

ADATA, the world's leading memory module and flash memory brand, in association with its subsidiary gaming performance brand, XPG, will take part in the world's largest computer trade show in Taipei from May 30 to June 2, 2023- Computex Taipei. As an industry leader, ADATA continues to implement the company's brand philosophy of "Innovating the Future" through its businesses. In addition to providing new technological products and solutions, ADATA is also committed to promoting the sustainable development of corporations in order to lead the future.

To realize this year's theme of "The Xtreme Future Leader - Infinite Innovation," ADATA has leveraged emerging technologies to launch new products that are sustainable and extraordinarily innovative including the most powerful Gen 5 SSD, industry-leading CXL (Compute Express Link) memory module, CAMM (Compression Attached Memory Module), XPG titanium power supply (XPG FUSION 1600 W), and professional industrial solutions. Be sure to visit Computex to experience a full range of new products!

An AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card is capable of trading blows with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, as overclocker jedi95 found out. With its power limits unlocked, the RX 7900 XTX was found reaching engine clocks as high as 3.46 GHz, significantly beyond the "architected for 3.00 GHz" claim AMD made in its product unveil last Fall. At these frequencies, the RX 7900 XTX is found to trade blows with the RTX 4090, a segment above its current segment rival, the RTX 4080.

Squeezing 3.46 GHz out of the RX 7900 XTX is no child's play, jedi95 used an Elmor EVC2SE module for volt-modding an ASUS TUF Gaming RX 7900 XTX, essentially removing its power-limit altogether. He then supplemented the card's power supply, so it could draw as much as 708 W (peak), to hold its nearly 1 GHz overclock. A surprising aspect of this feat is that an exotic cooling solution, such as liquid-nitrogen evaporator, wasn't used. A full-coverage water block and DIY liquid cooling did the job. The feat drops a major hint at how AMD could design the upcoming Radeon RX 7950 XTX despite having maxed out the "Navi 31" silicon with the RX 7900 XTX. The company could re-architect the power-supply design to significantly increase power limits, and possibly even get the GPU to boost to around the 3 GHz-mark.

The White Edition model range expands with the Trinity OC White Edition. With its signature sleek design, the 40-Series Trinity OC White Edition GPUs walk the fine line between sophistication, minimalist design, and performance.

ICONIC WHITE
Gracefully pure and beautifully elegant, the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 40 Series White Edition GPUs are the culmination of sleek design and the allure to build the desirable. The White Edition series walk the fine line between sophistication and function, expressing the pure essence of clean design overlaying the raw performance underneath.

Lian Li has updated the impressive V3000 Plus case to a beautiful new white finish. The Lian Li V3000 Plus White is the ideal choice for the enthusiast who wants plenty of space to build a custom white gaming PC. Boasting an impressive ability to facilitate three different modes of interior layout, this case is an ideal foundation for a wide range of builds.

New Look for an Old Favorite
The Lian Li V3000 Plus White keeps the same outstanding styling found on its black counterpart. The V3000 Plus has kept the impressive glass panels on each side, but made them crystal clear, alongside changing the finish to a pure white. Thanks to these two factors combined, you can build a clean gaming PC that highlights your components.

NVIDIA today announced the "Unleash Your Ultimate" game bundle. The company is bundling "Overwatch 2" Ultimate Battle Pass with new purchases of GeForce RTX 40-series graphics cards, namely the RTX 4090, RTX 4080, RTX 4070 Ti, and the newly launched RTX 4070. The bundle covers eligible graphics cards purchased between April 13 2023 and May 8 2023; with the key redemption period ending on June 8 2023. The offer is only available in select regions, and through participating retailers.

CD PROJEKT RED's Cyberpunk 2077 is already one of the most technologically advanced games available, using several ray tracing techniques to render its neon-illuminated environments and vast Night City visuals at incredible levels of detail. Now, a new Cyberpunk 2077 update has hit the streets, featuring the technology preview of the Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode, which enhances the game's already-amazing visuals with full ray tracing, otherwise known as path tracing.

Full ray tracing accurately simulates light throughout an entire scene. It is used by visual effects artists to create film and TV graphics that are indistinguishable from reality, but until the arrival of GeForce RTX GPUs with RT Cores, and the AI-powered acceleration of NVIDIA DLSS, real-time video game full ray tracing was impossible because it's extremely GPU intensive. Previous techniques separately addressed ray-traced shadows, reflections and global illumination for a small number of light sources. Full ray tracing models the properties of light from a virtually unlimited number of emissive sources, delivering physically correct shadows, reflections and global illumination on all objects. The technology preview for Cyberpunk 2077's Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode is a sneak peek into the future of full ray tracing, and we are working with CD PROJEKT RED on further full ray tracing enhancements, bug fixes, and performance optimizations.

A special edition of the Colorful GeForce RTX 4090 has been spotted online, the Colorful RTX 4090 iGame LAB. This will be a special limited edition graphics card designed specifically for overclocking. Spotted over on Bilibili.com, the Colorful RTX 4090 iGame LAB will be only made in 300 units and looks similar to the Colorful iGame Vulcan version, just in white color. The card is a result of Colorful's in-house overclocking team and will apparently have binned GPUs, which means it could reach higher clocks.

Since there is no Colorful RTX 4090 iGame KUDAN version, the iGame LAB will take the flagship place. According to the specifications the RTX 4090 iGame LAB will still feature a single 16-pin power connector which means it will still be limited to 600 W. The specifications also mention the 2625 MHz Boost GPU clock. Unfortunately, there is no word on global availability or will it be limited to China only.

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.

In an interview done by PCWorld's Gordon Ung at GDC 2023, CD Projekt Red's VP and Global Art Director, Jakub "Kuba" Knapik, and NVIDIA's Senior Developer Technology Engineer, Pawel Kozlowski, shed a bit more light about the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 Path Tracing update and what it brings to the game as well as what kind of hardware will you need to run it.

In case you missed it earlier, both CD Projekt RED and NVIDIA did talk about the RTX Path Tracing Overdrive Mode for Cyberpunk 2077, which will launch on April 11th. This will be a part of the Cyberpunk 2077 Update 1.62, which should bring additional gameplay improvements as well. It is worth to note that Path Tracing will be introduced to the game as a "technology preview," Jakub notes, as the developer is implementing this technology with NVIDIA and it is still a work in progress.