Last week, GIGABYTE issued an official response to an initial case of "thermal conductive gel slippage," involving an ultra-expensive AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER ICE, a vertical-mounted graphics card setup, and very non-intensive MMO gaming sessions. The Taiwanese manufacturer believes that this problem is isolated within a first wave of products: "every graphics card is inspected and verified against our quality standards before leaving the factory. The thermal conductive gel is an insulating, deformable, putty-like compound. It is engineered to remain in place when applied properly, and can endure at least 150 °C before any melting or liquification could happen. In some early production batches for the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 50 Series, a slightly higher volume of gel was applied to ensure sufficient thermal coverage. The overapplication may cause the excessive gel to appear more prominent, extended, and could potentially be separated from the designated area. While the appearance of extra gel might be concerning, this cosmetic variance does not affect the card's performance, reliability, or lifespan. We had already inspected the issue, and adjusted the gel to the optimal amount in (subsequent) production runs."

Despite sending out a public assurance to a worried audience—"(we) take your concerns seriously and want to provide clear information"—GIGABYTE will not be recalling problematic products. VideoCardz reckons that the company is "downplaying" current conditions. Based on further evidence—shared by several members of the TechPowerUp forum (commenting on news coverage)—unfortunately, the first reported case (emerging from South Korea) was not an isolated incident. Given the contents of GIGABYTE's public bulletin, they seem to be aware that this special thermal material (reserved for fancier SKUs) is troubling owners of early batch "GeForce RTX 50 Series and Radeon RX 9000 Series graphics cards." TPU forumite, remekra, shared two images and the following bit of feedback (plus a warning): "I have mine mounted in Lian Li SUP01 case, so GPU is basically standing that's why it drips into the direction of ports. So far it does not overheat on memory modules. I will hold off sending it to GIGABYTE customer service, as I don't have good memories of them; so until it overheats or stops working I will use it. But if you have a vertical case or stand then be aware."

An unlucky owner of a GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER ICE 16 GB graphics card has reported a baffling instance of thermal gel leakage. A forum post—titled: "5080 oh my god thermal problem"—on the Quasar Zone BBS alerted the wider world to this bizarre fault. The South Korean MMORPG enthusiast described circumstances up until the point of critical liquefaction: "it's been exactly a month since I bought it. I use it for (Blizzard's) World of Warcraft. Two hours of use per day. I set up the card with a riser kit. Thermal (material) is crawling out?!" Early 2025 press coverage has largely focused on other types of unwanted high temperature events involving GeForce RTX 50-series cards, but the seeping out of "server-grade thermal conductive gel" compound is something new. As reported by several PC hardware news outlets, GIGABYTE has utilized fancy thermal conductive gel within flagship SKUs—instead of traditional/conventional thermal pads. This gel was placed over the card's VRAM and MOSFET sections; following fairly light usage (as described above) some of this material started to head down—getting ever closer to the unit's PCIe interface.

Assisted by the AORUS RTX 5080 MASTER ICE's vertical orientation, the (apparently) highly deformable, but non-fluid thermal gel was susceptible to the effects of gravity. JC Hyun System Co., Ltd.—GIGABYTE's official domestic importer (for South Korea)—weighed in with a separate bulletin: "we are aware of the thermal gel issue with the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 50 series, which was first posted on Quasar Zone—(we) are currently discussing the thermal gel issue with GIGABYTE HQ and future customer service regulations. In addition, we sincerely apologize for the confusion caused to many customers who love and use GIGABYTE products due to inaccurate guidance provided to customers who received the products due to unclear customer service regulations regarding the issue that occurred this time. Lastly, when the manufacturer's customer service policy regarding this thermal gel issue is finalized, we will also forward the service policy to CS Innovation so that it can be processed smoothly in accordance with the service policy. We will also provide information through a separate post so that more customers can be aware of the information." As mentioned by Notebookcheck, GIGABYTE uses this special thermal gel solution on other highly expensive custom: "RTX 50-series cards like the GeForce RTX 5090 XTREME WATERFORCE 32G, RTX 5090 MASTER ICE, RTX 5070 Ti MASTER, and others."

Mid-way through April, we heard about sanctions affecting shipments of NVIDIA's H20 AI chips into China. Despite (rumored) best efforts made by Jensen Huang and colleagues, the US government has banned the export of Team Green's formerly sanction-conformant design. Similarly, NVIDIA prepared a slightly less potent GPU for gaming applications—exclusively for the Chinese market. Despite sporting a restricted GB202 "Blackwell" GPU die, the GeForce RTX 5090D 32 GB is still a monstrous prospect. According to Chinese PC hardware news sources, Team Green representatives have sent alerts to "all" of its Chinese add-in-card partners (AICs)—early warning signs have indicated a possible cut-off of GB202 GPUs in the near future. A member of the Chiphell forum disclosed some insider knowledge and dismissed unfounded speculation about RTX 5090D cards being replaced by "full fat" RTX 5090 options.

sthuasheng commented on Team Green's alleged bulletin—distributed at some point last week: "the notice only said that the supply of RTX 5090D was suspended, ...this did not mean any sales or transportation ban; it urged everyone not to make any speculations or judgments unless there was an official notice issued at a later date. After this notice was issued, each AIC began to notify agents to suspend sales, because the inventory of 5090D has always been very small, so it is necessary to keep these stocks to observe the subsequent situation and deal with the subsequent after-sales. At the same time, we might as well speculate that each AIC and dealer may also have the intention to stockpile 5090D units and then sell them at an elevated price." BenchLife.info decided to reach out to industry moles, following an absorption of various Chiphell whispers.

Over the past weekend, GMKtec's Weibo channel announced that pre-orders for its recently unveiled EVO-X2 mini PC model will start on April 7 (through JD.com), for customers located in China. Almost two weeks ago, the manufacturer boasted about its brand-new offering being the "world's first AI mini PC" equipped with AMD's Ryzen AI "Strix Halo" Max+ 395 APU. Extra international attention was gained, due to Lisa Su's autographing of a showcased unit during proceedings at the 2025 AI PC Innovation Summit (held on March 18, in Beijing). Pricing and availability were not mentioned during this press event, but GMKtec's Saturday (March 29) bulletin has revealed a (roughly) $2067 USD price point for the EVO-X2 launch model.

The manufacturer's blog entry stated that the: "EVO-X2 AI supercomputing host is coming, 128 GB + 2 TB priced at 14999 yuan, pricing reconstructs the desktop computing power boundary! Equipped with AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 flagship processor, 16-core 32-thread architecture with 5.1 GHz acceleration frequency, combined with 128 GB LPDDR5X memory and 2 TB high-speed storage, it can realize local deployment of 70 billion parameter large models, and AI performance exceeds NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5090D graphics card." This potent compact AI-crunching solution is tempered by GMKtec's "innovative" Arctic Ocean cooling system. They advertise this design as using: "dual-turbofans and VC heat sinks to achieve silent heat dissipation at a peak power consumption of 140 W. The body adopts a recycled aluminium suspension design, equipped with HDMI, DP and USB4 interfaces, and supports Wi-Fi 6 + 2.5G network access." The brand has not yet announced an international release, but their EVO-X2 mini PC could face serious competition. Late last month, Framework debuted its Desktop product range—consisting of configurable 4.5L Mini-ITX systems—with a top-end Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (128 GB) model starting at $1999.

Yesterday evening, the NVIDIA AI Developer social media account sent out a red alert regarding a time limited sale of flagship-tier Blackwell gaming hardware: "GeForce RTX 5090s are available at the Gear Store in the park right now at GTC 2025. 90 units are available for the next 30 minutes, with more coming tomorrow. Come say hi!" PC hardware news outlets have picked up on Team Green's latest stock bulletin, with Tom's Hardware disclosing some extra details. Under normal circumstances, NVIDIA's Gear Store Mobile Truck would be selling fairly standard merchandise—e.g. T-shirts, sweaters, hats, etc. According to the latest reports, the company's mobile pop-up store is taking orders for add-in-boards (AIB) GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 models. An information placard advertises old school/launch day guide prices of $1999 and $999 (respectively).

Tom's Hardware noted several caveats: "the graphics cards must be purchased from NVIDIA's van from 7 AM to 12 PM on Thursday or Friday and then picked up at South Hall main entrance the same day. The graphics boards are available to conference pass ($1145 for one day, or $2295 for five days) and exhibit pass holders only; with a limit of one card per person." According to folks on the ground, Team Green and its board partners have stockpiled a thousand of each highly-desirable GPU model at the San Jose Convention Center. The first waves of time-limited batches were made available yesterday (March 19). Demand for flagship and top-end GeForce RTX 50 series cards has far exceeded supply, starting back in late January. Following an absorption of plentiful feedback, NVIDIA revived its "Verified Priority Access" scheme a couple of weeks ago. This anti-scalping initiative was advertised as offering: "a limited number of verified GeForce gamers and creators in the United States the opportunity to purchase one GeForce RTX 5090 or RTX 5080 Founders Edition graphics card from the NVIDIA Marketplace."

This coming Tuesday Redmond-based Microsoft Corp. is planning to make available five fresh security updates - two with a 'Critical' rating and three tagged 'Important'. The incoming parches are set to address bugs found in Windows, Internet Explorer and Silverlight.

One of the Critical updates will fix an Internet Explorer issue that has already been acknowledged and was exploited in a 'limited number of attacks'. Additional information about Tuesday's releases can be found in the Security Bulletin Advance Notification published here.

For this month's Patch Tuesday Microsoft is set to deliver five fresh security update - two with a 'Critical' rating and three tagged 'Important'. According to the Redmond-based company, the incoming updates address vulnerabilities found in Windows operating systems, in Microsoft Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server, and in the .NET Framework.

The patches are set to become available this Tuesday, February 11, at about 10:00 a.m. PST. For a bit more info check out the Advance Notification published here.

November's Patch Tuesday is coming up and it will see Microsoft deliver eight fresh software updates - three rated 'Critical' and five rated 'Important'. These patches will address vulnerabilities found in Windows, Office and Internet Explorer. The updates are set to be released this Tuesday, November 12, at about 10:00 a.m. PST.

For a bit more info on the patches check out the Advance Notification found here.

This month's Patch Tuesday will see Microsoft roll out seven fresh updates - five rated 'Critical' and two 'Important' - which are set to address 11 vulnerabilities. These upcoming patches target bugs found in Office suites (2003, 2007 and 2010) and Office Web Apps, in Microsoft Exchange Server, and in Windows operating systems (Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, RT, Server 2003, Server 2008 and Server 2012).

A bit more info about the updates can be found in the advanced notification published here.

This coming Tuesday Microsoft will release a total of seven software updates (one rated 'Critical' and six rated 'Important') to address bugs that could lead to Remote Code Execution, Denial of Service attacks or Elevation of Privileges.

These new patches address vulnerabilities found in Windows (XP, Vista, 7, Server 2003, Server 2008 (R2)), Office, SQL Server, Communicator, Lync, SharePoint Server, FAST Search Server and Groove Server. For more info check out the Security Bulletin Advance Notification for October 2012.

Among its usual chunk of updates for Windows, Office, and other products covered by Microsoft Update, Redmond released a key security update for the Remote Desktop Protocol (2671387), and asked all users to apply it as soon as possible. It asked system administrators to give the patch "special priority," given the severity of the security hole. The security hole with RDP spans across all versions of Windows, across all machine architectures. The security hole allows hackers to gain access to RDP hosts and clients. Microsoft gives it 30 days before hackers can develop malware that can exploit the security hole. Find out more about the security hole, and its patch here.

February's Patch Tuesday is closing in fast and, according to Microsoft, it's going to see the arrival of no less than nine updates - four rated 'Critical' and nine 'Important', that will crush 21 vulnerabilities.

The incoming patches tackle bugs that could lead to remote code execution and privilege elevation. As (almost) always, Microsoft didn't go into specifics but it did say the vulnerabilities affect Windows, Office, Internet Explorer, and .NET/Silverlight. All the updates will be made available on Valentine's Day (February 14th) at about 10 am PST (6 pm GMT).