AMD today has confirmed a highly-awaited, long-time-coming, almost too-late-to-be-true press conference on Computex 2017. Via email, the company announced their intention to share a save-the-date announcement for AMD's press conference, scheduled for May 31st from 10 a.m. - 11 a.m.

The conference will be hosted by AMD's CEO Lisa Su and other key executives, and will serve as a venue to "hear more about the latest products and leading-edge technologies coming from AMD in 2017." AMD is apparently "looking forward to providing new details on 2017 products and the ecosystems, both OEM and channel, that will support them." So yeah, this is probably it. A shame about that May 25th Easter Egg with Vega's location on the star charts, but maybe we shouldn't really be complaining, or else AMD might cancel this announcement altogether. And we've waited for Vega long enough, haven't we?

Reports are circling around the web regarding an AMD meeting featuring some of its higher ups - namely, CEO Lisa Su, head of Radeon Technologies Group Raja Koduri, and AMD's CTO Mark Papermaster happening on the 16th of May. The purpose of this meeting seems to be to discuss AMD's inflexion point, and lay out a vision for the company's future, supported on its upcoming products: the too-long-awaited Vega, its successor Navi, and the natural evolution of the company's current Zen processors, tentatively identified as Zen+.

Naturally, a company such as AMD has its roadmap planned well in advance, with work on next-generation products and technologies sometimes even running in parallel with current-generation product development. It's just a result of the kind of care, consideration, time and money that goes into making new architectures that makes this so. And while some would say Vega is now approaching a state akin to grapes that have been hanging for far too long, AMD's next graphics architecture, Navi, and its iterations on Zen cores, which the company expect to see refreshes in a 3-to-5-year period, are other matters entirely. Maybe we'll have some more details regarding the specific time of Vega's launch (for now expected on Computex), as well as on when AMD is looking to release a Zen+ refresh. I wouldn't expect much with regards to Navi - perhaps just an outline on how work is currently underway with some comments on the expectations surrounding Global Foundries' 7 nm process, on which Navi is expected to be built. And no, folks, this isn't a Vega launch. Not yet.

According to DigiTimes, sources among Taiwan-based PC vendors have indicated that Intel's upcoming Basin Falls platform, which includes Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processors on a new X299 chipset, will be unveiled at Computex 2017 (May 30th, June 3rd), in Taipei - two months earlier than expected. This move comes accompanied by an accelerated launch of the Coffee Lake microarchitecture, which still uses the 14 nm process, to August 2017 from an initial January 2018 launch. If true, this is big in a number of ways - that Intel would bring forward a product launch 4 months has some interesting implications - or at least, confirmations.

Remember that Coffee Lake is supposed to carry an increased number of cores in its mainstream designs. And we all know how Intel's line-up has almost been torn apart by Ryzen's aggressive core and thread-count, with AMD offering more cores and threads than Intel at virtually all price-points. And even if an argument is made regarding Intel's better gaming performance, that's one scenario out of many. Future proofing, professional work, multimedia, all of these assert AMD's dominance in a pure price-performance ratio. I, for one, would gladly give up some FPS in some games and accept an increased number of cores than go the other way around (especially with AMD's platform support and the number of patches that have increased game performance on Ryzen CPUs.)

The rumor mill turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. However, some of those really do turn to reality, like recent accounts of an AMD Polaris 20 chip surfacing in the latest RX 500 series. This time, Intel is in the crosshairs, with the company's high-performance Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X desktop components being pegged for release between June 19th and July 9th. This would place an announcement on the new chipset and CPUs debut to drop around Computex 2017, which kicks off on May 30 and runs through June 3 in Taipei.

Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X parts are supposed to use the same LGA 2066 socket, with Skylake-X said to include anywhere between six to 10 cores, support quad-channel DDR4 memory and have a metric ton of PCIe 3.0 lanes. Kaby Lake-X parts, meanwhile, are reportedly limited to just four cores, dual-channel memory and just 16 PCIe lanes from the CPU - which gives an impression of a simple, Kaby Lake desktop CPUs being repackaged for the new socket.(And yes, inquisitive readers, that was a random reference to Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time" in the first line of this article.)

With core performance back to competitiveness, AMD is preparing to take on Intel in the HEDT "high-end desktop" segment with a new line of processors that are larger than its current socket AM4 "Summit Ridge," desktop processors, but smaller in core-count than its 32-core "Naples" enterprise processors. These could include 12-core and 16-core parts, and the picture is getting clearer with an exclusive report by Turkish tech publication DonanimHaber. The biggest revelation here that the 12-core and 16-core Ryzen processors will be multi-chip modules (MCMs) of two "Summit Ridge" dies. The 12-core variant will be carved out by disabling 1 core per CCX (3+3+3+3).

Another revelation is that the 12-core and 16-core Ryzen processors will be built in a new LGA package with pin-counts in excess of 4,000 pins. Since it's an MCM of two "Summit Ridge" dies, the memory bus width and PCIe lanes will be doubled. The chip will feature a quad-channel DDR4 memory interface, and will have a total of 58 PCI-Express gen 3.0 lanes (only one of the two dies will put out the PCI-Express 3.0 x4 A-Link chipset bus). The increase in core count isn't coming with a decrease in clock speeds. The 12-core variant will hence likely have its TDP rated at 140W, and the 16-core variant at 180W. AMD is expected to unveil these chips at the 2017 Computex expo in Taipei, this June, with product launches following shortly after.

Team Group is continuously dedicated in satisfying our customers' needs in every respect. Today we announce the release of two USB drives with latest USB 3.1 Gen1 (USB 3.0) transfer interface. One of them is the ring shaped T162, the winner of Golden Pin Design Award, and another one is the eye-catching M161 with latest Type-C OTG(On-The-Go).

T162 made its first appearance at the Computex exhibition in June this year. The entire exhibition was stunned by its unique design, which combined the concepts of "convenience" and "ergonomics". T162 is the first USB drive designed with an ergonomic grip ring. Its 360 degrees, rotating, and four-way positioning structural design allows users to rotate the ring according to their actual usage space, so other devices won't be interfered and very flexible to use. T162 is designed with a little bit of artistic twist and practical functions, not only it is convenient to use with single hand, but its design also allows users to have all the important information at the tips of their fingers. There are two colors to choose from: "Stylish Blue" and "Sweetheart Pink". The glossy pearl color enhances the overall texture and the energetic and creative grip ring design will make this USB drive a trendy accessory. T162 is designed with a strap hole which is easy for users to carry around their precious memories.

Cougar today announced the Attack X3 RGB gaming keyboard. A variant of the Attack X3 launched in December 2015, the Attack X3 was unveiled at the 2016 Computex expo. It features RGB LED-illuminated Cherry MX Black, MX Red, MX Blue, and MX Brown mechanical switches.

The brushed aluminium face-plate of the keyboard adds to the illumination of the keys. Its electronics offer N-key rollover, letting it register any number of simultaneous key-presses; and 1000 Hz USB polling-rate. The keyboard can store up to three sets of macros onto its onboard memory. The bundled Cougar UIX software lets you program these macros, and set RGB lighting profiles. The company didn't reveal pricing or availability.

XIGMATEK unveiled the 4th iteration of its Midgard chassis, the Midgard IV. This version sees the case embrace the layout of the season - two horizontal compartments, the top one housing the motherboard tray, and the bottom one housing the PSU with drives. XIGMATEK went a step further with using the bottom compartment's roof as a base for an add-on card stabilizer, which works to counter the PCB bending of your graphics cards. You have room for graphics cards as long as 45 cm, and CPU coolers as tall as 17 cm. The motherboard tray supports EATX boards besides standard ATX types.

Unlike other cases launched this Computex with a similar layout, the Midgard IV also gives you three 5.25-inch drive bays. It's just that where you normally expect 3.5-inch drive cages to be, you have empty space; and the bottom compartment holds three 3.5-inch drive bays. There are a total of seven 2.5-inch bays all around the case. The 5.25-inch drive cage is detachable. You get room for a 240 mm x 120 mm radiator with the cage in place, or a 360 mm x 120 mm radiator with it removed. You also have room for a 360 mm x 120 mm radiator up top with the 5.25-inch cage removed (or a 240 mm x 120 mm radiator with the cage in place). The case measures 510 mm x 210 mm x 530 mm (LxWxH).

ID-Cooling is on fire with quasi open-air cases this Computex. Besides the enthusiast-grade Stream 4 chassis, the company also unveiled the smaller (and more enclosed) Stream 2. This case design involves two blunted triangular rails, to which panels are attached on each side, making up the various case mounts, and tempered-glass covering the side-panels. The case has room for a micro-ATX or mini-ITX motherboard, with fairly long (30 cm-ish) graphics cards, standard ATX PSUs, and two liquid cooling loops - one with a 240 mm x 120 mm radiator, and the other with a 120 mm x 120 mm radiator. You also get a handful of 2.5-inch/3.5-inch drive bays.

PSU giant SeaSonic unveiled its new flagship PSU line, the Prime Titanium. The company showed off an 850W model from the series at the 2016 Computex show. As its name suggests, the PSU boasts of 80 Plus Titanium efficiency. The PSU offers some of the tightest ripple suppression, at under 20 mV. Its hold-up time is 30 ms, allowing for better protection against erratic AC power (eg: during storms). The Hybrid Fan Control spins up the 140 mm fan only beyond an ideal load/temperature threshold, making the PSU quiet during productivity usage. The unit offers fully modular cabling, with enough cabling for a machine with up to three graphics cards, and a motherboard with two 8-pin EPS inputs.

In Win introduced the wackiest (and possibly the smartest) case fan we've seen at Computex this year, the Aurora. This is the first fan to support wireless remote control. It's also the first fan to support multi-unit daisy-chaining, so one fan's power input and control can be shared with multiple fans. This way, you can control each of your multiple liquid cooling radiators by simply pointing the remote at them.

As simply a fan, the Aurora is a 120 mm spinner, with 800 to 1,400 RPM speeds in PWM mode, and 2,000 RPM in high-voltage mode (12V). At 1,400 RPM, it can push 40.26 CFM of air, with a noise output of 23.7 dBA. The remote allows you to fine tune fan-speed (within the PWM speed range), set and switch between presets, and control the lighting. Each fan features two 6-pin power ports, with which you can daisy-chain multiple fans. Each fan ships with a connector.

Rosewill's flagship case for this year's Computex wasn't a brutish full-tower, but a more elegant looking glass case, the Cullinan. This case features tinted tempered glass panels lining the front and side panels. It features a dual-compartment layout with the top (motherboard tray) compartment having no intrusion from drive bays, letting you either seat EATX motherboards, or standard ATX ones with lots of room to spare for your liquid cooling gear. You can install graphics cards as long as 42 cm, and CPU coolers as tall as 18 cm. Both the top- and front-panel feature vents for 360 mm x 120 mm radiators. Other features include an integrated fan-controller. The drive bays are relegated to the bottom compartment with the PSU, and behind the motherboard tray.

Lian Li has a tradition of launching at least one off-beat, entirely unexpected case each year at Computex, to show off its design prowess. This year's offering is the PC-Y6. Available in white (PC-Y6W) and black (PC-Y6B), this yacht-shaped case made of aluminium and tempered glass, has a more boutique (less practical) design for its volume.

It measures 764 mm x 293 mm x 259 mm (WxHxD), and takes up as much space as a mid-tower. What it can enclose, though, is a mini-ITX motherboard, a video card as long as 30 cm, a CPU cooler as tall as 6 cm, a standard ATX PSU, and two each of 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch drives. There just the one 120 mm front fan mount. The rest of it is mostly open-air. This case could make for an interesting and functional prop in the luxury suite of an actual cruise ship, or a yacht.

Tinted tempered glass appears to be the cool new material at Lian Li, and Computex in general. The traditionally aluminium case maker dressed most of its cases in the hot new material. Our tour of the booth begins with the PC-09WRX. This may not be the first dual-compartment case, but looks distinct, in that its left (motherboard tray) compartment is made almost entirely of tempered glass, while its right (PSU, drives) compartment almost entirely of aluminium. The left compartment is larger, to make room for more of the liquid cooling gear you want to show off.

The motherboard tray supports large E-ATX boards, besides common form-factors. It has room for graphics cards as long as 29 cm, and CPU coolers as tall as 29 cm. You can mount 360 mm x 120 mm radiators on both the front and top panels of this compartment. The right compartment can hold PSUs as long as 29 cm, and features six 3.5-inch drive bays, which are each convertible to 2.5-inch, and two other 2.5-inch bays. As expected, the case features an RGB LED kit.

Nanoxia of the DeepSilence fame is now an established player in the casing and cooling space. The company's new entry-level case, the Basic 1, was shown off the crowds at Computex. As its name suggests, this ATX mid-tower covers all the basics of a 2016 gaming PC build, and then some. A striking new feature is its HDD hot-swap cage with five 2.5-inch bays, that's accessible from the front panel, by removing a panel cover.

It's becoming clear that the running theme for Computex 2016 is "Must RGB Every Possible Thing!" Take ZADAK511 Shield RGB, for example. It's a solid-state drive with RGB LEDs embedded, which you can control by plugging it not just into your usual SATA interface, but also a USB 2.0 header on your motherboard. The 10 mm (12 mm?) thick drive is meant for open-air benches, or cases in which every component of your build is in plain sight - including the SSD. The design language from the Shield DDR4 memory carries over. For the more restrained enthusiasts who just want a 7 mm-thick drive, ZADAK511 has a more plain looking drive with a brushed aluminium finish.

ZADAK511 is a new enthusiast hardware brand that's taking flight from Computex 2016. The company partnered with HWBot to launch a new memory overclocking challenge. At Computex, the company launched its first enthusiast memory kit, the ZADAK511 Shield DDR4-3000. You see a characteristic silver-on-black neo-Gothic stylic on all the company's products launched. The memory does DDR4-3000 at timings of 16-18-18-38, although its voltage is unknown. The company apparently also has a DDR4-4266 kit, which it's giving away in the HWBot contest. So far, we've only seen 4 GB densities on these modules.

Cougar brought two new mechanical gaming keyboards to the Computex floor, the Ultimus and Attack X3 RGB. The Ultimus features a simple and elegant design with an aluminium face-plate, a simple 104-key layout with Function key enabling various system macros, full N-key rollover in USB mode, and RGB LED lighting along its Cherry MX mechanical switches. The more familiar looking Attack X3 RGB is just a variant of the Attack X3, featuring RGB LED back-lighting the the keys. Not much else has changed from the original.

Here's the first look at Dreambox, AeroCool's Computex Design Award winning chassis. The case is a bunch of pipes and rods that you use to put together a cubical or tower-type case of your own design, and then add from the various pieces of included tempered glass panels. It should be particularly useful for case-modders who wish their case was shaped in a certain way. Here's an example build of the Dreambox.

Want to take your MSI Gaming purism to the next level? Check out this MSI Gaming-branded CPU air cooler we found at Computex. This unnamed cooler features an aluminium fin-stack tower-type heatsink, ventilated by a pair of 120 mm spinners in push-pull configuration. The fans are 4-pin PWM ready, and the cooler itself embeds an RGB multi-color LED illuminating the MSI Gaming "dragon" logo with a faux carbon fiber background sticker. MSI is demoing this cooler on a socket LGA2011v3 motherboard, so that should tell you that this cooler has the chops to tame 140W Core i7 HEDT CPUs.

GeIL, a leading global manufacturer of PC components and peripherals, presents its latest addition to the EVO hardcore gaming memory product family - the DDR4 EVO FORZA Series. Developed with GeIL's MTCD - Maximum Thermal Conduction & Dissipation technology, the FORZA heat-spreader provides superior cooling performance.

Available in Hot-rod Red and Racing Yellow, the EVO FORZA Series is designed to be compatible with the latest Z170 and/or X99 platforms with frequency of up to 3866 MHz. In order to ensure the highest quality and reliability, the EVO FORZA Series are thoroughly tested and burned-in by GeIL's own DYNA4 SLT & DYNA4 DIMM SLT fully- automatic testers.

NVIDIA's decision to sell its reference-design GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card at a $100 premium over the SKU's MSRP of $599, is beginning develop cracks, with early adopters complaining of erratic default fan behavior. The GTX 1080 Founders Edition graphics card features NVIDIA's reference lateral-blower-type cooler, which didn't exactly blow us away, in our review of the card. Customers across the forumscape, including on NVIDIA's own GeForce Forums, are complaining of an issue where the fan of the cooler has a mind of its own, and revs up from 2,000 RPM to 3,000 RPM intermittently, and drops back to its idle speed. This, users complain, is particularly annoying if you're not gaming.

The users observe that these sudden and unpredictable spikes in fan-speed are not in response to rising GPU temperatures or clock speeds. Sudden variations in fan-speed are worse than gradual variations in response to legitimate triggers, as it also means sudden changes in noise, which is distracting. Users also observe that you can't even use third-party software (eg: EVGA Precision) to stabilize or override the fan-behavior, as the speed-spikes don't respect custom settings.

Get this - a portable gaming PC that's battery-powered, to which you plug in your VR headset, strap around your arms like a backpack, and walk around in an open space. MSI is tinkering with that concept, with its new untitled backpack gaming PC. The PC will be powered by cutting-edge desktop-grade Core i7 processors and GeForce GTX 980 graphics (likely GTX 1080M when it comes out?). It lets you plug in your VR gear with minimal cable clutter, and walk around without being confined to a static gaming PC. The company will detail this product further at its 2016 Computex booth.

FSP is also giving finishing touches to its first SFX form-factor PSUs targeted at SFF gaming PC builds, with the Dagger series. These units feature fully modular cabling, with enough juice and straws for high-end CPU and graphics hardware. The series initially features 500W and 600W models, boasting of 80 Plus Gold efficiency ratings, DC-to-DC switching, and complies with the latest ATX v2.4 specifications. An 80 mm dual-bearing fan keeps the unit cool. The company will reveal more information, including tentative launch, at its 2016 Computex booth.

ASUS teased an upcoming Republic of Gamers G-Series notebook. It didn't stop at the teaser pics, and went on to tease performance numbers of the untitled "GXXX" graphics processor at the heart of this beast. We'll go out on a limb here and guess that it's a new mobile GPU based on the "Pascal" architecture; more so because ASUS is claiming that it's faster than even the desktop GeForce GTX TITAN X, and has 3DMark 11 Performance-present score to show for that. ASUS plans to exhibit the notebook at the 2016 Computex; and it's becoming increasingly clear that the third GP104-based SKU promised for June 2016 could be a mobile chip after all.