GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards is proud to announce their entire line-up of Z97 and H97 motherboards now support the soon-to-launch 5th Generation Intel Core processors.

GIGABYTE engineers have tested and validated all GIGABYTE 9 series motherboards including Z97 and H97 chipset-based motherboards to ensure optimal performance for 5th Generation Intel Core processors. Users wanting to take advantage of all the features of 5th Gen Intel Core processors have to offer at launch, simply need to download the latest UEFI BIOS from the GIGABYTE website.

Intel's next major CPU architecture, codenamed "Skylake," could be classified as the company's 6th generation Core processor family. It will succeed the brief stint Core "Broadwell" will have at the market, with no major chips for PC enthusiasts to look forward to. The Core i7-6700K appears to be the flagship product based on the Skylake-D silicon, succeeding the i7-4770K and i7-4790K. The Core i5-6600K will succeed the i5-4670K and i5-4690K.

The i7-6700K is a quad-core chip, with HyperThreading enabling 8 logical CPUs. Its nominal clock will be 4.00 GHz, with a rather shallow 4.20 GHz Turbo Boost frequency. It will feature an 8 MB L3 cache, and an integrated memory controller that supports both DDR4 and DDR3 memory types. This makes Skylake a transition point for the mainstream PC market to gradually upgrade to DDR4. You'll have some motherboards with DDR3 memory slots, some with DDR4 slots, and some with both kinds of slots. The resulting large uncore component, and perhaps a bigger integrated GPU, will result in quad-core Skylake parts having TDP rated as high as 95W, higher than current Haswell quad-core parts, with their 88W TDP.

Some of the first CPUs and APUs based on AMD's next-generation "Zen" micro-architecture could be quad-core. "Zen" will be AMD's first monolithic core design after a stint with multi-core modules, with its "Bulldozer" architecture. Our older article details what sets Zen apart from its predecessor. As expected, in a multi-core chip, Zen cores share no hardware resources with each other, than a last-level cache (L3 cache), much like Intel's current CPU architecture.

There's just one area where Zen will differ from Haswell. With Haswell, Intel has shown that it can clump any number of cores on a chip, and make them share a proportionately large L3 cache. Haswell-E features 8 cores sharing a 20 MB cache. The Haswell-EX features 18 cores sharing 45 MB of cache. With Zen, however, the scale up stops at 4 cores sharing 8 MB of L3 cache. A set of four cores makes up what AMD calls a "quad-core unit." To be absolutely clear, this is not a module, the cores share no hardware components with each other, besides the L3 cache.

As a quick follow up to our older report on AMD's upcoming "Zen" CPU core micro-architecture being a reversion to the monolithic core design, and a departure from its "Bulldozer" multicore module design which isn't exactly flying off the shelves, a leaked company slide provides us the first glimpse into the core design. Zen looks a lot like "Stars," the core design AMD launched with its Phenom series, except it has a lot more muscle, and one could see significant IPC improvements over the current architecture.

To begin with, Zen features monolithic fetch and decode units. On Bulldozer, two cores inside a module featured dedicated decode and integer units with shared floating-point units. On Zen, there's a monolithic decode unit, and single integer and floating points. The integer unit has 6 pipelines, compared to 4 per core on Bulldozer. The floating point unit has two large 256-bit FMAC (fused-multiply accumulate) units, compared to two 128-bit ones on Bulldozer. The core has a dedicated 512 KB L2 cache. This may be much smaller than the 2 MB per module on Bulldozer, but also indicate that the core is able to push through things fast enough to not need cushioning by a cache (much like Intel's Haswell architecture featuring just 256 KB per core). In a typical multi-core Zen chip, the cores will converge at a large last-level cache, which routes data between them to the processor's uncore, which will feature a DDR4 IMC and a PCI-Express 3.0 root complex.

AMD's next-generation GPU family, which it plans to launch some time in 2016, codenamed "Arctic Islands," will see the company skip the 20 nanometer silicon fab process from 28 nm, and jump straight to 14 nm FinFET. Whether the company will stick with TSMC, which is seeing crippling hurdles to implement its 20 nm node for GPU vendors; or hire a new fab, remains to be seen. Intel and Samsung are currently the only fabs with 14 nm nodes that have attained production capacity. Intel is manufacturing its Core "Broadwell" CPUs, while Samsung is manufacturing its Exynos 7 (refresh) SoCs. Intel's joint-venture with Micron Technology, IMFlash, is manufacturing NAND flash chips on 14 nm.

Named after islands in the Arctic circle, and a possible hint at the low TDP of the chips, benefiting from 14 nm, "Arctic Islands" will be led by "Greenland," a large GPU that will implement the company's most advanced stream processor design, and implement HBM2 memory, which offers 57% higher memory bandwidth at just 48% the power consumption of GDDR5. Korean memory manufacturer SK Hynix is ready with its HBM2 chip designs.

The Intel Compute Stick, a new pocket-sized computer based on a quad-core Intel Atom processor running Windows 8.1 with Bing, is available now through Intel Authorized Dealers for much of the world.

The Intel Compute Stick can transform any HDMI display into an entry computer capable of working with productivity apps, playing local or streamed content, driving basic digital signage or enabling thin clients. It will support Wireless 802.11 b/g/n, a microSD card for expandable memory, MicroUSB power supply and Bluetooth 4.0 for keyboard and mouse.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Moore's Law, an unspoken agreement between the electronics industry and the world economy that inspires engineers, inventors and entrepreneurs to think about what is possible. Moore's Law enables much of today's innovation - wearable technology, genomic sequencing, smart cities -and is helping industries tackle seemingly intractable problems and turning fantastic ideas into profitable business ventures. What will the next 50 years hold?

ASUS today announced TUF Trooper B85, a rugged, high-value motherboard designed to withstand all conditions and heavy loading, and tested to exacting military standards for total protection to offer exceptional durability and long-term reliability. TUF Trooper B85 is certified by TUF engineers as a server-strength motherboard and is covered by a five-year warranty.

TUF Trooper B85 incorporates many exclusive TUF features, including the military-grade TUF LANGuard Ethernet socket and TUF ESD Guards 2 to protect against electrostatic discharge. Based on the versatile Intel B85 Express chipset, TUF's newest addition also benefits from ultra-durable TUF Components, high-fidelity TUF Audio with physical shielding, and flexible temperature-management with TUF Thermal Radar Core.

Intel Corporation today reported first-quarter revenue of $12.8 billion, operating income of $2.6 billion, net income of $2.0 billion and EPS of 41 cents. The company generated approximately $4.4 billion in cash from operations, paid dividends of $1.1 billion, and used $750 million to repurchase 21 million shares of stock.

"Year-over-year revenues were flat, with double-digit revenue growth in the data center, IoT and memory businesses offsetting lower than expected demand for business desktop PCs," said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. "These results reinforce the importance of continuing to execute our growth strategy."

BIOSTAR has released their newest micro-ATX motherboard based on the Intel H81 chipset, the H81MDC-LSP along with an upgraded sound chip and LAN surge protection. The board supports Intel 4th generation Core i7 and Core i5 processors. It features Intel single chip architecture with HD 4600Graphics, along with a new integrated memory controller that will run at speeds up to 1600MHz. The H81 chipset has two SATA 6Gb/s ports (plus four SATA 3Gb/s ports), and two USB 3.0 headers. The H81MDC-LSP supports two DIMMs for a maximum of 16Gigs of RAM. The H81MDC-LSP is a great option for small form factor systems where you rarely have more than one discrete card and two SATA drives and is a great combination for low-cost but with rich features such as HDMI video output. And being Intel based boards, they also feature Intel Rapid Start Technology and Intel Smart Connect Technology.

In addition to the normal specs, the H81MDC-LSP comes with MAGIX multimedia tools designed to enhance your music, videos and photos for free and Simplicheck, a small, intelligent tool by Simplitec GmbH that scans your PC for optimal performance. Simplicheck is based on well-proven scanning technology that has proven successful in everyday customer use.

Intel topped off its value dual-core processor lineup with a new energy-efficient part, the Core i3-4170T. One of the last chips to be based on the 22 nm "Haswell" silicon, this chip offers two cores with HyperThreading enabling four logical CPUs, 3.20 GHz clock speeds, 3 MB, and a TDP of just 35W (standard i3-41xx series feature 54W TDP). The i3-4170T is priced roughly on par with the current series-leading chip, the i3-4160. A little later this month, Intel will unveil the i3-4170, which will be the fastest part in the series, featuring 3.70 GHz clock speeds.

MSI, world leading in motherboard design, debuts the first Intel Braswell based Mini-ITX ECO motherboards; the MSI N3050I ECO, N3150I ECO and N3700I ECO. With a rich feature set and all new onboard 14nm Dual & Quad Core Intel Celeron and Pentium Processor with next generation Intel HD graphics up to 2x faster, the new passively cooled MSI Braswell ECO motherboards are the perfect solution for HTPC or industrial devices. MSI's revolutionary power-saving design featured on its new ECO series motherboards, together with Intel's newly designed ultra-low power consuming SoC using only up to 6W, make these motherboards the next step in efficiency. Featuring a fully passive cooling solution, the new Braswell based ECO motherboards run cool, silent & efficient.

Intel today unveiled the Intel Solid-State Drive (SSD) 750 Series, its highest performing SSD for use in client PC storage devices and workstations. The 750 series delivers greater than four times the performance of SATA-based SSDs by utilizing four lanes of PCIe 3.0 and the NVM Express (NVMe) standard.

For added flexibility, it is available as both an add-in card for systems with an accessible PCIe 3.0 slot and as a 2.5 inch small form factor solution. Intel also announced the availability of the Intel SSD 535 Series which offers the ideal balance of cost and performance for mainstream client PC storage devices.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, is proud to announce its complete lineup of motherboards build around the Intel X99 and 9 Series chipsets is compatible with the recently released 750 Series PCIe SSD drive from Intel. The new drives will be available in 400GB and 1.2TB capacities and are expected to deliver performance of up to 2.5/1.2 GB/s sequential read/write speeds and up to 440/290k random IOPs, thus making them the highest performing Intel Client SSD. GIGABYTE's X99 and 9 Series motherboards are able to take full advantage of the fast transfer speeds of this exciting new storage solution from Intel.

Built for enthusiast gamers and workstations, the new 750 Series SSDs are the first consumer oriented PCIe drives by Intel. Using PCIe Gen3 x 4 lanes with the latest and fastest NVMe controller interface, Intel's storage solution features a level of performance never achieved by regular SSDs, which are limited by their SATA connection and old AHCI protocol. Compared to the SATA 3 interface which can technically reach up to 6Gb/s, the PCIe Gen 3 interface is considerably faster as it provides up to 8Gb/s per lane, thereby allowing 32Gb/s of total available bandwidth for the x4 PCIe SSDs.

Micron Technology, Inc., and Intel Corporation today revealed the availability of their 3D NAND technology, the world's highest-density flash memory. Flash is the storage technology used inside the lightest laptops, fastest data centers, and nearly every cellphone, tablet and mobile device.

This new 3D NAND technology, which was jointly developed by Intel and Micron, stacks layers of data storage cells vertically with extraordinary precision to create storage devices with three times higher capacity than competing NAND technologies. This enables more storage in a smaller space, bringing significant cost savings, low power usage and high performance to a range of mobile consumer devices as well as the most demanding enterprise deployments.

Thecus today announced its new zero-crash 5-bay NAS, the N5810PRO. Embedded with an Intel Celeron processor J1900 Quad Core 2.0 GHz SoC and Mini-UPS battery, the Thecus N5810PRO empowers users with lightning fast performance while providing impenetrable data integrity.

"In today's ever-evolving digital environment, businesses require robust storage solutions that provide premium performance with piece of mind that their data will always be secure," said Florence Shih, CEO of Thecus Technology. "The N5810PRO is designed to equip users with a comprehensive set of applications that will optimize their business environment while addressing the needs for performance and security."

The newest motherboard based on Intel B85 single chip architecture by BIOSTAR is ready to work hard and play hard. The Hi-Fi B85Z5 supports Intel's 4th generation Core i7 and Core i5 processors in the 1150 package and is ready for a work out with 4 channel DDR3 slots for maximum memory support of up to 32GB.

BIOSTAR's Hi-Fi B85Z5 delivers a business-rich option at a value price compared to the other companies. The Hi-Fi B85Z5 features BIOSTAR innovative Hi-Fi technology, a built-in powerful headphone amplifier and Super LAN Surge Protection which enhances Ethernet protections. Being an Intel B85 chipset based system, it comes with features like Intel Rapid Storage Technology (Intel RST), for faster system boot and shorter application load time, and Intel Small Business Advantage (Intel SBA), which delivers business-centric security protection, such as after-hours virus scans and data backup, and blocks recognition of unwanted USB drives and Intel's Smart Connect Technology.

Intel Corporation today announced that first-quarter revenue is expected to be below the company's previous outlook. The company now expects first-quarter revenue to be $12.8 billion, plus or minus $300 million, compared to the previous expectation of $13.7 billion, plus or minus $500 million.

The change in revenue outlook is a result of weaker than expected demand for business desktop PCs and lower than expected inventory levels across the PC supply chain. The company believes the changes to demand and inventory patterns are caused by lower than expected Windows XP* refresh in small and medium business and increasingly challenging macroeconomic and currency conditions, particularly in Europe.

The data center business is meeting expectations.

SilentiumPC announce the Spartan PRO-B HE924 CPU cooler. Spartan PRO-B HE924 is a compact titan in the field of processor cooling from SilentiumPC. It owes its high efficiency to 4 heat pipes (6mm) a unique heat sink unit structure and HE (high efficiency) technology - direct heat pipe contact with the processor. Along with the heat sink unit there is a 100mm fan including the automatic rotation regulation function PWM. The fan rotation modes have been diligently selected to suit both those who cherish peace and quite and also overclockers. With the latter in mind the accessory box includes fastenings for a second fan.

The mounting system utilizes backplate, this makes Spartan PRO-B HE924 a perfect solution for system integrators. Wide compatibility includes LGA 775/1150/1155 /1156/1366 and AMD AM2 /AM2+ /AM3/AM3+/FM1/FM2/FM2+. Spartan PRO-B HE924 fits into virtually all midi tower cases. The set also includes an advanced thermal conductive paste (4.1 W/mk).

Two years ago, Google introduced the first Chromebook Pixel. The idea was to bring together the best in hardware, software and design to inspire the next generation of Chromebooks. It's been exciting to see how the entire range of Chromebooks-from classroom-proof to high-end-has made a difference to people at school, at home, and at work. Today, we're introducing an updated and more powerful Pixel to fuel the imaginations of another wave of Chromebook enthusiasts. Plus, we've created a new, online Google Store where you can get the Pixel and other devices made with Google, all in one place.

These days, packing for a trip means remembering to bring all your different chargers-for your phone, laptop, tablet, watch, etc. We think you should be able to use just one charger for all your electronics. So for the new Pixel, we've joined forces with some of the biggest names in the industry to create a new standard for charging, called USB Type C. The Pixel is one of the first products to launch with this new standard, with more Chromebooks and Android devices following suit soon.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards is proud to announce today the addition of 4 new high performance motherboards to their comprehensive Intel X99 chipsets offering with the X99 Champion series. The new motherboards consist of the X99-Gaming 5P, X99-UD4P, X99-UD3P and the already famous X99-SOC Champion.

DDR4 memory modules are available at a stock frequency of 2133 MHz, but memory vendors encode XMP profiles which can automatically modify the frequency and timings of the supported memory modules to work in par with your CPU. With the X99 Champion Series, GIGABYTE is offering a tested and proven platform that ensures proper compatibility with profiles up to 3200 MHz, and exclusively 3400 MHz for the X99-SOC Champion.

Along the sidelines of GDC 2015, Intel offered a few details on how the year could look for its desktop processor lineup. The company is preparing to launch socketed Core "Broadwell" processors in mid-2015 (late Q2 or early Q3), likely in the sidelines of Computex 2015. Broadwell is an optical shrink of "Haswell" to the new 14-nanometer silicon fab process, with a minor feature-set update, much in the same way as "Ivy Bridge" was an optical shrink of "Sandy Bridge" to the 22 nm process.

The socketed Core "Broadwell" chips could come in the LGA1150 package, running on existing 8-series and 9-series chipset motherboards, with BIOS updates. The optical shrink seems to be working wonders for the silicon. Quad-core chips based on "Broadwell" could come with TDP rated as low as 65W (and we're not talking about the energy-efficient "S" or "T" brand extensions here). Some dual-core variants in the series may even be based on the smaller Core M "Broadwell" silicon, which physically features just 2 cores (and isn't a bigger quad-core silicon with two cores disabled in what's a colossal waste of rare-earth metals on a production scale). Some of those dual-core parts could come with TDP rated as low as 28W.

ZOTAC International, a leading innovator and manufacturer of graphic cards and mini-PCs, today rewrites the definition of PC gaming with the ZOTAC Steam Machine SN970. The groundbreaking gaming platform finally conjoins uncompromising graphical experience with the television, unchaining gaming from the desk to the home entertainment center.

"We are honored to be working closely with Valve to bring gamers a system that will redefine PC gaming. The ZOTAC Steam Machine delivers a fully optimized gaming platform with full emphasis on graphics. We have employed the latest Intel CPU and NVIDIA GPU technology so gamers can keep the graphics sliders on ultra, and enjoy smooth, 4k gaming," says Tony Wong, CEO, ZOTAC International.

In order to help people understand the level of processor performance and make an informed purchase decision based on their needs, Intel Atom processors will now be offered in three distinct brand levels in a good/better/best construct - the Intel Atom x3, x5 and x7 processors. This change will start with the next generation of processors. Intel Atom x3 processor provides basic, but genuine Intel-level tablet, phablet and smartphone performance.

Intel Atom x5 processor has more capabilities and features for people who want an even better experience, and the flagship Intel Atom x7 processor provides the highest level of performance and capabilities for the Intel Atom family. The Intel Atom processor is designed to provide the best battery life with great performance for tablets, phablets, smartphones and other mobile devices. This infographic lists Intel's consumer brand portfolio for consumer devices including the Intel Core processor, Intel Core M processor, Intel Atom processor, Intel Pentium processor and Intel Celeron processor.

With 4K-ready media center PCs upon us, Intel decided to equip one of its next-gen NUC (next unit of computing) desktops with one of its most powerful integrated graphics solutions, which can either accelerate 4K video, 1080p to 4K upscaling GPU algorithms (think MadVR), or make for a reasonably fast 720p or 900p gaming machine. The NUC5i7RYH from Intel features a Core i5-5557U processor, which integrates Iris 6100 Graphics. Based on the "Broadwell-GT3" silicon, Iris 6100 offers 48 execution units, between 300 and 1100 MHz GPU core frequency, and an L4 eDRAM cache. A passive cooling solution deals with this 28W TDP chip. Other specs include two DDR3-1866 SO-DIMM slots, supporting up to 16 GB of memory, HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort 1.2 display-outputs, four USB 3.0 ports, including one high-current port.