MMD, the leading display specialist and brand license partner for Philips Monitors are releasing two new Momentum monitors, one of which includes a product collaboration with Bowers & Wilkins. The first is the 558M1RY which at 55 inches (139.7 cm) is the largest console gaming optimized monitor on the market, the second being the 278M1R, a 27-inch (68.6 cm) monitor designed for esports. The 558M1RY will bring a whole new dimension to gaming, boasting a 4K UHD resolution, up to 120Hz refresh rate, a specially designed speaker by Bowers & Wilkins, and Ambiglow which extends around the screen. The 278M1R is the first Philips monitor designed exclusively with esports players in mind, it's 27 inches and is HDR Ready. The 55" will be available end of June 2020 and the 27" as of July 2020.

The 558M1RY is a truly one box solution to immersive gaming and entertainment. Players will be completely engrossed in their games with a 55-inch screen and 3 sided Ambiglow. The monitor dazzles with its UltraClear 4K UHD resolution, featuring 3840 x 2160 pixels and DisplayHDR 1000. Users can adjust the HDR to their preferences with HDR Game, HDR Movie, HDR Photo and an HDR personal modes; HDR can also be completely turned off.

In the times of growing need for monitors with bigger size, improved connectivity and image quality, display specialist AOC announces the new P2 series monitors for professional users. Covering an extensive range of display sizes from 21.5" (54.7 cm), 23.8" (60.4 cm), 27" (68.6 cm) and ultra-wide 34" (86 cm), AOC acknowledges its users' distinct needs and individual setups. Except for the 34" ultrawide CU34P2A with its curved (1500R) VA panel, all other models are equipped with flat IPS panels. They ensure true-to-life colour reproduction, wide gamut coverage, and wide viewing angles (178/178°) perfectly suited for content creation and editing. Selected models (24P2C and 27P2C) with USB-C port provide an easier display, data and power connection to mobile devices with a single USB-C cable. The KVM switch included in these models allows the user to switch the keyboard and mouse between two PCs (connected via USB-C and USB hub uplink).

Microsoft's next-generation Xbox Series X entertainment system has some pretty serious hardware specs, to support its lofty design goals of 4K UHD gaming at 60 Hz, with ray-tracing, and yet have 8K capability. It turns out that Microsoft isn't holding game developers to that 60 FPS number at 4K UHD, and that the minimum frame-rate is still 30 FPS. At lower resolutions such as Full HD, the console could offer high refresh-rate gaming. Apparently, the console natively displays 4K UHD at 60 Hz, and uses VESA adaptive-sync on TVs and monitors that support it; but game developers are free to cram in enough eye-candy to drive performance down to 30 FPS. This came to light when Ubisoft confirmed that "Assassin's Creed Valhalla" will run at 30 FPS on the Xbox Series X. "Developers always have flexibility in how they use the power, so a standard or common 60 FPS is not a mandate," said Aaron Greenberg, Xbox marketing head, in a Tweet Tuesday night.

Samsung today announced the Galaxy Chromebook, a premium Google ChromeOS 2-in-1 device that converts between a conventional notebook and a tablet with a stylus. This is the first time Samsung is bringing its Android-focused Galaxy brand over to its Chromebook family. The $999 price-tag may look like a tall ask for a Chromebook, until you look at some of its specs. The star attraction is the 13.3-inch AMOLED touchscreen with 4K UHD resolution. Samsung developed the Galaxy Chromebook in close coordination with Intel as part of its ambitious "Project Athena" initiative of developing next-generation portable computing devices that defy conventions on performance and battery-life.

Under the hood is an Intel Core i5-10210U "Comet Lake" processor with 8 GB of LPDDR3-2133 memory, a 256 GB NVMe SSD, UFS + microSDXC card slot, and 802.11ax + Bluetooth connectivity (at this price we'd have expected at least 4G cellular modem). It dumps type-A USB ports and instead features a couple of type-C ports, one of which doubles up as a power input. The 4K UHD display is pulled by integrated Intel UHD 630 graphics. A 47.9 Wh battery powers the thing, with Samsung claiming 8h 20m of run-time. Measuring 30 cm x 20.32 cm x 0.99 cm (closed), the Galaxy Chromebook weighs 1.03 kg. The included S-Pen stylus slots into the body. The Galaxy Chromebook is available in two color options, red and gray, both priced at $999.

Besides its flagship ROG Swift PG32UQX flagship display, ASUS unveiled the ROG Swift PG43UQ, a larger 43-inch gaming display that's reasonably heavy on the specs sheet. Its 43-inch non-glare VA panel offers "G-SYNC Compatible" readiness, 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) resolution, 144 Hz refresh-rate, 1 ms response-time, and DisplayHDR 1000 certification (1,000 cd/m² maximum brightness). It uses DisplayPort 1.4 with DSC to enable all its features, and is TUV Rheinland certified for low blue-light and flicker-free brightness adjustment.

ASUS also unveiled the ProArt PA27UCX, a 27-inch professional graphics monitor for high-grade content creation. Among its long list of panel specs are 4K UHD (3840 x 2160 pixels) resolution, 10 bpc color (1.07 billion colors) covering 97% DCI-P3, 99.5% Adobe RGB, 100% sRGB, and 83% Rec. 2020. In addition, it is DisplayHDR 1000 certified with 576 dimming zones, along with support for HDR-10 HLG and Dolby Vision. One of its key features is USB-C input support, with a single cable providing display signal, USB data transfer, and power-delivery for the monitor. Flicker-free and low blue-light mode make for the rest of it.

LG Electronics' new generation of Ultra monitors to be unveiled at CES 2020 is designed to dramatically improve the user experience with superior design and cutting-edge performance. A leading innovator in the premium monitor segment, LG's 2020 UltraFine, UltraGear and UltraWide models have been honored as CES Innovation Award winners.

The 2020 CES Innovation Award-winning 32-inch UltraFine "Ergo" 4K UHD monitor (model 32UN880) is an innovative ergonomic solution that delivers differentiated value. The unique LG Ergo concept brings together the three key elements of image fidelity, ergonomic design and USB-C One Cable solution for a monitor that delivers unbeatable performance, user comfort and a cleaner desk setup at home or at the office. The UltraFine 4K UHD Display Ergo inherits the stunning picture quality the UltraFine series is renowned for and more than meets the needs of most professionals thanks to its ability to produce high resolution images with excellent detail, color reproduction and color accuracy.

Here are some of the first pictures of Intel's new generation "Frost Canyon" NUC based on the company's 10th generation Core "Comet Lake-U" SoC. The top-spec variant, NUC10i7FN, is powered by a Core i7-10710U SoC, which packs a 6-core/12-thread CPU with 12 MB L3 cache, up to 4.70 GHz Turbo Boost, UHD Graphics clocked at 1.15 GHz, and 25 W cTDP (configurable TDP). The middle variant, NUC10i5FN, is powered by the 4-core/8-thread Core i5-10210U (up to 4.20 GHz CPU Turbo Boost, UHD Graphics with up to 1.00 GHz clocks, 8 MB L3 cache, and 25 W cTDP). At the entry level is the NUC10i3FN powered by the Core i3-10110U (2-core/4-thread CPU clocked up to 4.10 GHz, 4 MB L3 cache, UHD Graphics clocked up to 1.00 GHz, and 25 W cTDP).

Physically, these 10th generation NUCs look similar to their "Coffee Lake" powered predecessors codenamed "Bean Canyon," with the exception of just one each type-C and type-A USB 3.2 front panel ports. Other connectivity includes possible Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax WLAN), 1 GbE, HDMI 2.0, Thunderbolt 3 with DP output on the top model, and an additional pair of 10 Gbps USB 3.2 ports. Intel is likely to launch "Frost Canyon" on December 12.

Acer America announced today that its new 27-inch ConceptD monitors are now available in the United States. These monitors were designed for creators, including graphic designers, filmmakers, architects and engineers. The ConceptD CP7271K P and ConceptD CP3271K P support creative professionals with the premium performance required for color-critical and graphic-intensive projects.

Color accuracy, resolution and the ability to work with HDR content are top priorities for creative professionals who need a monitor that can display finely detailed design concepts and 3D content. Those who work with video require a high refresh rate, critical for ensuring blur-free images.

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today announced that it has released version 2.0 of the DisplayPort (DP) audio/video standard. DP 2.0 is the first major update to the DisplayPort standard since March 2016, and provides up to a 3X increase in data bandwidth performance compared to the previous version of DisplayPort (DP 1.4a), as well as new capabilities to address the future performance requirements of traditional displays. These include beyond 8K resolutions, higher refresh rates and high dynamic range (HDR) support at higher resolutions, improved support for multiple display configurations, as well as improved user experience with augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) displays, including support for 4K-and-beyond VR resolutions.

The advantages of DP 2.0 are enjoyed across both the native DP connector as well as the USB Type-C connector, which carries the DP audio/video signal through DisplayPort Alt Mode. DP 2.0 is backward compatible with previous versions of DisplayPort and incorporates all of the key features of DP 1.4a, including support for visually lossless Display Stream Compression (DSC) with Forward Error Correction (FEC), HDR metadata transport, and other advanced features. The increased video bandwidth performance of DP 2.0 carried over the USB-C connector enables simultaneous higher-speed USB data transfer without compromising display performance. DP 2.0 leverages the Thunderbolt 3 physical interface (PHY) layer while maintaining the flexibility of DP protocol in order to boost the data bandwidth and promote convergence across industry-leading IO standards.

Two of the often overlooked components of a new graphics architecture are the I/O and multimedia capabilities. With its Radeon RX 5700-series "Navi 10" graphics processor, AMD gave the two their first major update in over two years, with the new Radeon Display Engine, and Radeon Multimedia Engine. The Display Engine is a hardware component that handles the graphics card's physical display I/O. The Radeon Multimedia Engine is a set of fixed-function hardware that provides CODEC-specific acceleration to offload your CPU.

The Navi Radeon Display Engine features an updated DisplayPort 1.4 HDR implementation that's capable of handling 8K displays at 60 Hz with a single cable. It can also handle 4K UHD at 240 Hz with a single cable. These also include HDR and 10-bit color. It achieves this by implementing DSC 1.2a (Display Stream Compression). The display controller also supports 30 bpp internal color-depth. The HDMI implementation remains HDMI 2.0. The multi-plane overlay protocol (MPO) implementation now supports a low-power mode. This should, in theory, reduce the GPU's power draw when idling or playing back video.

ASUS today released its premium 27-inch monitor, the ProArt PA27UCX. The monitor is designed to look great on corner-office desks, and packs a serious feature-set. To begin with, you get 4K UHD (3840 x 2160 pixels) resolution, with DisplayHDR 1000 compliance, true 10-bpc color (1.07 billion colors), with DCI-P3, Rec. 709, Rec. 2020 and Adobe RGB wide color gamut, and color accuracy pre-calibration. The IPS panel is illuminated by micro LEDs featuring 576 zones dynamic dimming backlight control. HDR-10 and HLG are also supported. As part of the monitor's design, it only has a single USB-C connector with DisplayPort 1.4 and 60W power draw. A hub adapts standard DisplayPort and an included power-brick.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices, presents the A68MHE motherboard for mainstream users. The BIOSTAR A68MHE features the AMD A68H chipset that supports AMD's Socket FM2+ Athlon /A- Series processors and DDR3 memory. The A68MHE packs two DIMM slots supporting up to DDR3-2600(OC) memory and a maximum capacity of 32GB, more than enough to provide excellent performance for home and office platform.

The BIOSTAR A68MHE is a balanced motherboard that has the power to handle any office tasks and accomplish everyday home and entertainment use. For office and workstation builds, the A68MHE delivers high-speed data transfer and able to connect multiple devices with Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) LAN, 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 connectivity and a total of 8 USB ports. Home users can enjoy high-resolution and visually immersive multimedia content for videos and streaming services like YouTube and Netflix with support of UHD resolution displays via HDMI.

The latest version of Intel Graphics drivers which introduce the company's latest UWP-based Graphics Command Center app, hide another secret in their INF. The file has pointers to dozens of variants and implementations of the company's next-generation Gen11 integrated graphics architecture, which we detailed in a recent article. Intel will implement Gen11 on two key processor microarchitectures, "Ice Lake" and "Lakefield," although later down the line, the graphics technology could trickle down to low-power Pentium Silver and Celeron SoC lines, too, with chips based on the "Elkhart Lake" silicon.

There are 13 variants of Gen11 on "Ice Lake," carved using execution unit (EU) count, and LP (low-power) aggressive power management. The mainstream desktop processors based on "Ice Lake," which are least restrained in power-management, get the most powerful variants of Gen11 under the Iris Plus brand. Iris Plus Graphics 950 is the most powerful implementation, with all 64 EUs enabled, and the highest GPU clock speeds. This variant could feature on Core i7 and Core i9 brands derived from "Ice Lake." Next up, is the Iris Plus Graphics 940, with the same EU count, but likely lower clock speeds, which could feature across the vast lineup of Core i5 SKUs. The Iris Plus 930 comes in two trims based on EU count, of 64 and 48, and could likely be spread across the Core i3 lineup. Lastly, there's the Iris Plus 920 with 32 EUs, which could be found in Pentium Gold SKUs. There are various SKUs branded "UHD Graphics Gen11 LP," with EU counts ranging from 32 to 64.

NEC Display Solutions of America, Inc., a leading provider of commercial LCD displays and projectors, today announced the V554Q, a large-format 4K UHD display packed with commercial-grade features and a slim new design to blend into any environment. Like other new models in the C & V Series, the V554Q features an industry-best anti-reflective high haze coating, full external control and network capabilities through LAN, and SpectraView Engine Technology, which allows for complete color control.

"We've listened to our customers in designing the V554Q to be the best 55-inch display tailored for commercial and corporate signage needs," said Ben Hardy, Senior Product Manager at NEC Display Solutions. "The V554Q has best-in-class, high-haze anti-glare coating, updated connectivity, and both landscape and portrait orientation support to seamlessly fit any digital signage environment."

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today announced three new monitors: the modern and minimalist Samsung Space Monitor, the CRG9 designed for an unparalleled gaming experience and the UR59C, a stunning 4K UHD curved monitor ideal for content creators. Each monitor offers the best in technology ranging from ultra-wide screens and lifelike colors for immersive gaming to space-saving designs that increase productivity.

"Samsung's latest monitor lineup is incredibly versatile, and demonstrates our commitment to continued innovation and leadership in the category," said Seog-gi Kim, Executive Vice President of Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics. "All of these monitors are part of our larger strategy this year, to keep giving you choices so you can get what you want- beautiful, hardworking devices that inspire you to do more."

It appears that releases from CES are already making their way in the press even before the year ends. We learned of LG's new "Ultra" series monitors recently, and now we get to know about their plans from the laptops business unit. Their Gram lineup was developed to feature lightweight portable laptops with enhanced user experience in mind, and joining the series in 2019 are the 14-inch LG Gram 2-in-1 (model 14T990) and the new LG Gram 17 (model 17Z990), both of which are 2019 CES Innovation Award winners.

The 14" Gram 2-in-1 is a convertible, shifting from tablet to laptop at the whim of the user. It features a 360° hinge coupled with a touch screen to add more use cases in between. This by itself is not necessarily new or unique to the market, but a welcome addition to fans of the LG brand nonetheless. The company wants to also assure the customer that the laptop is built to last, having met the U.S. military MIL-STD-810G standard for durability. Part of this no doubt comes from the incorporation of Corning's Gorilla Glass 5 on the touch screen, and the display underneath uses LG's IPS technology. More information on this, and the Gram 17, following the break.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today released the new TVS-x72XT NAS series, powered by 8th Gen Intel Core processors with both 10GBASE-T and Thunderbolt 3 high-bandwidth connectivity for tackling heavy workloads and smoothly transferring, displaying and editing 4K videos in real-time. By supporting M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs and graphics cards, the TVS-x72XT series provides the ability to boost performance and create a scalable working environment for high-speed file sharing and collaboration.

The TVS-x72XT series features quality hardware and excellent performance with multiple 10GBASE-T and Thunderbolt 3 ports to provide workstations with high-capacity and high-throughput storage," said David Tsao, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "the TVS-x72XT series is also an exceptional storage base for iMac Pro users as they can flexibly choose between Thunderbolt 3 and 10GbE connections to suit their application and device needs."

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced its latest premium application processor (AP), the Exynos 9 Series 9820, equipped for on-device Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications. The Exynos 9820 features a fourth-generation custom CPU, 2.0-gigabits-per-second (Gbps) LTE Advanced Pro modem, and an enhanced neural processing unit (NPU) to bring new smart experiences to mobile devices.

"As AI-related services expand and their utilization diversify in mobile devices, their processors require higher computational capabilities and efficiency," said Ben Hur, vice president of System LSI marketing at Samsung Electronics. "The AI capabilities in the Exynos 9 Series 9820 will provide a new dimension of performance in smart devices through an integrated NPU, high-performance fourth-generation custom CPU core, 2.0Gbps LTE modem and improved multimedia performance."

More than a quarter of TechPowerUp readers either already game at 4K Ultra HD resolution, or plan to do so by next year, according to our front-page survey poll run over the past 50 days. We asked our readers if they are gaming at 4K. Among the 17,175 respondents at the time of this writing, 14.5 percent said that they are already gaming at 4K UHD (3840 x 2160 pixels), which includes not just a 4K display, but also having their games render at that resolution. 3 percent say that while they have a 4K display, they game at lower resolutions or with reduced level of detail, probably indicating that their PC hardware isn't yet capable of handling 4K.

Almost a tenth of the respondents (9.5 percent to be precise), say that while they don't game at 4K, they plan to do so in the near future. 1.6 percent responded that they expect to go 4K within 2018, and 7.9 percent in 2019. The majority 73 percent of our readers neither game at 4K nor plan to any time soon. These results are particularly encouraging as a reasonably big slice of our readership is drawn to 4K, the high-end gaming resolution of this generation, which can provide four times the detail as Full HD (1080p). Of the 9.5 percent lining up to upgrade, a near proportionate amount could upgrade not just their display, but also other hardware such as graphics cards, and perhaps even the rest of their platforms, to cope with 4K.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the popular graphics subsystem information and diagnostics utility. Version 2.11.0 introduces support for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20-series "Turing" graphics cards, including the RTX 2080 Ti, RTX 2080, and RTX 2070. Support is also added for a few exotic OEM variants we discovered over the months, including GTX 750 Ti (GM107-A), GTX 1050 Ti Mobile 4 GB, Quadro P1000, Tesla P100 DGXS, GeForce 9200. From the AMD stable, we add support for "Vega 20," "Fenghuang" semi-custom SoC for Zhongshan Subor, Ryzen 5 Pro 2500U, 5 Pro 2400G, 3 Pro 2200G, 3 Pro 2300U, 3 2200GE, Athlon 200GE, and Embedded V1807B. Intel UHD 610, UHD P630 (Xeon), Coffee Lake GT3e (i5-8259U), are now supported.

Among the new features are system RAM usage sensors, temperature monitoring offsets for AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2000 series processors, and the ability to identify USB-C display output, GDDR6 memory standard, and 16 Gbit density memory chips. Several under-the-hood improvements were made, including WDDM-based memory monitoring for AMD GPUs, replacing ADL sensors that tend to be buggy. GPU-Z also cleans up QueryExternal files from your Temp folder. Grab GPU-Z from the link below.DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z v2.11.0

The change-log follows.

NETGEAR , Inc. today debuted during IFA 2018 tradeshow its latest member of the Nighthawk Pro Gaming product family, the Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR700 WiFi Router, the industry's fastest home router for gaming. In addition to its award-winning DumaOS for greater network control over who and how you play, the NPG XR700 router sports cutting-edge hardware with its AD7200 Quad Stream Wave2 WiFi. Whether you're an avid or a casual gamer, the NPG XR700 router will deliver the control you need to dominate opponents in online multi-player scenarios.

Similar to the rest of the award-winning Nighthawk Pro Gaming family, the groundbreaking NPG XR700 router is purpose-built and fine-tuned to address the unique networking challenges of gamers. It optimizes network connections by stabilizing ping, reducing lag spikes, and keeping you always-on with the fastest wired and wireless connectivity for advanced online game play. The XR700 leverages exclusive state-of-the-art gaming software powered by DumaOS for critical pro gaming capabilities such as an intuitive and interactive Gaming Dashboard, a Geo Filter to guarantee local game hosts, and Quality of Service (QoS) to control and eliminate lag. This rich set of software features enables customization and gaming performance unmatched in the router space.

Acer at IFA 2018 today announced new monitors catering to both NVIDIA and AMD users - those who want to take advantage of either G-Sync or FreeSync capabilities in gamer-centric monitors, that is. As it stands, Acer has been using the Predator branding for its G-Sync enabled monitors, while the Nitro lineup stands on AMD's side. For NVIDIA, Acer is sticking its guns on the single XB273K - a $1,299 with G-Sync, 144 Hz refresh rates, and an IPS panel, running at 4K resolution. The Predator XB273K covers 90 percent of the DCI-P3 gamut, and is VESA DisplayHDR 400-certified. It also offers Acer's exclusive VisionCare technology to help your eyes manage long gaming sessions with technologies including flicker-free, low-dimming and blue light emission reduction. Oh - and it includes a shroud to protect your gaming feats from prying eyes.

Shuttle Inc., the global leader in small form factor computer technology, today announced the latest generation of its slim mini-PC series, the XH310/XH310V. The XH310 series packs Intel Coffee Lake technology, dual monitor support, and expandable drive capacity in a 3-liter small form factor chassis.

Equipped with the Intel H310 chipset and the LGA 1151v2 socket, the XH310 series supports the new wave of 8th Generation Intel Core , Pentium or Celeron processor with integrated UHD graphics; it's able to deliver multi-core performance and fulfill needs for demanding computation tasks.

British PC maker Tranquil PC is making its comeback with three new fanless mini PCs based on AMD Ryzen Embedded SoCs. The three are part of the "mini multi display" series, and are its variants, named "Basic," "Advance," and "Advance+." The three feature Tranquil PC's latest octagonal fanless aluminium chassis measuring 180 mm x 157 mm x 54 mm. The body panels of the case double up as heatsink for the sub-25 Watt SoCs. Connectivity is common between the three. On the front-panel, you get two USB 3.0 ports, one of which is type-C; HDA audio jacks, and interestingly an RS232 serial COM port.

The rear panel gives you access to four DisplayPort 1.2 connectors, which can each drive a 4K UHD display; two additional type-A USB 3.0 ports, two 1 GbE interfaces, and hardpoints for the WLAN antennae (802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.1). SoC variant and storage is what differentiates the three. The Basic trim gives you a Ryzen Embedded V1202B (2-core/4-thread, up to 3.20 GHz) chip, 8 GB of DDR4 memory, and 256 GB of SSD storage. The Advance trim gets you the faster 4-core/8-thread Ryzen Embedded V1605B (up to 3.60 GHz); 16 GB of memory, and 256 GB SSD storage. The Advance+ trim steps that up with 32 GB of memory, and 1 TB of SSD storage. The company didn't reveal pricing.

EIZO Corporation today announced the release of the FlexScan EV3285, the new flagship model in the FlexScan series, and successor to the EV3237. The monitor features a 31.5-inch 4K LCD display with a new frameless design and USB Type-C connectivity, making it ideal for control rooms and offices. The FlexScan EV3285 is a large 31.5-inch monitor with a 4K Ultra-High-Definition (UHD) resolution (3840 x 2160 pixels), providing a large working space in which to run multiple applications. Furthermore it has 140 DPI, so that it can display images and text with excellent sharpness and clarity.

FlexScan EV3285It is the successor to the FlexScan EV3237, and offers many new and improved features. The monitor has a new frameless design that makes it perfect for multi-monitor environments and distraction-free viewing. The cabinet is available in either black or white with matching cables to ensure that the monitor fits the aesthetic of any office. It comes with a unique space saving and ergonomic stand with 195 mm height adjustment and 344 degrees swivel. An attachable cable cover and cable holder also come with the monitor, for storing cables neatly behind the monitor. An optional stand bracket (PCSK-03) is also available for attaching a thin client or mini PC to the back of the monitor without affecting stability or movement.