GPD has disclosed to ITHome that a specification refresh of its Win Max 2 handheld/mini-laptop gaming PC is incoming—this model debuted last year with Ryzen 7040 "Phoenix" APUs sitting in the driver's seat. A company representative provided a sneak peek of an upgraded device that sports a Team Red Ryzen 8040 series "Hawk Point" mobile processor, and a larger pool of system memory (32 GB versus the 2023 model's 16 GB). The refreshed GPD Win Max 2's Ryzen 7 8840U APU was compared to the predecessor's Ryzen 7 7840U in CPU-Z benchmarks (standard and AX-512)—the results demonstrate a very slight difference in performance between generations.

The 8040 and 7040 APUs share the same "Phoenix" basic CPU design (8-cores + 16-threads) based on the prevalent "Zen 4" microarchitecture, plus an integration of AMD's Radeon 780M GPU. The former's main upgrade lies in its AI-crunching capabilities—a deployment of Team Red's XDNA AI engine. Ryzen 8040's: "NPU performance has been increased to 16 TOPS, compared to 10 TOPS of the NPU on the 'Phoenix' silicon. AMD is taking a whole-of-silicon approach to AI acceleration, which includes not just the NPU, but also the 'Zen 4' CPU cores that support the AVX-512 VNNI instruction set that's relevant to AI; and the iGPU based on the RDNA 3 graphics architecture, with each of its compute unit featuring two AI accelerators, components that make the SIMD cores crunch matrix math. The whole-of-silicon performance figures for "Phoenix" is 33 TOPS; while 'Hawk Point' boasts of 39 TOPS. In benchmarks by AMD, 'Hawk Point' is shown delivering a 40% improvement in vision models, and Llama 2, over the Ryzen 7040 "Phoenix" series."

ASRock showcased customized Radeon RX 7600 XT 16 GB GPU offerings at CES 2024—only a couple days after AMD's official unveiling of its expanded lower mid-range RDNA 3 line. ASRock was among a select few Team Red board partners with finalized units (based on Navi 33 XT) on display—it seems that the Taiwanese manufacturer is preparing for a retail launch of its Radeon RX 7600 XT Steel Legend 16 GB OC and Challenger 16 GB OC graphics card models. ASRock's website has been updated with product pages for the latest Radeon RX 7000-series entries, but press material for an imminent product launch has not been published (at the time of writing).

ASRock's mid-tier triple-fan Steel Legend and entry-level dual-fan Challenger designs are a familiar sight across the company's Radeon RX 7000 and 6000 product lines—last September, customized Radeon RX 7800 XT and Radeon RX 7700 XT models were unveiled as sporting these shrouds, along with higher-end Phantom Gaming OC options. A slightly overclocked Radeon RX 7600 XT GPU is not expected to be a heat producing monster, so expensive cooling solutions are not a necessity for a cost-conscious audience—likely targeting a decent level of 1080p gaming performance. The ASRock Radeon RX 7600 XT Challenger 16 GB OC model is expected to launch at an MSRP of $329 (AMD's official guide SEP), while the fancier Steel Legend OC is believed to be only marginally more expensive.

Memory PC GmbH has unveiled an exclusive reskin of Sapphire Technology's standard PULSE RX 7800 XT graphics card—the German e-tailer is advertising this special edition model as a "world first," with a design that is both "unique and eye-catching." We reckon that there is some marketing spiel + exaggeration in effect here, although Memory PC's branding, messaging and extra swathes of red and white do add up to be a more visually appealing package. Sapphire's PULSE card designs tend to focus on function rather than fancy livery—the normal PULSE RX 7800 XT card is almost entirely black, save for some red line accents on its shroud and backplate, plus white text on the twin cooling fans.

This special model sports white PULSE fans with abbreviated Memory PC logo branding, while the shroud has red and white stealth-effect polygonal patterning. This effect adorns almost the entire stretch of backplate, a pixellated heart graphic and a "WE LOVE GAMING" statement sit within an island of black. The Memory PC + Sapphire Technology Navi 32 XT GPU collaboration is only available in pre-built PC systems—starting at €999, with an AMD Ryzen 7 5700X build.

AMD unveiled its Golden Rabbit Edition (GRE) Radeon RX 7900 GPU last summer—this Navi 31 XL-based card was first launched in China, with only a handful of customized options and a reference model (produced by XFX) available at the starting line. It later emerged that Team Red's special SKU (celebrating the Year of the Rabbit) would be heading West; by Autumn-time, system integrators in Europe started to sell full PC systems outfitted with Radeon RX 7900 GRE graphics cards. By late 2023, a small smattering of board partner versions hit the European market in proper retail form—you no longer had to shell out €1500+ for a pre-built system in order to gain access to an exclusive model. Team Red's almost parallel launch of its Radeon RX 7800 XT GPU has overshadowed the slightly more powerful RDNA 3 model's limited release.

VideoCardz has received tips about price cuts affecting certain Radeon RX 7900 GRE models, and a new retail entry for an ASRock custom design. AMD has started to adjust its pricing at the higher mid-tier and flagship GPU level, in reaction to NVIDIA rolling out GeForce RTX 40 SUPER cards this month. This initiative has affected the Radeon RX 7900 GRE as well, despite its very restricted availability in Western markets. The article points to an example of the reference design with its price falling by ~€60 (over a two month period)—Italy's PSK Mega Store's offer currently sits at €542.66. The lowest price in Spanish and German markets appears to be €579—CoolMod Espagna has Sapphire's Pulse Radeon RX 7900 GRE Gaming OC 16 GB card listed at €579.95; it also qualifies for the AVATAR: Frontiers of Pandora promotion. Mindfactory DE lists a mysterious ASRock Radeon RX 7900 GRE Challenger 16 GB OC Edition model (SKU 90-GA52ZZ-00UANF), ready to purchase and ship out immediately at €579. Photos of this twin-fan custom model can be viewed at Skinflint UK.

Farming Simulator 22 now supports AMD FSR 3 on PC, so you can enjoy even smoother farming. Download game update 1.13.1.1, and activate FSR plus Frame Generation to boost your frame rate on supported graphics cards! Wait, what's FSR? AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (in short: AMD FSR) uses upscaling technologies that aim to increase the frame rate. In simplified terms, it first renders Farming Simulator 22 at a lower resolution, but then upscales it using a variety of (very smart & efficient) techniques. Without sacrificing image quality, you can significantly increase the performance of Farming Simulator 22, especially when demanding settings are enabled. Try it!

What's new in FSR 3?
AMD FSR 3 improves upon FSR 2's upscaling and adds Frame Generation. This feature can be activated separately in the graphics settings of Farming Simulator 22. It generates additional frames to increase the frame rate. Imagine one new frame being inserted in between two existing frames. In some, ideal situations, depending on your hardware and individual settings, FSR 3 with activated Frame Generation can straight up double your displayed FPS to guarantee some extra-smooth farming! Please note: AMD FSR 3 Frame Generation is recommended to be used with a minimum of 60 FPS before FG-activation!

At CES, AMD didn't give away too many technical details of its upcoming Ryzen 8000G-series APUs, but details are starting to trickle out and it's not all good news. As has been known for some time, AMD is using two different chips to make the Ryzen 8000G APUs and they're known as the Phoenix 1 and Phoenix 2, where the Phoenix 2 parts feature Zen 4c cores, which are not present in the Phoenix 1 APUs. This in and of itself shouldn't be a huge issue, although the Zen 4c CPU cores can be slightly slower in some tasks based on testing of AMD's EPYC server parts.

However, PCGamesN noticed that Gigabyte has posted the full specs for the B650E Aorus Elite X AX Ice motherboard and it looks like there's a much bigger difference between the Phoenix 1 and Phoenix 2 based APUs. Namely, the Phoenix 2 APUs have fewer PCIe lanes and as such are limited to two PCIe 4.0 lanes for the secondary NVMe slot. As if this wasn't bad enough, the Phoenix 2 APUs only have four PCIe 4.0 lanes for add-in GPUs, whereas the Phoenix 1 APUs have eight. This is very likely to lead to reduced performance if a higher-end GPU is used with such an APU. Note that this will vary depending on the motherboard design, but many B650/B650E boards feature a similar design with regards to the PCIe lanes coming from the CPU socket. Luckily, it's easy to avoid this issue, as the Ryzen 5 8600G and the Ryzen 7 8700G are both Phoenix 1 designs, whereas the Ryzen 5 8500G is the only Phoenix 2 design available in retail, as the Ryzen 3 8300G is an OEM only part.

During CES, PCWorld had a chat with Donny Woligroski, Technical Marketing Manager at AMD. The new Ryzen 8000G APUs were a large part of what covered in the almost 17 minute long video and PCWorld got some details that weren't covered in the official press materials that AMD released at the launch. The officially supported memory speed listed by AMD is DDR5-5600, which is a step up from the official speed of DDR5-5200 for the Ryzen 7000-series CPUs.

However, we know that the Ryzen 7000-series is more than happy to use faster memory and as before, AMD has an unofficial memory sweet spot and just as with the Ryzen 7000-series, the Ryzen 8000G-series of APUs has a memory sweet spot of DDR5-6000. That said, it's unknown if the Ryzen 8000G-series will support faster memory or will start flaking out above DDR5-6000, like many Ryzen 7000-series CPUs do unless you switch to a 1:2 ratio. Woligroski is also pointing out that dual-channel is a must to get the best performance out of the new APUs, although this shouldn't really surprise anyone. Full video after the break.

AMD has quietly issued a product discontinuation notice—their PDF document is dated January 1 2024—for a whole bunch of Xilinx Complex Programmable Logic Device (CLPD) and lower-end FPGA models. Team Red's opening statement on the matter reads: "AMD will be discontinuing XC9500XL, CoolRunner XPLA 3, CoolRunner II, Spartan II, and Spartan 3, 3A, 3AN, 3E, 3ADSP Commercial/ Industrial "XC" and Automotive "XA" Product Families due to declining run-rate and supplier sustainability reasons." The American multinational semiconductor inherited a large back catalog of programmable logic products once their acquisition of Xilinx was completed back in 2022.

Industry analysts believed that this takeover was mainly motivated by a desire to expand into FPGA territories, although Team Red indicated that it would carry on producing and supporting Xilinx's older CLPD products—for example, the Spartan 3 family debuted back in 2011, while a couple of the CoolRunner II parts on the list are of 2002 vintage. AMD's discontinuation notice provides details of Last Time Buy (LTB) final orders—the cut-off date for soon-to-be-axed devices appears to be June 29 2024.

Microsoft has reportedly set 16 GB as the minimum system requirement for AI PCs, a TrendForce market research report finds. To say that Microsoft has a pivotal role to play in PC hardware specs is an understatement. This year sees the introduction of the first "AI PCs," or PCs with on-device AI acceleration for several new features native to Windows 11 23H2, mainly Microsoft Copilot. From the looks of it, Copilot is receiving the highest corporate attention from Microsoft, as the company looks to integrate the AI chatbot that automates and generates work, into the mainstream PC. In fact, Microsoft is even pushing for a dedicated Copilot button on PC keyboards along the lines of the key that brings up the Start menu. The company's biggest move with Copilot will be the 2024 introduction of Copilot Pro, an AI assistant integrated with Office and 365, which the company plans to sell on a subscription basis alone.

Besides cloud-based acceleration, Microsoft's various AI features will rely on some basic hardware specs for local acceleration. One of them of course is the NPU, with Intel's AI Boost and AMD's Ryzen AI being introduced with their latest mobile processors. The other requirement will be memory. AI acceleration is a highly memory sensitive operation, and LLMs require a sizable amount of fast frequent-access memory. So Microsoft arrived at 16 GB as the bare minimum amount of memory for not just native acceleration, but also cloud-based Copilot AI features to work. This should see the notebooks of 2024 set 16 GB as their baseline memory specs; and for commercial notebooks to scale up to 32 GB or even 64 GB, depending on organizational requirements. The development bodes particularly well for the DRAM industry.

With NVIDIA's Ampere and Hopper GPUs enjoying a domination in the AI acceleration industry, compute companies are turning to AMD's Instinct CDNA series accelerators to look for alternatives. It seems like they've found one. This has financial market analysts excited, causing the AMD company stock to hit near record highs. AMD recently launched the Instinct MI300X and MI300A processors based on the CDNA 3 architecture, which the company claims beat NVIDIA's H100 "Hopper" processors at competitive prices, which has encouraged analysts from major financial institutions, including Barclays, KeyBanc Capital, and Susquehanna Financial Group, to increase their price targets for the AMD stock. As of market closure at Jan 17, 7:59:56 PM UTC, the AMD stock stood at $160.17, near its November 2021 record high of $164.46.

AMD's data center business looks to ramp up Instinct CDNA accelerators through 2024. These large chiplet-based GPUs are based on the same 5 nm TSMC foundry nodes to NVIDIA's H100 "Hopper," and to maximize the use of its foundry allocation, it's been reported that AMD might even forego large gaming GPUs based on its Radeon RX RDNA4 architecture, to maximize its allocation for high-margin CDNA3 chips. The Instinct MI300X features a colossal 304 compute units worth 19,456 stream processors capable of AI-relevant math formats, and 192 GB of 8192-bit HBM3 memory, with 5.2 TB/s of memory bandwidth on tap.

Official support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 3 (FSR 3), including support for Frame Generation, has been extended to Call of Duty Modern Warfare III and Warzone, though their latest game patch. This adds FSR 3 as an option, which lets you choose between five performance presets—Ultra Performance, Performance, Balanced, Quality, and Native; with Native being analogous to NVIDIA's DLAA preset—a quality enhancement at native resolution, without upscaling. With the "AMD FSR 3.0" upscaling/sharpening option selection, you also get Frame Generation as a separate toggle, which nearly doubles frame rates using AMD's interpolation technology.

Call of Duty MW:III and Warzone are arguably the biggest game franchise to implement FSR 3 so far. The list of officially supported FSR 3 titles is small, with just five other titles that include Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Forspoken, Immortals of Aveum, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name; and Motorcubs RC; however, with AMD posting the FSR 3 source code to GPUOpen, the game modding community is all over the feature, extending unofficial FSR 3 and Frame Generation mods to games not on this list. It's worth noting that the latest CoD MW:III patch has FSR 3 replace the FSR 2.1 option entirely.

AMD has lowered the official MSRP of the Radeon RX 7900 XT graphics card to $749, down from its launch price of $899. Its street price, as TweakTown found out, is lower still, with certain custom-design RX 7900 XT cards selling for as low as $710 on Newegg. At this price, the RX 7900 XT is set up for a major clash with certain overclocked NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER graphics cards, leftover inventories of the recently retired GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, and probably even looks to soak up some sales before the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER hits the scene on January 24. The cheapest RX 7900 XT is actually one of the better-appointed custom designs out there, the ASRock RX 7900 XT Phantom Gaming and XFX RX 7900 XT Merc 319, which had originally launched at prices comparable to the PowerColor Hellhound. These are followed by the PowerColor RX 7900 XT Hellhound and Sapphire RX 7900 XT Pulse OC at $720.

The Radeon RX 7900 XT is a very capable high-end GPU that AMD categorizes as capable of 4K Ultra HD gaming with settings maxed out. It's carved out from the "Navi 31" chiplet GPU, and configured with 84 RDNA3 compute units, worth 5,376 stream processors, 168 AI accelerators, 84 Ray accelerators, 336 TMUs, and 192 ROPs. The best part about this card is its memory sub-system, with 80 MB of Infinity Cache, and 20 GB of 20 Gbps GDDR6 memory across a 320-bit wide memory bus with 800 GB/s of bandwidth on tap, which should come in handy at 4K, or when using creator or AI applications.

New York-based security firm Trail of Bits has identified a security vulnerability with various GPU models, which include AMD, Qualcomm, and Apple. This vulnerability, named LeftoverLocals, could potentially allow attackers to steal large amounts of data from a GPU's memory. Mainstream client-GPUs form a sizable chunk of the hardware accelerating AI and LLMs, as they cost a fraction of purpose-built data-center GPUs, and are available in the retail market. Unlike CPUs, which have undergone extensive hardening against data leaks, GPUs were primarily designed for graphics acceleration and lack similar data privacy architecture. To our knowledge, none of the client GPUs use virtualization with their graphics memory. Graphics acceleration in general is a very memory sensitive application, and requires SIMD units to have bare-metal access to memory, with as little latency as possible.

First the good news—for this vulnerability to be exploited, it requires the attacker to have access to the target device with the vulnerable GPU (i.e. cut through OS-level security). The attack could break down data silos on modern computers and servers, allowing unauthorized access to GPU memory. The potential data breach could include queries, responses generated by LLMs, and the weights driving the response. The researchers tested 11 chips from seven GPU makers and found the vulnerability in GPUs from Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm. While NVIDIA, Intel, and Arm first-party GPUs did not show evidence of the vulnerability, Apple, Qualcomm, and AMD confirmed to wired that their GPUs are affected, and that they're working on a security response. Apple has released fixes for its latest M3 and A17 processors, but older devices with previous generations of Apple silicon remain vulnerable. Qualcomm is providing security updates, and AMD plans to offer mitigations through driver updates in March 2024.

V-COLOR announces the launch of their DDR5 overclocking R-DIMM the TRX50 Motherboards powered by AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series processors with capacity 192 GB (4x48GB) ready to hit the market in speeds ranging from 6400 MHz up to 7200 MHz for end users who require the maximum capacity and speed. This package is geared toward content makers, intensive 3D modelers, AI programmers, trading machines, and HFT (high frequency trading) firms.

With EXPO ready v-color DDR5 OC R-DIMM memory is ready to for full potential, designed for a diverse user base that includes both non-overclocking users and overclocking enthusiasts, with a specific focus on content creators, intensive 3D modelers, AI programmers, trading machines or HFT (high frequency trading) companies. This kit is meticulously crafted with the most advanced SK Hynix DDR5 chips and Automated Binning sort for more reliability and endurance, continuously tested for full compatibility with all the motherboards TRX50.

AMD concentrated on the promotion of new Zen 4-based APU products at last week's CES trade show, and they even lobbed in a couple of new Zen 3 offerings for PC enthusiasts who are more than happy to stick with Team Red's last generation AM4 socket. Future-focused folks were a little bit disappointed with Team Red keeping quiet about their next-generation "Zen 5" CPUs at CES 2024—one seeker of information, Peter Weltzmaier, turned to a notorious source of hardware leaks on X. Kepler has a decent track record of providing accurate inside tracks—and they more than happy to address Weltzmaier's query regarding the status of AMD's upcoming "Granite Ridge" desktop CPU series.

Kepler believes that Granite Ridge has reached the mass production phase, but did not provide any further elaboration beyond a brief reply on social media—this information should be taken with a grain of salt. We have not heard a lot about Granite Ridge processors since last November, with AMD choosing to not preview next-gen desktop processors at a December "Advancing AI" event. The rumor mill proposed that XDNA-based Ryzen AI acceleration will not be a key feature present on Granite Ridge and a mobile-oriented derivative called "Fire Ridge."

Technical specifications for ASUS TUF Gaming A16 (2024) laptops have appeared online, and sleuths were intrigued by the inclusion of a new entry in AMD's "Dragon Range" mobile processor series. The autumn 2023 rumor mill had a number of lower positioned Ryzen 7045 models lined up in Team Red's future release schedule. Chinese hardware channel—Golden Pig Upgrade—named the Ryzen 9 7940HX processor as a leaked prime candidate within this batch of unreleased SKUS; their prediction has emerged as accurate—thanks to 2024 TUF Gaming portable PCs appearing with this choice of Dragon Range chip.

Team Red's Ryzen 9 7940HX retains the usual characteristics of Dragon Range—Zen 4 architecture, 16 cores + 32 threads, and 64 MB of L3 cache—but arrives with a 200 MHz lower turbo clock speed (max. 5.2 GHz) when compared to the slightly more potent Ryzen 9 7945HX (max. 5.4 GHz). The ASUS TUF Gaming laptop specification sheets do not provide any information about the 7940HX's base clock. Various media outlets believe that a Ryzen 9 7840HX (12-core) processor could arrive alongside the 16-core model, but have expressed confusion over AMD's nomenclature for Dragon Range product launches in Q1 2024. Team Red's system (see below) suggests that "8940HX and 8840HX" would be more appropriate monikers—perhaps various delays have resulted in certain 2023 products being pushed into the new year.

Alleged full specifications leaked for NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB graphics card show extensive reductions beyond merely reducing memory size versus the 8 GB model. If accurate, performance could lag the existing RTX 3050 8 GB SKU by up to 25%, making it weaker competition even for AMD's budget RX 6500 XT. Previous rumors suggested only capacity and bandwidth differences on a partially disabled memory bus between 3050 variants, which would reduce the memory to 6 GB and 96-bit bus, from 8 GB and 128-bit bus.. But leaked specs indicate CUDA core counts, clock speeds, and TDP all see cuts for the upcoming 6 GB version. With 18 SMs and 2304 cores rather than 20 SMs and 2560 cores at lower base and boost frequencies, the impact looks more severe than expected. A 70 W TDP does allow passive cooling but hurts performance versus the 3050 8 GB's 130 W design.

Some napkin math suggests the 3050 6 GB could deliver only 75% of its elder sibling's frame rates, putting it more in line with the entry-level 6500 XT. While having 50% more VRAM helps, dramatic core and clock downgrades counteract that memory advantage. According to rumors, the RTX 3050 6 GB is set to launch in February, bringing lower-end Ampere to even more budget-focused builders. But with specifications seemingly hobbled beyond just capacity, its real-world gaming value remains to be determined. NVIDIA likely intends RTX 3060 6 GB primarily for less demanding esports titles. Given the scale of cutbacks and the modern AAA title's recommended specifications, mainstream AAA gaming performance seems improbable.

Bitspower brought a large bag of new toys at the 2024 International CES. The first thing that caught our attention was a familiar-looking case with infinity reflection lighting. On a closer look, it turned out to be a Lian Li PC-O11D Evo XL that's been given a neat aesthetic uplift thanks to the new Enigma Light Panel kit by Bitspower. You arrange these along the edges of your side- and front panels, and the provide an impressive, infinity reflection effect. It works with standard 3-pin ARGB, so you can mix it with your regular lighting setup. Next up, are a slew of CR Slim series reservoirs that are designed in the distribution plate format, which they line up with one of your glass panels, providing a better view of your coolant. There are various sizes, ranging from 120 mm x 120 mm, going all the way up to 803 mm. x 140 mm, with fitting ports at strategic locations to align with your CPU and VGA blocks, and radiators. The reservoirs come with preparation for a standard D5 pump, and feature a side cover that has the ARGB LED lighting, the diodes aren't studded into the acrylic as such. Bitspower released a mounting brackets of various sizes to help you correctly mount the reservoirs and accessories in place.

AMD is readying its Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF) technology for public release later this month (January 24 to be exact). Aaron Steinman, a Senior Radeon Manager, believes that arch rival NVIDIA will need to take some drastic steps once AFMF arrives due to its more open nature. He stated in a short interaction with PC Gamer: "I would be curious to know if NVIDIA feels now they have to match what we've done in making some of these solutions driver-based." His software engineering buddies have already released the Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) technology, which functions via in-driver operation.

Unlike Team Red's heavily marketed FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) system, AFMF and RSR are not reliant on official support from games developers. The driver-based solutions will be packaged within an upcoming version of AMD's HYPR-RX feature set. Steinman continued with his statement: "I think what we're gonna start seeing, DLSS is only available on certain solutions, so either NVIDIA is going to have to benefit from our solution because we did make it open-source and cross-vendor, or they're probably going to need to do something similar." The publication points out that Team Green has something in the same ballpark—NVIDIA Image Scaling—but its nowhere near as advanced as their headlining "AI-infused" DLSS tech. Steinman conceded to PC Gamer that his main opponent will inevitably pull ahead in the future: "I mean, the competition will never end, right? We'll have new technologies, they (NVIDIA) will have new technologies."

The leading global motherboard, graphics card, and small form factor PC manufacturer, ASRock, proudly announces its new AMD FP6TM-ITX Thin Mini-ITX motherboard which is compatible with All-in-One PC, Mini ITX, and some of Thin Mini ITX chassis.

ASRock FP6TM-ITX is powered by AMD 7 nm FP6 series mobile processors, providing immersive computing power. It supports two DDR4 memory, four storage slots including two SATA ports and two M.2 slots for expandability. FP6TM-ITX has rich connectivity and provides customized options of rear IO such as one USB Type-C, two DisplayPort to enlarge the flexibility. Moreover, the FP6TM-ITX also offers the version equipped with DASH LAN and TPM functionality tailored for enterprise applications.

Thermaltake has unveiled and launched its newest ASTRIA Series air coolers at CES 2024 show, including ASTRIA 200, ASTRIA 400, and ASTRIA 600 ARGB coolers. The entire ASTRIA ARGB series is equipped with the new CT120 ARGB fans. According to Thermaltake, the CT102 ARGB fan can provide an airflow of 65 CFM with 2.56 mm-H2O static pressure at a maximum noise level of 26.8 dBA. The ASTRIA ARGB Series is based on the standard tower design, where the ASTRIA 200 ARGB and ASTRIA 400 ARGB stick to a single-tower, single-fan design, while the ASTRIA 600 ARGB uses a dual-tower, dual-fan design. The ASTRIA 200 ARGB uses four 6 mm U-shaped heatpipes, while ASTRIA 400 ARGB and ASTRIA 600 ARGB feature six of the same heatpipes.

The entire lineup support the latest Intel and AMD sockets, and can support up to 210 W, 230 W, and 265 W TDP CPUs, respectively. What makes the ASTRIA ARGB cooler lineup special is th fact that you can adjust the fan position to align it with the height of memory, providing some additional flexibility with installation. The ASTRIA ARGB cooler lineup also features the new Meteor Shower lighting effects, thanks to 18 LEDs located on the top cover and sync them with 9 LEDs on the CT120 ARBG fans.

At the CES 2024 international show, Taiwanese company ENERMAX unveiled new all-in-one (AIO) CPU liquid coolers targeting both mainstream and high-end markets. First in line is the AQUAFLO LCD, which features a removable 5-inch 800x480 resolution magnetic LCD display, allowing monitoring of temperatures, fan speeds, and pump RPM, with the ability to stick on cases or use it as a desktop display. Supporting up to 400 Watt TDPs, the dual-chamber pump design provides flow rates up to 450 liters per hour. The 240 mm and 360 mm radiators use flat 20 mm-thick cooling tubes and ENERMAX Shunt Channel cooling technology for efficient heat transfer. This enables handling the latest overclocked gaming CPUs.

For professional workstations and servers, the LIQTECH XTR 280 and 360 models offer full coverage and 500 Watt+ TDP capacity for the latest AMD Threadripper Pro and Intel Xeon CPUs using larger CPU sockets. An integrated 2.4-inch digital OLED screen directly on the block reports real-time core temperature readings and warnings. A ceramic bearing pump design also pushes 450 liters per hour for cooling under heavy rendering or data center workloads. The LIQTECH XTR ensures professionals can rely on enhanced durability for mission-critical hardware. The new AIO coolers will be available in Q2 2024 through major retailers.

ADATA has showcased a rather interesting XPG HYBRID COOLER at CES 2024 which actually integrates an AIO solution into the size of your standard air cooler, packing pump, loop, and a radiator into a single unit. The new cooler promises to be smaller and lighter than a standard AIO cooler but more efficient than an air cooler.

The new HYBRID COOLER is a patented dual-fan CPU cooler that can cool CPUs with TDP of up to 280 W. It will support both standard as well as Intel Xeon and AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO sockets, and uses two high-performance 120 mm VENTO PRO PWM fans by Nidec. The entire unit is slightly taller than a 120 mm fan and looks pretty neat, but unfortunately, it is still just a concept and ADATA did not have it running inside a system. Hopefully, we'll see it officially launched soon and to see how well it compares to standard AIOs and standard air coolers.

ASRock brought a selection of its recently launched gaming monitors, motherboards, and graphics cards, to the 2024 International CES. The company had recently refreshed its Intel 700-series chipset motherboard family to align with 14th Gen Core desktop family launch, and we see boards such as the Phantom Gaming Z790 NOVA, a full-featured ATX motherboard positioned just a notch below the Z790 Taichi series; and the the Z790I and B760I PG Lightning WiFi Mini-ITX boards. Toward the end of 2023, AMD had launched its Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series, with two distinct platforms in play—HEDT and workstation. We got a close look at the WRX90 EVO, a gargantuan board that wires out nearly all 128 PCIe Gen 5 lanes of the Threadripper; along with 8-channel DDR5 memory. Notice the two large VRM heatsinks that are actively cooled by 40 mm fans. Even after giving each of the PCIe Gen 5 slots full x16 wiring, the platform has enough to spare on some NVMe slots.

At CES 2024, Razer has updated its Blade laptop family spanning across various sizes, and even got a chance to present a "world's first" feature in a gaming product. The star of the Razer booth is the company's flagship Blade 16 laptop, which now supports 240 Hz refresh rate in its 16-inch OLED display format. Being the first to get there, Razer offers a high refresh rate at 2560 x 1600 QHD+ resolution. In addition to 0.2 ms response time and DCI-P3 100% color gamut, the display had VESA ClearMR 11000 and DisplayHDR True Black 500 certifications. At the center of the laptop is the 14th Gen Intel Core i9-14900HX processor, paired with up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPU with 175 Watt TGP. Pricing starts at $2999 for lower-end configurations and is available now.