AMD today gave its Radeon RX 6000 series a pretty broad-ranging update with the introduction of three new SKUs, the Radeon RX 6950 XT, the RX 6750 XT, and the RX 6650 XT. The RX 6950 XT and RX 6750 XT are positioned at competitive price-points of $1,099 and $549, respectively, and they push the RX 6900 XT and RX 6700 XT down to lower price-points. The RX 6650 XT, however, replaces the RX 6600 XT at $399, which gets retired from the product-stack.

All three of these are based on the same 7 nm (TSMC N7) silicon fabrication node, and the same exact RDNA2 architecture as the cards they're displacing/replacing; but AMD has developed them in three distinct directions. The first of course is at the firmware/software level, which is a mysterious secret-sauce and probably has to do with the boosting algorithm. The second is increased GPU clocks, and the third is faster memory, with 18 Gbps-rated GDDR6 memory deployed on all three cards. AMD claims that the RX 6950 XT beats the GeForce RTX 3090 and the RTX 3080 Ti; the RX 6750 XT increases lead over the RTX 3070 and gains on the RTX 3070 Ti; while the RX 6650 XT increases lead over the RTX 3060, gaining in on the RTX 3060 Ti.Check out the TechPowerUp reviews of the MSI RX 6950 XT Gaming X, Sapphire RX 6950 XT NITRO+ Pure, GIGABYTE RX 6950 XT Gaming OC, MSI RX 6750 XT Gaming X, ASUS ROG Strix RX 6750 XT OC, and MSI RX 6650 XT Gaming X

Creative Labs is a name that's as old as PC gaming itself—pioneering PC audio since its formative years. The Creative Sound Blaster line of sound cards helped generations of gamers realize the power of high-quality audio in competitive gaming—when you can hear what your rivals don't. Your GPU will only show you what's on the screen, but not enemies hidden around the corners. Most competitive games have audio cues such as footsteps, reload sounds, or taunts. This is where Creative's engineering steps in—the highest quality DACs, paired with the best DSPs fine-tuned for various genres of games; and a purpose-designed set of analog components that present that best possible sound-stage for gaming, as well as high-resolution lossless music listening for audiophiles.

Creative Labs partners with TechPowerUp to bring gamers special discounts on its entire range of gaming DACs and sound cards. The Sound BlasterX G6 is best suited for game consoles, such as the Xbox One/Series, PlayStation 4/5, Switch, and PCs. It takes in analog or digital (optical) input from your device, and processes it for high-quality amplified analog output, along with Game Voice Mix, Scout Mode, and more. The Sound Blaster GC7 supercharges game streamers' desktops, with studio-quality audio mixing controls right at your fingertips, along with Creative's top-of-the-line Super X-Fi audio circuitry. The Sound Blaster X4 is a powerful, well-priced USB DAC that works with all consoles and PCs, including most essential DSP controls right on the device. Still in two minds about whether you even need special gaming audio hardware? Check out our post on the topic aptly named USB Sound Cards Explained: Tech, Benefits, Do I Need One?.

Use the TechPowerUp-exclusive coupon code POWERUP15 to avail 15% Off on the entire range of DACs and sound cards from Creative, on the Creative United States online store. Offer valid until July 31, 2022.

Buy Creative Sound Blaster Sound Cards and Gaming DACs

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the popular graphics sub-system information, diagnostic, and monitoring utility. Version 2.46.0 introduces support for the AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT, RX 6750 XT, and RX 6650 XT. It also improves support for Intel Arc "Alchemist" GPUs. Support is added for rare graphics cards, such as the GA107-based GeForce RTX 2050, and NVIDIA A30. Support is also improved for Xe LP-based iGPUs in "Alder Lake" mobile processors, and the Glenfly GPU. The core driver of GPU-Z has been updated to no longer require an SSE2-capable CPU. AMD's 2022-series drivers are correctly labeled as "AMD Software." Resizable BAR misreading on AGP graphics cards has been fixed.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.46.0

EK Water Blocks, possibly the most notable manufacturer of DIY PC cooling solutions, has downsized a quarter of its staff in response to a sharp drop in sales. This affects over 60 of the 200+ tech jobs in Slovenia, the home country of EKWB, something it proudly flaunts. EKWB sees its sales principally split in half between the North American and European markets. The company's market-presence in Asia is limited at this time, although it is now a reinvigorated area of interest. The company noticed quarterly sales-drops in steps as big as 20 percent since October 2021, according to Slovenian press reports.

The company is faulting these sales drops on the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically its economic impact, spike in PC hardware prices, and people spending less on premium/novelty hardware that EKWB principally specializes in—DIY liquid cooling solutions. The company also noted the impact of the war in Ukraine causing various commodity shortages for manufacturers in Europe. Matjaž Krč (CEO, EKWB) in a statement even blamed the sociological impact of COVID-19, specifically gaps between pandemic waves that enable people to travel and enjoy the outdoors—not wanting to spend on things that keep them indoors, such as gaming.

TechPowerUp today released latest version of ThrottleStop by Kevin Glynn. A nifty tool that gives you greater control over the power-management features of your processor, which should prove particularly useful for notebooks, letting you override several OEM power limitations to bring out the best in your hardware. Version 9.4.6 beta introduces several updates and bug fixes. The "Disable and Lock Power Limits" box is now replaced with the MMIO Lock box. The FIVR and TPL window themes have been updated. The Turbo Boost limits and Turbo groups have been combined into the FIVR window. CPU voltage is slightly increased at 800 MHz for stability when undervolting. Compatibility of SpeedStep and SpeedShift with Windows has been increased. The chance for BSODs with voltages set too low, have been reduced. Grab ThrottleStop from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: ThrottleStop by Kevin Glynn 9.4.6 beta

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the graphics sub-system information and diagnostic utility. Version 2.45 introduces support for a number of new GPUs. On the NVIDIA side, we have the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, RTX 3060 Ti (GA103-based), RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU, T1000 8 GB, T400, CMP 170HX, and A16. On the AMD side, we have the Radeon RX 6950 XT, RX 6750 XT, RX 6800S, RX 6700S, RX 6850M XT, RX 6650M XT, W6400, "Barcelo" APU, "Rembrandt APU," and Valve Steam Deck GPU. Preliminary support is also added for Intel Arc "Alchemist" series. Memory size reporting of NVIDIA "Ampere" was improved. Also improved is support for Intel "Alder Lake" iGPUs, support for HBM and DDR4 memory on NVIDIA, and improved "GA106" transistor count.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.45

TechPowerUp and ORICO brought our readers from across the globe, a unique chance to win an ORICO TB3-S2 NVMe SSD Docking Station; and an ORICO PSSD 1 TB biometric-encrypted portable SSD. The TB3-S2 is a 9-in-1 connectivity expander that takes advantage of Thunderbolt 3 to put out a plethora of USB, wired LAN, memory card, connectivity, while also serving as a handy dual M.2 NVMe enclosure. The PSSD is a rugged portable SSD for road-warriors, with a fingerprint reader, and an in-built drive encryption mechanism. The results are in! Without further ado, the winners:

• "vzangel" from Mexico (Twitch and Twitter handle), wins an ORICO TB3-S2 9-in-1 docking station
• "simiaelevatum" from the United States (Twitch handle), wins an ORICO PSSD 1 TB portable SSD

A huge congratulations to you two! ORICO and TechPowerUp will return with more such interesting giveaways.

TechPowerUp and mobility computing hardware major ORICO announce a chance for you to bag one of two pieces of handy ORICO hardware in our latest Giveaway. We are giving away an ORICO PSSD fingerprint-encryption 1 TB portable SSD, and a TB3-S2 9-in-1 Thunderbolt 3 Dual M.2 bay docking station. Announced recently by the company, the TB3-S2 and PSSD boost your mobile productivity, especially if you're carrying around a thin-and-light commercial notebook that has minimal wired connectivity.

The PSSD takes advantage of USB 3.2 Gen 2, offering transfer speeds of 520 MB/s, along with native drive encryption with a biometric fingerprint sensor on drive. The drive comes partitioned with a primary partition that has the biometric security software that can be made to auto-run; which then decrypts the user-area upon successful authentication, either by password or fingerprint. The TB3-S2 is a force-multiplier for thin-and-light notebooks. It packs two M.2 PCIe/NVMe slots, letting you increase storage; along with a plethora of downstream display, USB, wired Ethernet, and audio connectivity. The Giveaway is open Worldwide (wherever legal), with entries open till March 21, 2022. To participate, head down to our Givelab page, where you can not only participate, but also increase your chances of winning, by sharing the giveaway across your social media.

For more information and to participate, visit this page.

TechPowerUp and 1MORE brought our readers from around the world a chance to win a pair of 1MORE Comfobuds 2 true-wireless headphones. Designed for comfort and convenience without compromising on audio quality, the Comfobuds 2 can give you up to 24 hours of listening when taking around with their case, and 6 hours on a full charge. These are designed for the latest audio codecs across both Android and iPhone, leveraging the latest Bluetooth 5 technology. Without further ado, the winners, all ten of them!

• "Frogger" from Canada
• Mark from France
• "Tigger" from the UK
• Mert from Turkey
• Roberto from Brazil
• Andrew from the US
• Javier from Spain
• Adrian from Romania
• "King Mustard" from the UK
• Daniel from the US

A huge congratulations! What will you listen to first? Do let us know in the comments!

Did you miss the TechPowerUp and 1MORE true-wireless headphones giveaway? Well now's your chance! Sign up for a chance to win one of ten pairs of 1MORE Comfobuds 2 true-wireless headphones, which is open until March 1, 2022, for most of the world. The Comfobuds 2 are a powerful yet practical pair of true-wireless earbuds with a broad range of mobile device support, powerful 13.4 mm drivers, and 24 hours battery life when used with its charging case. What are you waiting for? Come on in!

For more details and to join visit this page.

TechPowerUp today released the latest update to NVCleanstall, a lightweight utility that lets you take far greater control over your NVIDIA GeForce graphics driver installation than what NVIDIA's installer allows; letting you toggle several under-the-hood features that you potentially might not need. The latest version 1.13.0 adds several new features and improves the interface. For starters, we've now added the ability to fetch and install NVIDIA GeForce Studio drivers, should you choose those over the regular Game-Ready drivers. The interface now fetches driver versions to the opening page much quicker, and uses less bandwidth to do so. Download performance is improved by splitting them into smaller chunks that can be cached and downloaded at higher speeds.

With this release, NVCleanstall also remembers your choices in the Tweaks page from your previous use. More recent versions of NVIDIA GeForce drivers, including DCH, packs the NVIDIA Control Panel, and so the "Install DCH Control Panel" option doesn't show for these newer versions. We've also touched up the driver package descriptions to be more informative. If you already have DLSS Indicator enabled on your machine, NVCleanstall leaves it enabled in the Tweaks page, and can be unchecked from there. Grab NVCleanstall from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.13.0The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the handy graphics sub-system information and diagnostic utility for gamers and PC enthusiasts. Version 2.44.0 adds support for several new GPUs, feature updates to the Resizable BAR detection, and a handful other fixes. To begin with, GPU-Z adds support for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050, RTX 3080 12 GB, RTX 3070 Ti Mobile, RTX 3050 Ti Mobile, RTX 2060 12 GB, MX550, and a number of other mobile GPUs from NVIDIA. On the AMD front, you get support for Navi 24: Radeon RX 6500 XT, RX 6400, RX 6300M, RX 6500M, PRO W6300M, PRO W6500M, and PRO W660M. Support is also added for Intel "Alder Lake" non-K processors, "Alder Lake" mobile processors, and Xeon processors based on "Rocket Lake."

TechPowerUp GPU-Z can now report the exact base-address register (BAR) size when Resizable BAR is enabled. Find it in the Advanced Panel, under Resizable BAR. Detection of Resizable BAR has been improved. Detection of LHR in certain RTX 3060 cards has been improved to weed out misreporting of LHR. Vendor detection was added for Vastarmor. The internal Screenshot hosting utility now uploads screenshots over HTTPS. The 64-bit Windows Vista name will now include a space character, so "Vista 64" instead of just "Vista64." Grab GPU-Z from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.44.0

TechPowerUp partnered with NAND flash pioneer KIOXIA to give you a chance to bring home one of three KIOXIA Exceria series SSDs. Based on the company's BiCS 3D NAND flash technology, the Exceria series spans various client SSD form-factors, including M.2 NVMe and 2.5-inch SATA. The brand also extends to the company's various consumer flash products, including portable SSDs, USB flash drives, and memory cards. Up for grabs in the TechPowerUp Giveaway were a 2 TB Exceria Plus G2 NVMe SSD, a 1 TB Exceria NVMe SSD, and a 960 GB Exceria SATA 2.5-inch SSD. The results are in, and we have the winners!

• Martin from Malta, wins the 2 TB Exceria Plus G2 NVMe SSD
• Pari from New Zealand, wins the 1 TB Exceria NVMe SSD
• Paul from the United Kingdom, wins the 960 GB Exceria SATA 2.5-inch SSD

A huge Congratulations to you three! TechPowerUp and KIOXIA will return with more such interesting giveaways.

TechPowerUp and KIOXIA partner to bring our readers from across the world a golden opportunity to win one of three KIOXIA Exceria SSDs across a selection of form-factors. As the technology-pioneer in NAND flash, KIOXIA brings experience and quality to the table with their Exceria line of client-segment SSDs and flash-storage products. Up for grabs are a 2 TB Exceria Plus G2 NVMe SSD, a 1 TB Exceria NVMe SSD, and a 960 GB Exceria SATA 2.5-inch SSD. Entries close on January 9th, so hurry, all you need to do is fill in a short form to help us get back to you if you've won!

For more information, and to participate, visit this page.

TechPowerUp and KIOXIA come together to bring you a change to win one of three KIOXIA Exceria client SSDs. The Exceria range of SSDs span 2.5-inch SATA and M.2 NVMe form-factors, and combine KIOXIA's in-house BiCS flash memory, and the legacy of being the inventors of flash memory. Up for grabs are a KIOXIA Exceria Plus G2 2 TB M.2 NVMe SSD, a KIOXIA Exceria 1 TB M.2 NVMe SSD, and a KIOXIA Exceria SATA 960 GB SSD. The Giveaway is open worldwide (wherever legal), entries close on January 9, 2022. To participate, simply fill up a brief form to help us get back to you if you've won. All the best!

For more information and to participate, visit this page.

The HYTE Revolt 3 is a nimble, airy, and slick-looking SFF gaming PC case from the house of iBuyPower, a leading gaming PC vendor. The feature-packed case combines a premium finish with essential internal features that allow you to use full-length graphics cards, and liquid cooling. There are several handy bits such as the sturdy pop-out handle, and the detachable stub that holds your headset. TechPowerUp and HYTE are giving away three of these to our readers in the United States, including the limited Special Flight Edition. The Giveaway has been up for over ten days now, and ends in 24 hours. If you haven't dropped in your hat, now is your chance!

For more information, and to participate, visit this page.

HYTE is a refreshing DIY gaming PC brand from the house of iBuyPower, specialists in pre-built gaming PCs, who recently made a splash with the HYTE Revolt 3 SFF case. Read all about why we love its compact built, ingenuous space-management features, and portability features in our detailed review. Today we are teaming up with HYTE to bring you the HYTE x TechPowerUp Revolt 3 Case Giveaway, a chance to win one of three special HYTE Revolt 3 cases. This giveaway is open to our readers from the US. Up for grabs are a HYTE Revolt 3 Special Flight Edition case, a Revolt 3 (standard) white, and a Revolt 3 (standard) black. There are 15 ways to enter the giveaway, and increase your chances at winning by sharing the giveaway to your friends across social media. Good Luck!

For more information, and to participate, visit this page

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of NVCleanstall, our popular utility that gives you much greater control over the installation of your GeForce software installation, letting you filter out several components you probably don't need, such as Telemetry. Version 1.11.0 introduces support for Windows 11. The utility will now recommend an upgrade from non-DCH to DCH drivers, because NVIDIA stopped releasing non-DCH drivers recently. A new tweak has been added, which when enabled, shows DLSS status and library version through an in-game overlay. Fixes and improvements include a notice when selecting the "Disable NVIDIA Container" option (that it will break NVIDIA Control Panel); bugs related to several third-party driver packages due to a case-sensitivity issue, etc.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.12.0Update Nov 11th: We just released NVCleanstall v1.12.0 to fix a bug that got introduced in v1.11.0: On systems with a language that doesn't use "." as decimal separator, an error "Input string is not in a correct format" would pop up.

The change-log follows.

Brazilian-based studio PetitFabrik announces a joint-collaboration with Neo Forza (a brand of DRAM and SSD manufacturer Goldkey Technology Corporation) to launch a brand new 3D platform game, Kukoos - Lost Pets.

Nominated for Best Console Game at Game Connection X Chinajoy 2021 Global Game Development Awards, the game drops players into an adorable cartoonish world where they must rescue a series of brainwashed pets being held captive by a maniacal robot frog. With plenty of collectables and hidden secrets to find, Kukoos - Lost Pets has callbacks to legendary titles like Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie. Travel through several gorgeous levels filled with secrets, collectibles, and tricky puzzles, and lead the Kukoos to the answer behind this unlikely rebellion from their feathered and furry pals.Read on for a special gift to Neo Forza users—We have 2,000 game keys to give away!

TechPowerUp loves cooling. We pride ourselves with bringing you hundreds of reviews, and thousands of news articles, covering PC cooling components of all shapes and sizes. With ever more powerful hardware comes the need to keep them cool and quiet. There are plenty of air coolers and pre-built AIO liquid cooling solutions available that you can install and forget about. If you still want to +1 that, then DIY custom liquid cooling exists as higher performing (and potentially quieter) option to pre-built AIO coolers, but it's also more expensive and complex. We are eager to know how you're cooling your PC, how you'd like to cool it in the future, and what your thoughts are on custom watercooling tech, so we've put together a survey to learn more.

The survey is for you, regardless of whether you've even used custom liquid-cooling before. We hope to better understand the custom watercooling market—people who never used it, veterans who've done it for years as well as recent members of the club. We also want to learn why you're not using watercooling, or why you are considering it for a future build. It will only take a few minutes of your time. Once data collection is completed on November 2nd, we'll put together an article summarizing the findings, with charts and everything. As a token of thanks, taking the survey also adds you to our Global Sweepstakes in association with CORSAIR, a leading brand for gaming peripherals and PC components. One lucky winner stands to win a Care Package worth $1000 from CORSAIR, which includes a K100 premium mechanical keyboard, a Virtuoso XT headset, a Sabre RGB Wireless mouse, an MM300 mousepad, an ST100 headset stand and two LT100 desktop ambient lighting towers; in a winner-takes-all prize. The survey and giveaway is open worldwide. In return for their support, Corsair gets access to the anonymized raw data. Please don't answer "Corsair is best" everywhere, just because they provide prizes, we're looking for honest opinions.

To participate in the Survey, please Visit This Page.

Update Oct 19th: Corsair saw your comments "why not watercooling prizes?"—the winner can now substitute the prizes for Corsair Hydro X components.

TechPowerUp and Team Group brought you an exciting Giveaway to mark the 2021 Team Group Online Expo, a showcase of the company's very latest memory products spanning PC memory, enthusiast memory, flash storage, and SSDs. Up for grabs were Team Group XTREEM ARGB 2x 8 GB DDR4-3600 CL14 memory kit, a Team Group Cardea C440 1 TB NVMe SSD, and a Team Group Cardea Graphite Z440 1 TB NVMe SSD—three of Team's finest pieces of hardware meant to serve as a Thank You for vising the Expo. Without further ado, the Winners:

• Alex from Australia, wins the Team Group Cardea C440 1 TB SSD
• Viandre from Indonesia, wins the Team Group Cardea Graphene Z440 1 TB SSD
• Istvan from Hungary, wins the Team Group T-Force Xtreem ARGB DDR4-3600 2x 8 GB dual-channel memory kit

A Huge Congrats to you three! TechPowerUp and Team Group will return with more such interesting giveaways.

TechPowerUp, in partnership with Asetek, brought you a rare chance to bring home a top-of-the-line ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3080 Ti LC liquid-cooled graphics card. This card features the very best of Asetek's liquid-cooling technology, and is able the tame the beastly RTX 3080 Ti, so you can game quieter or overclock higher. The worldwide-open giveaway comes to a close, and we've picked a winner!

The Winner is Igor Precep from Serbia. Your card is shipping this week.

A Huge Congrats to you, Igor! TechPowerUp and Asetek thank you all for playing! We will return with more such interesting giveaways!

Well, that was a short one. Just last week we released GPU-Z 2.42.0, this week we have 2.43.0, which fixes a crash on older Radeon cards, including Radeon HD 5000. After last week's release people fired up these cards in masses, to see the change from AMD to ATI logo. This new activity helped uncovered a few problems, which are fixed with this update. We also fixed a screenshot feature bug that appeared since v2.39.0 on machines with Windows XP. GPU-Z adds the ability to read power limits of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30-series Laptop GPUs ("Ampere"), which will help you to find out exactly which Ampere Mobile SKU you have, what its power limits are, and whether you could flash its VBIOS to increase the limits. You can find these values in the "NVIDIA BIOS" section of the "Advanced" tab. The ability to report power limits for Ampere Mobile has been added to our VGA BIOS Database, too. The execution unit (EU) count of Intel Xe LP iGPUs on "Rocket Lake" processors has been fixed. Support is added for NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000 series based on the TU106-B silicon. Grab GPU-Z from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.43.0

Did you know, Team Group just hosted its first independent Online Expo, showcasing the very latest from the growing range of PC components and gaming hardware from the company? Read all about it here, and be sure to check out a recording of their keynote address, if you haven't already. With its new products, Team Group is reaching out to serious gamers, PC enthusiasts, and creators in equal measure. To mark this special occasion, Team Group and TechPowerUp bring you the "Chill the Heat, Feel the Speed, Make it Big" Giveaway.

Open worldwide, up for grabs are three of the finest pieces of Team Group hardware. These include Team Group XTREEM ARGB 2x 8 GB DDR4-3600 CL14 memory kit, a Team Group Cardea C440 1 TB NVMe SSD, and a Team Group Cardea Graphite Z440 1 TB NVMe SSD. Three lucky winners in all. The rules are simple, just hit us with some very basic info to help us get back to you if you've won, and get the Q&A right. Entries close on October 3, 7:00 AM UTC. Good Luck!

For more information, and to participate, visit this page.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version, 2.42.0, of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the popular video subsystem information, diagnostic, and monitoring utility for PC enthusiasts and gamers. The latest release adds support for several new GPUs, including Intel Core "Alder Lake-S" iGPU, "Tiger Lake" server iGPU; GeForce RTX 3060 based on "GA104," RTX 3050 Ti Laptop, T1200 Mobile, GRID K340, M30, and Q12U-1. Support is also added for Radeon Pro W6800X. With this release, we're adding the ability to tell a "lite hashrate" (LHR) GPU from one that isn't. On RTX 30-series graphics cards with LHR silicon, the GPU codename field will include "(LHR)." For example, "GA102 (LHR)." Support is also added for resizable-BAR on Radeon RX 5000 series (when used with the latest drivers).

TechPowerUp GPU-Z v2.42.0 also makes it easy to collect sensor logs from your graphics hardware. Simply start it with the command-line argument "-log" followed by a filename, to log to that file. Several other issues were fixed, including application crashes when taking screenshots, a rare crash in the PCIe render test, a crash on some systems when preparing resizable-BAR support. The Radeon HD 5000 series from 2009 now displays the correct (ATI) logo. EVGA iCX sensors readings are more accurate. Radeon RX 6000 series (RDNA2) GPUs now correctly show DirectX 12_2 feature-level compatibility. Grab GPU-Z from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.42.0