With a combination of tax-sops and State support, Intel loosened its purse-strings for a massive investment in Israel, where the company already has substantial investments in manufacturing and R&D. The investment consists of a 40 billion Shekel (~USD $11 billion) semiconductor foundry. "Intel's global management has informed us about its decision to invest another 40 billion shekels in Israel, an unprecedented decision that is expected to bring thousands of jobs to the south (of Israel)," said the country's Minister of Finance, Moshe Kahlon.

This $11 billion investment closely follows news of Intel committing $5 billion last year toward expanding its existing facility in Kiryat Gat. Expansion of this plant in the southern part of the country, is expected to complete by 2020. As part of that agreement, Intel will spend $3 billion on sourcing materials, labor, and services from local Israeli businesses. The new factory is slated to come up in the same city, although it's not known if the site is contiguous with the existing factory. Intel is one of the largest multinational employers in Israel.

Intel will be relasing IPG-less versions of their most popular desktop processors soon, if some retailers' listings of the CPUs are anything to go by. The i9-9900KF and i7-9700KF CPUs will bring about Intel's best-performing architecture to date in an integrated GPU-less package, which will allow the company to bring prices down for the end user. Of course, this has all the hallmarks of a bid for a more competitive positioning of its products against AMD's upcoming Zen 2 products, whilst simultaneously (and likely) increasing profit on every processor sold (we'd expect the savings passed on to the customer to be inferior to Intel's saved costs at the foundry level).

The i9-9900KF has been found online for $582.50, more than $50 above the i9-9900K's $530 street pricing, while the 9600KF is listed at $308.75, more than $60 over the street pricing of Intel's i7-9600K. Remember that these prices are gouged on account of limited availability on the market; when these are more widespread and the market sees stocks in line with demand expectations, these should bottom down. But then again, we've seen Intel's products being price-increased for a while as the company struggled to keep its production up to the demand, amidst a constrained and supposedly already second-line 14 nm process.

Intel is giving finishing touches to its new family of compact WLAN cards for portables and motherboards, under the "Cyclone Peak" family. These include the Wireless-AX 22260 sold under Intel's main brand, and two re-branded or differentiated products by RivetNetworks: Killer Wireless-AX 1650x (22260NGW), and Killer Wireless-AX 1650W (22260D2W). Device IDs for these cards were recently added to the IWLWIFI repository by Intel software teams. "Cyclone Peak" offers 802.11ax Wi-Fi connectivity, in addition to Bluetooth 5. 802.11ax provides about 37 percent higher data-rate than 802.11ac, but improved effective bandwidth due to better spectrum utilization.

Intel succeeded in bringing down the TDP of its 8-core/16-thread "Coffee Lake-Refresh" silicon all the way down to a staggering 35 W, from its currently rated 95 W, which in real-world usage easily exceeds 110 W, given Turbo Boost, and other performance enhancements enabled by DIY motherboards. The new Core i9-9900T achieves its TDP with a combination of significantly lower clock-speeds, and an aggressive on-die power-management system. Its nominal-clock is down to 1.70 GHz from 3.60 GHz of the original i9-9900K, while 1~2 core Turbo Boost frequency is down to 3.80 GHz from 5.00 GHz of the original. The all-core Turbo clock-speed could be as low as 3.30 GHz. Intel hasn't tinkered with the L3 cache amount, which is still set at 16 MB, and the UHD 630 iGPU retains its EU count and clock-speeds. The chip features its 4-character product code of QQC0.

ZADAK, in association with NVIDIA Taiwan, wowed visitors at the opening of the Taipei Game Show 2019, presenting a scratch build from up and coming Taiwanese modder AK. Inspired by the popular Fallout 76 PC game, the Pip-Boy mod is composed of leather, aluminum and 3D-printed acrylics. It marks the first collaboration between ZADAK and NVIDIA Taiwan, showcasing the flagship MOAB II Water-cooled PC from ZADAK, and the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti gaming graphics card.

Intel Corporation today reported fourth-quarter and full-year 2018 financial results. The company also announced that its board of directors has approved a five percent increase in its cash dividend to $1.26 per-share on an annual basis. The board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.315 per-share on the company's common stock, which will be payable on March 1 to shareholders of record on February 7.

"2018 was a truly remarkable year for Intel with record revenue in every business segment and record profits as we transform the company to pursue our biggest market opportunity ever," said Bob Swan, Intel CFO and Interim CEO. "In the fourth quarter, we grew revenue, expanded earnings and previewed new 10nm-based products that position Intel to compete and win going forward. Looking ahead, we are forecasting another record year and raising the dividend based on our view that the explosive growth of data will drive continued demand for Intel products."

Today, Intel announced a major milestone in global inclusion - achieving gender pay equity across our worldwide workforce while also adding stock-based compensation to its pay equity analysis. Our commitment to achieving gender pay equity is central to making Intel a truly inclusive workplace, which we believe is a key factor in employee performance, productivity and engagement. A diverse workforce and inclusive culture are essential to our evolution and growth.

Intel defines pay equity as closing the gap in the average pay between employees of different genders or races and ethnicities, where data is available, in the same or similar roles after accounting for legitimate business factors that can explain differences, such as performance, time at grade level and tenure.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, announced that its Z390 and C246 motherboards now fully support 32GB Unbuffered memory per DIMM slot for up to 128GB total memory capacity on 4DIMM configurations, providing increased memory capacity for users. Additional BIOS updates will soon be rolled out to enable support for other 300 series motherboards.

Up until now, 32GB memory per DIMM slot was primarily limited to workstation ready motherboards with registered memory for users to fulfill memory-intensive tasks on their system. GIGABYTE has worked closely with Intel to ensure that GIGABYTE Z390 series motherboards paired with 9th Gen. processors can support 32GB memory per DIMM slot.

EK , the leading premium liquid cooling gear manufacturer, announces the global launch of their new Classic Product Line. It includes an NVIDIA RTX 2000 series GPU block, CPU blocks for both the most popular AMD and Intel platforms, and a pump-reservoir combo unit. Whether you only care about cooling performance, or just prefer the clean and timeless design of EK, the Classic Line will fulfill all your needs.

For users who want to experience the core essence of liquid cooling, the EK CLassic Line of products will offer excellent value regarding performance that is accompanied with simple and minimalistic looks. While designing and engineering the portfolio of the Classic Lineup, the performance of the products was not compromised at any moment.

There's no better way to kick off 2019 with the launch of new products, the motherboards featuring Intel B365 chipset launched during CES 2019 aims mostly at mainstream market but with huge improvement on not only functionality but also aesthetics, the product line are formed by total of 5 motherboards including Mini-ITX, the ever popular PRO series and the latest Phantom Gaming motherboards, giving a wide range of selection for everyone.

As M.2 NVMe SSDs get ever more attractive through affordability, capacity and performance, it is certain that these lightning fast storage devices will soon be a must have solution for gaming or even everyday use. ASRock has seen this trend and went all out to be the first to include the M.2 heatsink as standard equipment for the mainstream motherboard, the B365 Phantom Gaming 4 even has two separate M.2 heatsink for secondary high speed M.2 SSDs.

During our visit with ECS at CES 2019, we had the opportunity to check out some of their Mini-PCs. The first one we looked at during our tour was the M520 which comes equipped with an Intel Apollo Lake SoC and support for up to 8 GB of DDR3L via 2 SODIMM slots. Expansions options consist of an M.2 E key 2230 slot (PCIe, USB) and an M.2 M key 2242/2280 PCIe x1 slot. It offers HDMI and mDP for video output and even has two Gigabit LAN ports along with wireless connectivity and Bluetooth 4.0. Onboard storage consists of eMMC configured as 64 GB or 32 GB, and a 2.5-inch HDD/SSD as an option. It also has 4x USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports for peripherals and device connectivity along with an ES-232/422/485 port. In general, this particular system is quite tiny, but even with that in mind, we have to wonder why a 32 GB version is also an option considering Microsoft has gone so far as to say 32 GB of storage is inadequate for Windows 10.

Next up was the LIVA M520 not to be confused with the model previously discussed this option is quite a bit larger but features similar specifications. It comes equipped with a Celeron N3350 and up to 8 GB of DDR3L via 2x SODIMM slots. Storage consists of the same 32 GB, or 64 GB of eMMC and a 2.5-inch HDD/SSD is optional. The rest of the specifications are also quite similar with the LIVA M520 having an HDMI + mDP for video output, 4x USB ports, and 2x Gigabit LAN ports. Where it differs is the USB ports are only USB 3.0, not 3.1. For expansion, it includes the same M.2 E key and M.2 M key slots as the other M520 system.

SUSE today announced support for Intel Optane DC persistent memory with SAP HANA . Running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications, SAP HANA users can now take advantage of high-capacity Intel Optane DC persistent memory in the data center. Users can optimize their workloads by moving and maintaining larger amounts of data closer to the processor and minimizing the higher latency of fetching data from system storage during maintenance. Support for Intel Optane DC persistent memory, currently available in beta from multiple cloud service providers and hardware vendors, is another way SUSE is helping customers transform their IT infrastructures to reduce costs, deliver higher performance and compete more efficiently.

"Persistent memory technology will spark new applications for data access and storage," said Thomas Di Giacomo, SUSE CTO. "By offering a fully supported solution built on Intel Optane DC persistent memory, businesses can take greater advantage of the performance of SAP HANA. SUSE continues to partner with companies like SAP and Intel to serve customers worldwide who are looking to fuel growth by transforming their IT infrastructure. It is their needs that drive the direction of our innovation."

"The EVGA Z390 DARK is a 3rd generation model built exclusively for ultimate performance with improved and upgraded component selections, VRM, NVMe I/O, and PCB layout, compared to the flagship X299 DARK."- Illya "TiN" Tsemenko

The power of the DARK side of EVGA's Z390 motherboards is now available! After setting the bar with the X299 DARK, EVGA went back to work to design the next generation of motherboards designed exclusively for the world's top overclockers... or those looking to become one of the world's top overclockers. No effort was spared to improve the power design, layout, or features of the Z390 DARK.

ZOTAC Technology, a global manufacturer of innovation, is excited to present exclusive unveiling of the newest innovation from ZOTAC and ZOTAC GAMING at CES 2019. Awaiting in ZOTAC's suite at Caesars Palace will be live demonstrations of the latest gaming and computing hardware, including the very first ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX liquid-cooling ready graphics card, a line-up of next-gen ZBOX Mini PCs, the MEK MINI Gaming PC, and much more.

THE SMALL AND STRONG GAMING PC

In the limelight at CES will be MEK MINI, the diminutive addition to the ZOTAC GAMING MEK Gaming PC series that challenges to be one of the world's smallest desktop gaming system with desktop-class performance. Alongside will be unique editions of MEK MINI with a splash of color that will debut exclusive to CES.

While we have covered the MonsterLabo "The First" case earlier this year with it appearing at Computex 2018 and again with further details later, it was also on the showroom floor at CES, meaning we were able to get a closer look. While the design promises passive cooling, the system that was opened for viewing on the showroom floor was equipped with a single 140 mm Noctua fan (can't-miss that color scheme). Which means we can't consider it a passive cooling case as shown. However, it is likely that with lower TDP parts it is entirely possible. Even so, with the use of a single low noise 140 mm fan it handled the configured systems just fine. One system used an Intel Core i5-8600K and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (Far West mod), while another (white) system featured an Intel Core i5-8500 and a GeForce RTX 2070.

Update: We have some exclusive images of the case in the hot Nevadan desert, managing to still look cool.

Perhaps gliding through the tech-infused CES week, UL Corporation has just announced that the much-expected Port Royal, the world's first dedicated real-time ray tracing benchmark for gamers, is now available. Port Royal uses DirectX Raytracing to enhance reflections, shadows, and other effects that are difficult to achieve with traditional rendering techniques, and enables both performance benchmarking for cutthroat competition throughout the internet (and our own TPU forums, of course), but is also an example of what to expect from ray tracing in upcoming games - ray tracing effects running in real-time at reasonable frame rates at 2560 × 1440 resolution.

Players expect higher performing hardware to get the most out of their systems -- whether they're competitive eSports players, PC gaming enthusiasts, or those interested in massive multiplayer experiences or looking to play their favorite single-player titles at the highest settings. Based on feedback from the gaming community, performance is the number one thing they value most. To fulfill gamers' needs, Lenovo is turning user feedback into product ideas. And to ensure our products continue to meet and exceed users' evolving needs, we continually fine tune and improve our innovations. As a result, the latest Lenovo Legion gaming line-up is more powerful than ever -- with a new range of high-performance PCs and an entire family of re-designed gaming accessories and monitors.

Intel finally disclosed specifications of its entire 9th generation Core "F" extension desktop processor SKUs. The ARK pages confirm the lack of integrated graphics solutions, although they won't mention if the iGPU is merely disabled or physically absent. Among these SKUs are the Core i9-9900KF, Core i7-9700KF, and Core i5-9600KF, which have the same exact CPU clock speeds as the the i9-9900K, i7-9700K, and i5-9600K, respectively.

The Core i3-9350K is a new kid on the block. This 4-core/4-thread chip ticks at 4.00 GHz, with 4.60 GHz Turbo Boost, and features 8 MB of shared L3 cache. The Core i5-9400F, again, is practically the same CPU as the i5-9400, with the exception of iGPU. Another interesting specification to note with these SKUs is their maximum memory amount, which has been reduced to 64 GB from 128 GB on the original "K" SKUs. As Intel announced in its Monday evening presentation, These six new SKUs will be rolled out over Q1-2019, beginning with the i5-9400 later this month. The "KF" and "F" SKUs will only come out after January, but before April.

MSI, a world leader in gaming hardware, debuts an industry-leading selection of gaming products at CES 2019, including the brand new GS75 Stealth laptop with the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU and the PS63 Modern Prestige laptop, designed for business executives and content creators. "MSI is devoted to gaming and our new lineup reaffirms our position as an industry leader endorsed by gamers and eSports teams worldwide," said Charles Chiang, MSI's new global CEO. "We are honored to be recognized by the CES awards panel and will continue to push boundaries to achieve extreme performance, superior design, and maximum reliability." MSI will also be debuting exclusive gaming technologies with next-level interactive functions designed for full immersion. Partnering with Ubisoft, MSI will enrich the gaming experience of Assassin's Creed Odyssey with RGB light dancing synced to the game and haptic feedback underneath the palm to generate vibration upon in-game events such as gunshots.

GS75 Stealth: The Game Just Got Real
Experience extreme performance with realistic in-game lighting on the go with this thin & light 4-sided thin bezel gaming laptop. Equipped with the latest Intel Core i7 CPU, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 GPU, a 17.3" 144HZ IPS-level display, and an extra-large, highly responsive and accurate touchpad, the GS75 stuns in an impressive aluminum alloy body. Highlighted by an internal passive radiator that delivers earth-shaking audio with booming bass, the GS75 measures only 0.75 inches thick. The GS series breaks the stereotype of bulky and heavy gaming laptops, offering an exceptional and portable gaming experience. MSI will also be unveiling the revamped version of the award-winning GS65, a 15.6" gaming laptop armed with the latest CPU and GPUs while weighing less than 4.19 lbs.

To meet demands of the 1U server market and extreme enthusiasts Alphacool had on display their Eisblock Flatboy CPU block. While this latest solution is predominately targeted at servers with support for Intel's LGA3647 and LGA 2066 and AMD's TR4. That said, enthusiasts running a Threadripper system can also easily make use of the block as well. The only detailed specifications we have currently is that It measures in at 79 mm x 63.8 mm x 25.5 mm and offers multiple G1/4" connection options including 3x in and 5x out.

Corsair showed off their ONE series of desktops at CES with the ONE PRO i180 workstation for content creators taking center stage. Also on display were the ONE i160, and ONE i140 for prosumers which round Corsair's ONE series of desktop systems. The internal design for this release has been entirely revamped, allowing for exceptional performance with support for processors of up to 165-watts and graphics cards of up to 300-watts without increasing noise or size. Compared to their older Corsair ONE Elite, the new systems are faster quieter and cooler running across the entire range. The ONE i140 packs an Intel Core i7-9700K alongside an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080, 32 GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 2666 memory, 480 GB NVMe SSD, 2TB HDD, and a 600-watt SF600 80-PLUS Gold power supply for $2999 and is available immediately.

CORSAIR, a world leader in PC gaming peripherals and enthusiast components, today announced the launch of a complete new range of its award-winning CORSAIR ONE all-in-one PCs, led by the immensely powerful CORSAIR ONE PRO i180. A CES 2019 Innovation Award Honoree, the CORSAIR ONE PRO i180 has been created in collaboration with Intel to exceed the demands of today's most ambitious content creators. Powered by a liquid-cooled Intel Core i9-9920X 12-core processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics, CORSAIR ONE PRO i180 puts the power and performance of a full-fledged workstation into a small form factor that occupies less than a third of the space of its larger, more traditional counterparts. Accompanied by the CORSAIR ONE i160 and i140, which share the all-new internal layout and compact form-factor, the new range of CORSAIR ONE and CORSAIR ONE PRO once again redefine how compact, stylish and powerful a PC can be.

An Intel Newsroom post penned by the company's Steven Rodgers takes a stab at Qualcomm over their patent litigation cases. Titled "Qualcomm's Patent Litigation Campaign isn't Really about Vindicating Intellectual Property Rights", Rodgers cites the number of times Qualcomm has been fined by various authorities around the world, "nearly a billion dollars in China, $850 million in Korea, $1.2 billion by the European Commission and $773 million in Taiwan (later reduced in a settlement) for anti-competitive practices." Citing consequences such as reduced innovation and raised prices for consumers, Intel calls out Qualcomm in that its goal isn't to "vindicate its intellectual property rights, but rather to drive competition out of the market for premium modem chips, and to defend a business model that ultimately harms consumers."

Now, the collective hardware enthusiast memory isn't one to be trifled with, so I will leave it to you to figure out exactly where the irony is in these accusations. Of course, bad history on a company's part doesn't preclude any responsibility from any other company that is currently employing anti-competitive tactics that do, ultimately, stifle innovation and increase prices for consumers. As some Portuguese humorists would say, "one thing is one thing, another thing is another thing". But I'd say, jibbing my way through this, that it takes one to know one.

We've tracked the possibility of GPU-disabled 9th generation Core "Coffee Lake Refresh" processors since early December with a Q1-2019 launch target. Some of these chips are already surfacing on retailers, with Norwegian and Finnish online stores listing four chips: the Core i9-9900KF, the i7-9700KF, i5-9600KF, and the i5-9400F. There's no sign of the quad-core i3-9350KF. As mentioned earlier, these are processors with their integrated graphics either disabled or physically absent. The "KF" extension indicates that in addition to lacking an iGPU, these chips feature an unlocked base-clock multipler. The i5-9400F, on the other hand, has a locked multiplier and lacks an iGPU.

The clock-speeds of the i9-9900KF, i7-9700KF, and i5-9600KF appear identical to their iGPU-equipped siblings, with the i9-9900KF featuring 3.60 GHz nominal and 5.00 GHz Turbo Boost, the i7-9700KF featuring 3.60 GHz nominal and 4.90 GHz Turbo Boost, and i5-9600KF featuring 3.70 GHz nominal with 4.70 GHz Turbo Boost. The i5-9400F is an interesting chip, it is speed-bump over the popular i5-8400, with 2.90 GHz nominal and likely 4.20 GHz Turbo Boost. Besides slightly increase clock speeds, you get hardware fixes to certain security vulnerabilities Intel addressed with the 9th generation. The prices of these chips are off the scale, and nothing really worth mentioning.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today launched the compact and versatile TBS-453DX NASbook which is designed for small working spaces and mobile workers. Using four M.2 SATA SSDs for storage, the TBS-453DX can also have 20 cloud storage spaces mapped and local caching enabled, providing the ability to work with online files as quickly as local files. The multi-functional and near-silent TBS-453DX provides HDMI 2.0 4K 60Hz output, hardware transcoding and streaming, and features 10GbE N-BASET connectivity based on Aquantia 's Multi-Gig controller, making it perfect for creating a seamless high-speed network environment for improved teamwork and smooth multimedia applications.

The TBS-453DX NASbook packs serious performance and complete business applications into a tiny, portable frame. By seamlessly integrating cloud storage spaces, the TBS-453DX provides the combined advantages of portability and storage flexibility to boost the abilities of modern offices and studios," said Jason Hsu, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "With the ability to locally cache cloud-based files on the TBS-453DX, no matter if users are working remotely or in the office, they can enjoy access speeds as if they were working within a LAN environment."