TechPowerUp today released the latest version of ThrottleStop by Kevin Glynn, a utility that lets you take greater control over the power management features of your processor, which could prove particularly useful to squeeze the most performance out of notebooks. Version 9.4 introduces a couple of new features and fixes a few issues. To begin with, you can now disable all C-states above C1. We've also added the Ring Down Bin setting. Power throttling explanation has been improved for "Skylake-X" processors. Security of the application's kernel-mode driver has been improved. The MSR and MMIO power limits are now separately reported. The FIVR - Disable and Lock feature has been improved for 11th Gen processors. Grab ThrottleStop from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp ThrottleStop 9.4 by Kevin Glynn

MONTECH, a rising star with PC cases and cooling; partnered with TechPowerUp to bring you the Keep Cool Giveaway earlier this month. As many as nine lucky winners from across the Continental United States stood a chance to win prizes that include Air 100 ARGB Black cases, Air 100 Lite White cases, and Air Cooler 210. The Giveaway is closed, and the results are in! Without further ado, here they are:

MONTECH Air 100 ARGB Black Cases Won by:

• Alex from Oregon
• Steven from Indiana
• Kevin from California

MONTECH Air 100 Lite White Cases Won by:

• Ben from New Mexico
• Eric from California
• Alyssa from New Hampshire

MONTECH Air 210 CPU Coolers Won by:

• James from New York
• Gary from California
• Yosvany from Illinois

A Huge Congratulations to the Winners! TechPowerUp and MONTECH will return with more such interesting giveaways!

Cybenetics certification program's chief engineer, a renowned expert with switching power supplies, and TechPowerUp contributor, Dr Aris Mpitziopoulos, released detailed commentary on the recent statement released by GIGABYTE on the GP-P750/850 GM series PSU design flaw reportage in the press. The earliest of this was broken on TechPowerUp, with our December 2020 review of the GP-P750GM, which led with the headline "With an Explosive Attitude."

Mpitziopoulos dives into the technical details of the design flaw being not just a badly programmed Over-Power Protection (OPP) safety mechanism, but a flawed hardware design overall. Since he reviewed PSUs from this series for TechPowerUp and Hardware Busters, he shares his perspective on how the reviews went, more importantly, the back-and-forth with GIGABYTE when the flaws were discovered.The following is a statement by Aris Mpitziopoulos:

MONTECH and TechPowerUp bring you a chance to win one of nine pieces of hardware to help your rig Keep Cool. Open to contestants from the Continental United States, Nine lucky winners get a chance to win from a prize-pool of three MONTECH Air 100 ARGB Black cases, three MONTECH Air 100 Lite White cases, and three MONTECH Air Cooler 210. The Air 100 series of MONTECH offer premium features and room for a top-performing Micro-ATX gaming PC build. The Air 100 ARGB Black includes four addressable-RGB fans; while the 100 Lite White comes with all-white interiors, and two included fans, and plenty of room to grow from. To participate, simply fill up a short form that helps us get back to you if you've won. Good Luck!

MONTECH and TechPowerUp Keep Cool Giveaway

We have open positions on our team for 1) a motherboard reviewer, and 2) a memory reviewer. TechPowerUp Reviews are renowned for their in-depth focus on technical and performance aspects, and are supported by a large selection of tests. We are looking for someone with experience tweaking hardware in general—and memory in particular—ideally with some overclocking experience. As a motherboard reviewer you should be able to identify the various components of a motherboard PCB, discuss their quality aspects, test relevant onboard devices, provide technical photography, and put the motherboard through a selection of tests that will evolve with your feedback and community interest. Likewise for memory, we'll need you to be able to push the memory module to its limits, to detail its OC tuning potential and stability (we're not expecting you to do LN2). You should also be able to understand DRAM IC choices, memory timings and their effects, and how everything comes together for the big picture.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of NVCleanstall, our handy, lightweight utility that lets you customize your NVIDIA drivers installation to a much greater degree than the "Custom" install option in the NVIDIA Installer, letting you toggle components and features you didn't even know exist. The latest version 1.10.0 introduces several updates. For starters, it fixes ShadowPlay not working (even though selected), due to a missing reference to NvModuleTracker. We've introduced an additional driver signing mode that's compatible with EasyAntiCheat. NVCleanstall now discards the generated private key once the signature rebuild is complete, for additional security.

We've introduced a feature that lets you create a self-contained EXE installer with the installation options you've selected. The option to disable NVContainer has been introduced, however, this may break GeForce Experience, and removes NVIDIA's Desktop context menu. You can configure MSI (message-signaled-interrupt) CPU selection and priority. NVCleanstall also makes sure MSI only gets activated on NVIDIA GPU devices. An option has been added letting you disable HDCP. The app now warns you that UWP apps can't be installed in Safe Mode, if you request the Control Panel app while running in Safe Mode. The app also warns about installation of GeForce Experience in Safe Mode. Both these limitations are due to Safe Mode, not NVCleanstall. When customizing your install, you can now also provide hooks to run programs before and after installation. Grab NVCleanstall from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.10.0The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the tiny-yet-mighty software that gives you information, monitoring, and diagnostics of your PC graphics subsystem. Version 2.39.0 adds support for the Gen12 Xe LP integrated graphics solution found with Intel 11th Gen Core "Rocket Lake" processors. GPU-Z also has the ability to tell the new "Navi 21 XTXH" Radeon RX 6900 XT variant, from the standard RX 6900 XT. Support is also added for NVIDIA RTX 3060 Mobile, RTX 3050 Ti Mobile, RTX 3050 Mobile, RTX A5000, T500, CMP 30HX, CMP 40HX, CMP 90HX; and AMD Radeon Pro W5500M, and Barco MXRT 4700.

Version 2.39.0 also improves in several areas. The integrated screenshot feature is refreshed to better capture the window area. The XML dump is made more usable, with information that includes BIOS UEFI support, WHQL status, Driver Date, DXR, DirectML, OpenGL and Resizable BAR. The video memory utilization sensor is disabled on TCC mode-enabled NVIDIA GPUs. A number of minor issues were also fixed, related to Resizable BAR detection, clock readings on AMD RDNA2 mobile GPUs, a bug with OpenGL detection on certain systems, memory clock readings on certain legacy GPUs, BIOS date readings on legacy GPUs, etc. Grab it from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.39.0The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of NVCleanstall, our lightweight utility that lets you take greater control of your NVIDIA driver software installation, letting you toggle the installation of a lot more features than what the "Custom" option in the NVIDIA installer allows. These could be important features such as Telemetry. Version 1.9.0 introduces a handful major feature updates. We've improved the driver signature rebuilding so you no longer see the "do you want to trust this publisher" warning. The "Add Hardware Support" setting has been fixed for Quadro drivers. We've also greatly reduced the app's memory footprint, with help from jgottula.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp NVCleanstall 1.9.0

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the popular graphics subsystem information and monitoring utility. With the latest version 2.38.0, we are introducing the ability to detect Resizable BAR support. GPU-Z can now tell whether Resizable BAR is supported, and if so, whether it is enabled. AMD refers to Resizable BAR as AMD Smart Access Memory, but it is a feature developed by the PCI-SIG, which lets your CPU see the entire video memory of your discrete graphics card as a single addressable block, rather than through 256 MB apertures. This feature has been found to improve performance in games that can take advantage of it. Resizable BAR status can now be viewed from the main tab, right next to the multi-GPU status.

The latest TechPowerUp GPU-Z also adds support for new and upcoming GPUs, including AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, RX 6700, RX 6600 XT, RX 6600, and Ryzen "Lucienne" mobile processor iGPUs. Support is also added for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile. Other new features include the ability to monitor negative temperatures on NVIDIA GPUs. We fixed video BIOS extraction on AMD RDNA2 GPUs (Radeon RX 6000 series). Grab GPU-Z from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.38.0The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of ThrottleStop by Kevin Glynn, a handy utility that lets you take greater control over the power-management features of your processor, so you can prevent it from unnecessarily throttling. This is particularly useful with notebooks that have aggressive CPU throttling. With the latest version 9.3, ThrottleStop introduces support for Core i9-10900K and i9-10850K processors, including a new Turbo Group access window.

The Turbo Power Limit controls have been updated with a toggle that lets you disable TPL control, along with the ability to clear TPL Lock options. The ThrottleStop Bench and C-State windows have been updated for 10th Gen Core processors. Other improvements include limit reasons for 10th and 11th Gen Core processors, improved access to Windows internal power plans, access to the PROCHOT offset variable, AVX offset control for Unlocked K-series processors, reporting and logging of Thermal Velocity Boost and Vmax stress. Several other UI changes were made. Grab ThrottleStop 9.3 from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp ThrottleStop 9.3 by Kevin GlynnThe change-log follows.

Everyone and their mother expected NVIDIA to announce - if not a SUPER refresh to their existing graphics cards with increased memory sizes - at least the RTX 3080 Ti. That card surfaced as a planned NVIDIA counter to AMD's preemptive pricing of $999 on its RX 6900 XT graphics card (which to be fair, is in itself as abundant a card as unicorns this side of the galaxy). GamersNexus reported NVIDIA partners' comments on the indefinite postponement of the RTX 3080 Ti and possible SUPER derivatives of the RTX 30-series lineup. It's being said that NVIDIA decided (smartly, I would say) to ensure consistent supply of their existing lineup to sate demand, instead of dispersing its limited chip production across even more product lines.

This would result, I have no doubt, on NVIDIA only having even more SKUs out of stock than they currently do. Considering the market's current state of mind in regards to NVIDIA's lineup, this seems like the most sensible decision possible. TechPowerUp has in the meantime confirmed this information with NVIDIA partners themselves.

The major GPU releases in 2020 are all plagued by the same problem: good product, not enough stock. This has led to a perverse situation on the market: you can't just walk into your favorite store and purchase the product you want. This is a consequence of NVIDIA and AMD going to market with tiny volumes, and extremely optimistic MSRPs which opened up the market to the phenomenon of scalping. Scalpers are individuals, or groups, who buy up whatever little volume is available, often using sophisticated online shopping bots, and resell them at exorbitant premiums on marketplaces like eBay, for profit.

This system only works because there is zero retail stock available anywhere on the planet, and whatever volume comes in, is so low that it evaporates, often before hitting retailer shelves. The only way scalping can be defeated is for manufacturers to flood the market with large volumes of product that the scalpers cannot scale their purchases up to, and possibly for crypto-currency mining to become not worth it on the latest generations of graphics cards. Until these happen, marked-up pricing is an inescapable reality for consumers.

Another year is drawing to a close, all around the world and here on TechPowerUp as well. A special year, to say the least; it's not the worst in recorded human history, but it's been one of the hardest ever, with more limitations imposed in our lives than in any other we can remember. Most of us have adapted to a new, hopefully temporary reality, one where social distancing and face masks have become commonplace. A reality where countless human lives were lost to an invisible, undiscerning enemy; where economic recession has thrown families and friends out of business or even from their homes. Globalization is indisputable, and while it has many positives, nothing could ever be without fault; the increased interconnectedness of our world means that the system becomes all the more fragile even as it becomes stronger. And while the argument for technology being a potentiator for human loneliness and creating isles of silence between us individuals of the human species presents valid points, one can certainly say that it was technology that helped bridge sentimental and physical gaps for all of us.

AMD has launched its RDNA 2 based graphics cards, codenamed Navi 21. These GPUs are set to compete with NVIDIA's Ampere offerings, with the lineup covering the Radeon RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT graphics cards. Until now, we have had reviews of the former two, but not the Radeon RX 6900 XT. That is because the card is coming at a later date, specifically on December 8th, in just a few days. As a reminder, the Radeon RX 6900 XT GPU is a Navi 21 XTX model with 80 Compute Units that give a total of 5120 Stream Processors. The graphics card uses a 256-bit bus that connects the GPU with 128 MB of its Infinity Cache to 16 GB of GDDR6 memory. When it comes to frequencies, it has a base clock of 1825 MHz, with a boost speed of 2250 MHz.

Today, in a GeekBench 5 submission, we get to see the first benchmarks of AMD's top-end Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card. Running an OpenCL test suite, the card was paired with AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X 16C/32T CPU. The card managed to pass the OpenCL test benchmarks with a score of 169779 points. That makes the card 12% faster than RX 6800 XT GPU, but still slower than the competing NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 GPU, which scores 177724 points. However, we need to wait for a few more benchmarks to appear to jump to any conclusions, including the TechPowerUp review, which is expected to arrive once NDA lifts. Below, you can compare the score to other GPUs in the GeekBench 5 OpenCL database.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the definitive graphics sub-system information, monitoring, and diagnostic utility for PC gamers, enthusiasts, and overclockers. The new version 2.36.0 adds support for new GPUs, and introduces many new fixes. For starters, it improves support for AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800, and adds support for BIOS extraction from RDNA2-based graphics cards. Support is added for the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, GeForce MX 450, Quadro RTX 6000 Mobile; Intel Xe MAX, Xe Pod, Xe SG-18M, and several other new Intel GPUs; and AMD Radeon Pro VII, HD 8550D, and Barco MXRT 5600. Support is also added for the EVGA iCX sensor suite on the company's latest RTX 30-series graphics cards.

Among the other things we improved are temperature reading support for AMD "Zen 3" processors, fixed ROP counts on Radeon RX 6800 series graphics cards, support for the new XFX sub-vendor ID, fixes to reported memory size on certain NVIDIA cards, clock-speed reading on NVIDIA "Ampere" cards with no drivers installed; and a BSOD error with Windows Code Integrity enabled. Grab GPU-Z from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z v2.36.0The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the popular graphics sub-system information and diagnostic utility. Version 2.35.0 adds support for new GPUs, and fixes a number of bugs. To begin with, GPU-Z adds support for AMD Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs based on the "Navi 21" silicon. Support is also added for Intel DG1 GPU. BIOS extraction and upload for NVIDIA's RTX 30-series "Ampere" GPUs has finally been introduced. Memory size reporting on the RTX 3090 has been fixed. The latest Windows 10 Insider Build (20231.1000) made some changes to DirectML, which caused GPU-Z to report it as unavailable, this has been fixed.

TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.35.0 also makes various improvements to fake GPU detection for cards based on NVIDIA GT216 and GT218 ASICs. Hardware detection for AMD Radeon Pro 5600M based on "Navi 12" has been fixed. Among the other GPUs for which support was added with this release are NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core PCIe, Intel UHD Gen9.5 graphics on the i5-10200H, and Radeon HD 8210E and Barco MXRT-6700. Grab GPU-Z from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.35.0The change-log follows.

TechPowerUp and be quiet! the leader in high-quality gaming PC case, power, and cooling, in September brought you a chance to bring home a be quiet! Pure Base 500DX case. The be quiet! Pure Base 500DX is a premium ATX mid-tower case targeted at those wanting to build airy high-performance gaming builds. Its large mesh-type front panel allows the intake fans to breathe freely, helping them maintain a positive air-pressure inside. The dice has been rolled, and we have three lucky winners! Without further ado, the winners:

• Audil from Ontario, Canada
• Ruben from Pennsylvania, USA
• Zac from Saskatchewan, Canada

A Huge Congratulations to you three! be quiet! and TechPowerUp will return with more such interesting giveaways.

LG UltraGear partners with TechPowerUp to present the LG UltraGear Face-Off, an online Valorant tournament roping in 20 big-ticket e-sports athletes such as xQcOW, ChicaLive, and Wardell, forming into four teams who will battle for glory on October 3, 16:00 Eastern, for the ultimate Valorant glory and hardware from LG UltraGear. Among the 20 athletes are stars from various popular FPS e-sports disciplines, including Overwatch, Apex Legends, Fortnite, and CS:GO. Find out which of these games are best suited to dominate Valorant. While they slug it out, TechPowerUp readers have a chance to win from a 100 Steam Gift Cards valued at $20 each. There are three ways to participate: by simply watching a tournament video, following LG UltraGear on Twitch so you can watch the tournament, or subscribing to the LG UltraGear channel on YouTube. Entries close 40 hours from now, and 100 lucky winners are randomly selected and announced on October 15.

The LG UltraGear 27GN950-B gaming monitor is the choice of e-sports champions. As the pioneer of IPS, the leading modern display technology, LG UltraGear designs some of the most advanced gaming monitors optimized not just for bleeding-edge, tournament-winning performance, but also top-notch display quality. LG Display has perfected a new generation of IPS panels, called Nano IPS, geared for gaming, with fast 1 ms response-time, and 144 Hz refresh-rates, making them perfect for e-sports. The LG UltraGear 27GN950-B is a 27-inch 16:9 flatscreen with 4K Ultra HD resolution, 144 Hz refresh-rate, 1 ms response time, meeting DisplayHDR 600 standards, and supporting both NVIDIA G-SYNC (compatibility) and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro.

To participate, visit this page.

Don't forget to follow LG UltraGear on Twitch, where the tournament will be streamed.

AMD earlier today announced its Ryzen 3000C-series processors targeted at Chromebooks, a segment where the company feels it can bring more to the table than Intel's entry-level Celeron, Pentium Silver, and Pentium Gold mobile processors. Responding to a questionnaire by TechPowerUp, AMD revealed a handful details about these processors. The Ryzen 3000C-series processors are based on the 12 nm "Picasso" silicon, while the Athlon Gold and Athlon Silver parts are based on 14 nm. The "Picasso" based parts combine up to 4 "Zen+" CPU cores, with an iGPU based on the "Vega" graphics architecture, with up to 10 NGCUs. AMD has optimized all SKUs for a 15 W TDP target.

Responding to a question on storage specification or possible collaboration with MediaTek on WLAN controllers, AMD responded that it wishes a diverse hardware ecosystem for its OEM partners, without getting into specifics. There was no denial on the MediaTek bit. The Ryzen 7 3700C practically maxes out the "Picasso" silicon within the 15 W TDP envelope, which got us wondering if AMD has its eyes on the premium Chromebook segment, possibly even Google's first-party Chromebook Pixel brand. To this company responded that while the 3700C has a solid feature-set for premium Chromebooks, there are no first-party Pixel products on the anvil. AMD has just entered the market, and possibly wants to make a dent on the bulk of the Chromebook market first.

Leading case, power, and cooling brand be quiet! partners with TechPowerUp to present the "Get in the Flow" Giveaway. Open to our readers from the United States and Canada, the Giveaway lets one lucky winner bring home a be quiet! Pure Base 500DX case (color of the winner's choice). Released in Spring 2020, the be quiet! Pure Base 500DX is a premium ATX mid-tower case targeted at those wanting to build airy high-performance gaming builds. Its large mesh-type front panel allows the intake fans to breathe freely, helping them maintain a positive air-pressure inside. You also get vast amounts of room—graphics cards up to 36.9 cm long, and CPU coolers up to 19 cm tall (the RTX 3090 Founders Edition will be comfy). The air-flow design focus continues into filtered 140 mm top vents, and the inclusion of three 140 mm fans. All in all, a case for your next 4K battle station you're putting together for Cyberpunk 2077. Learn more about this case in the TechPowerUp Review. Open from today, entries for the Giveaway close on October 1, 2020. To participate, simply fill up a short form to help us get back to you if you've won. Good Luck!

For more information and to participate, visit this page.

TechPowerUp and performance memory experts Team Group brought you the Cardea Ceramic C440 Giveaway earlier this month, with a lucky winner from anywhere around the globe standing a chance to bring home a 1 TB Team Group Cardea Ceramic C440 M.2 PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD. The C440 uses a Team Group-patented ceramic heatspreader that efficiently spreads heat from the various hot components on the drive, and can work with M.2 slot heatsinks included with your motherboard. The drive combines a Phison E16-series controller with 3D TLC NAND flash memory, to put out blistering 5 GB/s max sequential read speeds, with up to 4.4 GB/s sequential writes. Without further ado, the winner:

• Christopher from Australia

A huge Congratulations to you, Christopher! TechPowerUp and Team Group will return with more such interesting giveaways.

Do also check out the Team Group Annual Online Launch event between September 22 to 24, where the company is announcing several new SSD and memory products for the DIY gaming PC crowd.

TechPowerUp and Team Group bring you a chance to win a Team T-Force Cardea Ceramic C440 1 TB M.2 PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD. Announced this June, the T-Force Cardea Ceramic C440 is an M.2 NVMe SSD that takes advantage of PCI-Express 4.0 x4 host interface - perfect for a cutting edge build based on 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen or upcoming Intel processors. This isn't just another Phison E16 + 3D TLC NAND based drive, Team Group innovated a patented new heatspreader which uses ceramic composite materials that more effectively pull heat from the drive's controller and NAND flash components. The 1 TB variant offers blistering speeds of up to 5,000 MB/s reads, with up to 4,400 MB/s writes. Open worldwide (wherever legal), the Giveaway accepts entries until September 17, 2020. To enter, all you have to do is fill us a short form that helps us get back to you if you've won. Good Luck!

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

With Summer drawing to a close, as is our seasonal Giveaway. Earlier in July, TechPowerUp and Montech brought you a chance to pick up some cool Montech gear, including Gamma II 650 W 80 Plus Gold power supplies, Beta 550 W 80 Plus Bronze power supplies, and the company's Air X gaming case. The three mark Montech's arrival as a formidable player in the PC cooling, power, and casing hardware business, and there are three winners for each of the three hardware. Without further ado, the winners:

Montech Gamma II 650 W PSU won by: @maxfly from Ohio, Gerado from Wisconsin, and Jon from Indiana

Montech Air X Case (Black) won by: Cody from Missouri, Aidan from Texas, and Ricky from California

Montech Beta 550 W PSU won by: Ivan from California, Mary from Texas, and Rumman from New Jersey

A Huge Congrats to the nine of you! TechPowerUp and Montech will return with more such interesting Giveaways.

TechPowerUp has today released an update to widely popular ThrottleStop software made by Kevin Glynn. Used as a tool to "monitor for and correct the three main types of CPU throttling", the new ThrottleStop software received a major update that brings a heap of new features and improvements. Starting off, one of the biggest changes in the new version 9.2, is that the tool finally restores Windows 7 compatibility, which was unavailable for that OS in the previous version 9.0. Now, the tool also brings a few more options to the table like a new TS Bench feature that allows for random MHz testing, adds support for devices that use connected standby, and fixes base clock MHz reporting when using Core Isolation.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp ThrottleStop 9.2The change-log follows.

Late July Seagate brought you the Seagate FireCuda + TechPowerUp Forums Giveaway, letting you stand a chance to bring home a sweet Seagate FireCuda 120 1 TB SATA SSD, a handy expansion that lets you expand your game library. The FireCuda 120 has sufficient performance for snappy AAA game load times, and 1 TB of space lets you dump up to 20 AAA titles. It's equally formidable as a boot drive. Check out our comprehensive review of the drive here. The Giveaway closes tomorrow, but you still have time to drop in your hat. It's open for entries worldwide (wherever legal).

Seagate doesn't pick winners by random draw, but on the basis of the best response to the sentence "I need the Seagate FireCuda 120 SSD 1 TB because _______." What better place to pen your thoughts and meet like-minded gamers and PC enthusiasts than TechPowerUp Forums? Get cracking!

For more details and to participate, visit this page.