QNAP Systems, today introduced the new dual-core 2.0 GHz short depth rackmount 4-bay NAS - TS-451DeU. Featuring a compact 1U 12-inch-depth chassis that allows easy installation in small media cabinets or places with a lot of cabling, the TS-451DeU provides dual 2.5 GbE ports, two M.2 2280 SATA 6 Gb/s SSD slots, storage scalability, and highly-anticipated business and media features. The TS-451DeU is an ideal cost-effective entry-level rackmount NAS.

"The TS-451DeU presents a modern 2.5 GbE NAS solution for businesses to tackle everyday tasks like file backup/restore, and to boost team collaboration with higher productivity," said Jason Hsu, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "As the short depth design is suited for media cabinets, the TS-451DeU is also an ideal multimedia server with the support of video streaming and transcoding."

ASUS today announced Tinker Edge R, a single-board computer (SBC) specially designed for AI applications. It uses a Rockchip RK3399Pro NPU, a machine-learning (ML) accelerator that speeds up processing efficiency, lowers power demands and makes it easier to build connected devices and intelligent applications.

With this integrated ML accelerator, Tinker Edge R can perform three tera-operations per second (3 TOPS), using low power consumption. It also features an optimized neural-network (NN) architecture, which means Tinker Edge R can support multiple ML frameworks and allow lots of common ML models to be compiled and run easily.

The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), the mission high-performance computing facility for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, has moved another step closer to making Perlmutter - its next-generation GPU-accelerated supercomputer - available to the science community in 2020.

In mid-April, NERSC finalized its contract with Cray - which was acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in September 2019 - for the new system, a Cray Shasta supercomputer that will feature 24 cabinets and provide 3-4 times the capability of NERSC's current supercomputer, Cori. Perlmutter will be deployed at NERSC in two phases: the first set of 12 cabinets, featuring GPU-accelerated nodes, will arrive in late 2020; the second set, featuring CPU-only nodes, will arrive in mid-2021. A 35-petabyte all-flash Lustre-based file system using HPE's ClusterStor E1000 hardware will also be deployed in late 2020.

The 11th generation Intel Core "Tiger Lake" mobile processor and pioneering "Lakefield" heterogenous x86 processor could debut around September or October, 2020, according to a leaked Lenovo internal slide posted by NotebookCheck. It also points to Intel denoting future processors' lithography with Foveros 3D Packaging as simply "3D," and not get into a nanometer number-game with AMD (which is now in 7 nm and on course to 5 nm in 2022). This makes sense as Foveros allows the combination of dies built on different silicon fabrication nodes.

"Tiger Lake" is still denoted as a 10 nm as it's a planar chip. Intel is developing it on a refined 10 nm+ silicon fabrication process, which apparently enables Intel to increase clock speeds without breaking the target power envelope. "Tiger Lake" sees the commercial debut of Intel's ambitious Xe graphics architecture as an iGPU solution. "Lakefield," on the other hand, is a 5-core processor combining four "Tremont" low power x86-64 cores with a "Sunny Cove" high-powered core, in a setup rivaling Arm big.LITTLE, enabling the next generation of mobile computing form-factors, which Intel and its partners are still figuring out under Project Athena.

Cloud data centers are evolving to an architecture that is accelerated, disaggregated and software-defined to meet the exponential growth in AI and high performance computing. To build these modern data centers, HPC and networking hardware and software must go hand in hand. NVIDIA provides the leading accelerated computing platform. Mellanox is the high-performance networking leader, now part of NVIDIA in a combination described in our founder and CEO's welcome letter.

Today we announce our plan to acquire Cumulus Networks, bolstering our networking software capabilities. The combination enables the new era of the accelerated, software-defined data center. With Cumulus, NVIDIA can innovate and optimize across the entire networking stack from chips and systems to software including analytics like Cumulus NetQ, delivering great performance and value to customers. This open networking platform is extensible and allows enterprise and cloud-scale data centers full control over their operations.

"The Last of Us Part II" by Naughty Dog studios, is now gold (ready for publication), according to its creative director Neil Druckmann. The game will release on June 19, 2020. Druckmann appealed to gamers to not judge the game on the basis of online leaks and actually play it. "No matter what you've seen or heard or read, nothing compares to playing this game from beginning to end. It's a video game, you've got to play it," he said. The game will debut exclusively on PlayStation 4. The latest chapter in the story-driven post-apocalyptic adventure is a sequel to the 2013 original, and has you play as the 19-year old Ellie, who must survive a mysterious cult.

Much of the fanfare surrounding AMD's high-end Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 "Renoir" mobile processors were captured by the 14-inch ROG Zephyrus G14 notebook, and now ASUS got around to shipping its bigger (albeit lesser endowed) sibling, the Zephyrus G15 (variant: GA502IU). This gaming notebook features a 15.6-inch 144 Hz Full HD IPS display. Under the hood are an AMD Ryzen 7 4800HS (35 W) 8-core/16-thread processors, 16 GB of memory, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics, and a 1 TB NVMe SSD. Connectivity includes 802.11ax WLAN, Bluetooth 5, 1 GbE wired Ethernet, and a USB 3.2 gen 2 type-C with power-delivery compliance. It is now selling for USD $1,299.

ASUS today rolled out its latest ROG Strix GT35 pre-built gaming desktop, powered by 10th generation Intel Core desktop processors. The top variant of this desktop is powered by an Intel Core i9-10900KF processor, paired with 64 GB of high frequency DDR4 memory, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics, an ASUS ROG Strix Z490-series motherboard, and a 240 mm x 120 mm AIO liquid CPU cooler taming the 10-core beast. Storage is care of a 1 TB NVMe SSD and a 2 TB SATA HDD. The desktop otherwise features the same chassis and connectivity options as the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X-powered ROG Strix GA35 desktop from March, which include Wi-Fi 6 and 2.5 GbE support. The company didn't reveal pricing.

AMD finally got around to officially talking about its sneaky last-minute specs update of the Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card, which saw its memory frequency increased to 14 Gbps from its original 12 Gbps, in a bid to make it competitive against the price-cut GeForce RTX 2060. In a blog post subheaded "Unlock the full potential of your Radeon RX 5600 XT today," AMD tabulated all the graphics cards eligible for a video BIOS update that increases memory- and GPU clock speeds; along with links to support pages on their manufacturer website. We already made such a list. The AMD table also lists out certain custom-design cards that come with 14 Gbps memory out of the box, for which a BIOS update isn't needed. Find the table in the AMD blog post here.

Microsoft has reportedly delayed launch of its Surface Neo launch. The dual-screen foldable PC/tablet convertible was originally slated for Holiday 2020 at its October 2019 announcement, but the company feels it's not ready with it. It could now launch at an appropriate date, either in 2021 or later. Microsoft's ambitious new Windows 10X operating system, originally designed for dual-screen devices such as the Surface Neo, will now debut with single-screen devices that have a touchscreen (such as 2-in-1 notebooks in conventional 360° clamshell form-factors), confirmed Panos Panay, Windows client- and devices head, in a blog post dated Monday (4/5). From the looks of it, the company is focused on getting Windows 10 May 2020 Update (2004) out as smoothly as possible.

MSI updated its pre-built gaming desktop product stack with the introduction of two models that are powered by 10th generation Intel Core "Comet Lake-S" desktop processors. The Codex R 10th features a more conventional ATX mid-tower design, and comes in two variants. The top variant (model: CODEXR10SC002) is powered by an Intel Core i7-10700F processor, 16 GB of memory, and GeForce RTX 2060 graphics, The value variant (CODEXR10SC003) comes with a Core i5-10400F processor, 8 GB of RAM, and GeForce GTX 1660 Super graphics. Both are based on an Intel B460 chipset motherboard, and offer a 512 GB SSD. A Clutch GM11 mouse and Vigor GK30 keyboard come included with both.

Next up, is the MEG Trident X, a high-end compact gaming desktop that brings the coveted MEG brand to the segment. Inside its 5.1" x 15.06" x 15.6" chassis is high-end hardware that comes in three variants. The top "TridentX862" variant packs a Core i9-10900K processor, 64 GB of DDR4 memory, GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics, and a combination of 1 TB NVMe SSD and 1 TB HDD. The middle variant, "TridentX863," is powered by a Core i7-10700F processor, 32 GB of memory, GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics, and 1 TB NVMe SSD. The most affordable "TridentX864" variant uses the same i7-10700F processor and 32 GB of memory, but paired with RTX 2070 Super graphics. All three use a Z490 chipset Mini-ITX motherboard. Clutch GM11 and Vigor GK30 come included with all three variants. The company didn't reveal pricing.

The graphics cards of the near-future could see a gradual phase out of standard-size DisplayPorts in favor of USB 4, starting 2021, according to a CNET report. Within the USB standard, the type-C port could see a significant growth in proliferation, and a possible phase-out of type-A ports, beginning with notebooks. The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), had in Q3-2019 announced the USB 4.0 specification, with development of the first implementations of the standard underway.

According to the CNET report, some time in 2021, USB 4.0 type-C ports could include DisplayPort 2.0 wiring, enabling 8K and 16K displays with a single cable. USB 4.0 will also make significant strides in other directions, such as support for 40 Gbps bandwidth (80 Gbps in x2 mode). It also implements tunneling technology carried over from the Thunderbolt specification, allowing you to daisy-chain devices (such as plugging in an external hard drive to a USB 4 monitor).

Intel Corporation today announced it has acquired Moovit, a mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) solutions company, for approximately $900 million ($840 million net of Intel Capital equity gain). Moovit is known for its urban mobility application that offers travelers around the world the best multimodal trip planning by combining public transportation, bicycle and scooter services, ride-hailing, and car-sharing. The addition of Moovit brings Intel's Mobileye closer to achieving its plan to become a complete mobility provider, including robotaxi services, which is forecast to be an estimated $160 billion opportunity by 2030.

"Intel's purpose is to create world-changing technology that enriches the lives of every person on Earth, and our Mobileye team delivers on that purpose every day," said Bob Swan, Intel CEO. "Mobileye's ADAS technology is already improving the safety of millions of cars on the road, and Moovit accelerates their ability to truly revolutionize transportation - reducing congestion and saving lives - as a full-stack mobility provider."

Intel launched its 10th generation Core desktop processor family last week, with the announcement of a staggering 22 SKUs (32 if you count energy-efficient T-SKUs). This got us wondering if some of the deliciously-priced SKUs such as the $157 6-core/12-thread Core i5-10400F would be available in the first wave. Turns out, it might not.

Apparently, Intel has a split launch schedule for these processors, but in the very first wave, only the unlocked K-SKUs will be available in the market. These would include the 6-core/12-thread Core i5-10600K at $262 (1k-unit tray pricing), the 8-core/16-thread Core i7-10700K at $374, and the flagship 10-core/20-thread Core i9-10900K at $488). The three SKUs will be available in markets within May 2020.

Update May 4th: Intel confirmed that the KF-SKUs will also be part of the first wave.

The folks over at Dekogon Studios, a game art outsourcing studio, have published on their ArtStation account some Unreal Engine 4 renders to showcase their creative vision and technological mastering of Epic's acclaimed engine. Being one of the more commonly used game development engines due to its rendering quality, ease of use and pipeline flexibility, Unreal Engine is one of the benchmarks for visual quality in the gaming world. These renders from Dekogon Studios using the latest version of Unreal Engine and employing raytracing are absolutely beautiful and incredibly, richly detailed.

While we don't know how many frames per second a modern graphics card could generate at this level of detail (or if it would take seconds to generate a single frame), one can always dream of gaming in environments with the same quality as the showcased basketball court or science classroom (FEAR 2, anyone?). Other environments are slightly less impressive and seem to have taken slightly less attention, but I myself can pretty much see this level of detail on my next Life is Strange or Detroit: Become Human. So, games development studios... Make it happen, please! Look after the break for some videos showcasing these beautiful environments.

China's plans for world domination include the country slowly retracting itself from its dependency on western companies' technologies, via heavy acceleration of plans for and production of a myriad of semiconductor technologies. One of the more important technologies amongst those due to its relative ease of manufacture and overall market value is, of course, NAND technology. And the days of China being undoubtedly behind other manufacturers' technologies seems to be coming to an end, with the countries' Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) 64-layer Xtacking TLC NAND design already achieving pretty impressive results compared to its mainstream counterparts.

Xtacking technology is expected to disrupt the $52 billion NAND memory market and its big players such as Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix, Kioxia, Western Digital, and Intel. The technology separates periphery circuits and memory cell operations towards a separate wafer, which allows for increased performance and throughput compared to other designs. Senior technical fellow Jeongdong Choe at Ottawa, Canada-based TechInsights (a company specializing in reverse-engineering semiconductor technology) has told EE Times YMTC's 64-layer, 256 Gb die bit density is 4.41 Gb/mm, which is higher than the Samsung equivalent 256 Gb die at 3.42 Gb/mm.

Debuting a new OMEN look and feel, today HP unveiled the OMEN 25L and 30L Desktops, engineered for gaming performance, designed for immersion, and crafted for gaming expansion. Both desktops perfectly pair with the latest immersive OMEN 27i Gaming Monitor with powerful specs to enhance gaming experiences and let the action take center stage.

With people spending more time at home, gaming has increased dramatically as players look to find social connections and outlets for stress relief and entertainment. In late March 2020, Steam set a record with over 23.5 million concurrent active users, an increase of more than three million people compared to the then record number of users just two weeks prior. The latest OMEN devices are built with powerful premium components and technology that addresses the mounting needs of all gamers, veterans and newcomers alike.

Apple today updated the 13-inch MacBook Pro with the new Magic Keyboard for the best typing experience ever on a Mac notebook and doubled the storage across all standard configurations, delivering even more value to the most popular MacBook Pro. The new lineup also offers 10th-generation processors for up to 80 percent faster graphics performance and makes 16 GB of faster 3733 MHz memory standard on select configurations. With powerful quad-core processors, the brilliant 13-inch Retina display, Touch Bar and Touch ID, immersive stereo speakers, all-day battery life, and the power of macOS, all in an incredibly portable design, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro is available to order today, starting at $1,299, and $1,199 for education.

"Whether you're a college student, a developer, or a creative pro, the 13-inch MacBook Pro delivers powerful performance, a stunning Retina display, and all-day battery life in our most portable pro notebook. Today we're adding the new Magic Keyboard, doubling the standard storage, and boosting performance, making the 13-inch MacBook Pro an even better value for our customers," said Tom Boger, Apple's senior director of Mac and iPad Product Marketing. "With these updates, our entire notebook lineup features the Magic Keyboard for the best typing experience ever on a Mac notebook, offers twice the standard storage than before, and delivers even more performance."

ORIGIN PC announced the availability of the all-new EVO15-S gaming laptop and NT-15 workstation laptop, both powered by Intel Core 10th Gen processors featuring up to 8 cores and 16 threads. The all-new laptops offer improved performance over their predecessors, while still in a thin and light body.

The EVO15-S and NT-15 are the first laptops from ORIGIN PC to feature 10th generation Intel Core processors. Powered by an Intel Core i7-10875H 8-core processor, gamers and professionals can take advantage of a 5.10 GHz clock speed with Intel Max Turbo technology. Play the latest games with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX SUPER graphics card, up to an RTX 2080 SUPER, and enable real-time ray tracing and other RTX features. Add up to 64 GB of RAM to the EVO15-S or NT-15 laptops to run multiple programs at once.

HyperX, the gaming division of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., today announced it is the high-performance base memory provider for HP's new OMEN Desktops and upgrades. HyperX FURY DDR4 RGB or FURY DDR4 memory will be integrated into the OMEN 25L and OMEN 30L Desktops and are fully upgradable.

"HyperX is excited to provide high performance gaming grade memory for the new OMEN Desktops," said Larry Gonzales, sales and marketing VP, HyperX. "Gaming enthusiasts expect the best, and OMEN exemplifies a collaborative attitude to provide quality and reliable memory to satisfy gamers' performance needs."

Internal documents of Intel's 10th generation Core "Comet Lake" processor family, leaked by momomo_us, reveal the CPUID, TDP, and configurable-TDP values of the various desktop SKUs. Intel broadly classifies Comet Lake by core-count and companion iGPU tier. The 10-core Comet Lake die ships with 125 W, 65 W, and 35 W TDP, for the K/KF, locked, and T-SKUs, respectively.

For the desktop Comet Lake-S, there are only two iGPU tiers, GT2 (iGPU present in UHD 630 flavor), or completely disabled (denoted as GT0). The charts detailing the non-Turbo clock speeds reveal that the presence or absence of iGPU has no impact on TDP, cTDP, or CPU frequencies. The "Comet Lake" 10-core + GT2 silicon is listed with a CPUID of A0655h, while the 6-core + GT2 and 4-core + GT2 variants share the A0653h CPUID.

Intel is preparing lots of interesting designs for the future and it is slowly shaping their vision for the next generation of computing devices. Following the big.LITTLE design principle of Arm, Intel decided to try and build its version using x86-64 cores instead of Arm ones, called Lakefield. And we already have some information about the new Alder Lake CPUs based on Lakefield design that are set to be released in the future. Thanks to a report from Chrome Unboxed, who found the patches submitted to Chromium open-source browser, used as a base for many browsers like Google Chrome and new Microsoft Edge, there is a piece of potential information that suggests Alder Lake CPUs could arrive very soon.

Rumored to feature up to 16 cores, Alder Lake CPUs could present an x86 iteration of the big.LITTLE design, where one pairs eight "big" and eight "small" cores that are activated according to increased or decreased performance requirements, thus bringing the best of both worlds - power efficiency and performance. This design would be present on Intel's 3D packaging technology called Foveros. The Alder Lake CPU support patch was added on April 27th to the Chrome OS repository, which would indicate that Intel will be pushing these CPUs out relatively quickly. The commit message titled "add support for ADL gpiochip" contained the following: "On Alderlake platform, the pinctrl (gpiochip) driver label is "INTC105x:00", hence declare it properly." The Chrome Unboxed speculates that Alder Lake could come out in mid or late 2021, depending on how fast Intel could supply OEMs with enough volume.

Both Sony and Microsoft are expected to soon launch their next-generation consoles, which are highly anticipated among console gamers as they will bring some of the latest advancements in graphics, like ray tracing. The current situation in the world is that everything is slowed down due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Companies across the world have mostly slowed down their production lines due to the less demand, however, AMD has done exactly the opposite for their custom SoC customers. In wake of expected high demand, AMD has ramped up its production lines so it can supply Sony and Microsoft for their next-generation consoles—PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. This is an encouraging sign that the demand is going to be strong - and that AMD is up to the task of delivering.

Samsung and AMD announced last year their strategic partnership to bring AMD RDNA GPUs to the Samsung mobile chips and use that as the only GPU going forward. And now, some performance numbers are going around about the new RDNA smartphone GPU that is compared to Qualcomm Adreno 650 GPU. Thanks to the South Korean technology forum "Clien", they have obtained some alleged performance results of new GPU in the GFXBench benchmark. The baseline in these tests is the Qualcomm Adreno 650 GPU, which scored 123 FPS in Manhattan 3.1 test, 53 FPS in Aztec Normal, and 20 FPS in Aztec High.

The welcome surprise here is the new RDNA GPU Samsung is pursuing. It has scored an amazing 181 FPS in Manhattan 3.1 test (up 47% from Adreno 650), 138 FPS in Aztec Normal (up almost 200% from Adreno 650), and 58 FPS in Aztec High which is 190% higher compared to Adreno 650. This performance results could be very true, as the Samsung and AMD collaboration should give first results in 2021 when the competition will be better, and they need to prepare for that. You always start designing a processor for next-generation workloads and performance if you want to be competitive by the time you release a product.

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Valve has announced that SteamVR will drop support for the macOS platform so that development teams can focus on Windows and Linux support. SteamVR users running macOS who wish to continue using SteamVR will need to opt-in for legacy macOS builds from the "Beta" tab under SteamVR properties. This measure will probably stop functioning relatively quickly as new hardware and software changes appear. This move doesn't come as much of a surprise as the macOS platform isn't known for its VR activity, in the long-term macOS users will have to migrate to an alternate operating system or dual boot if they wish to continue accessing SteamVR.

NVIDIA's game streaming service GeForce NOW has gained support for NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) 2.0 in the latest update. DLSS 2.0 uses the tensor cores found in RTX series graphics cards to render games at a lower resolution and then use custom AI to construct sharp, higher resolution images. The introduction of DLSS 2.0 to GeForce NOW should allow for graphics quality to be improved on existing server hardware and deliver a smoother stutter-free gaming experience. NVIDIA announced that Control would be the first game on the platform to support DLSS 2.0, with additional games such as MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries and Deliver Us The Moon to support the feature in the future.

ENERMAX, a leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance PC hardware products, announces the new addressable RGB ATX computer case, LIBLLUSION LL30 is available in Europe. LIBLLUSION LL30 comes with one SquA RGB fan at the rear; the built-in integrated hub can support up to 6 addressable RGB devices lighting in sync with an ARGB-ready motherboard software or the lighting control through this computer case.

Utilizing the line element, the front panel of LIBLLUSION LL30 is embellished by the multiple lighting strips which part of them is the reflection of the light from the interior system through the vents on the top and bottom of the front panel. The clever vent design on the front panel combines the in-take airflow efficiency and the beauty of light.

MSI unveiled a premium variant of its MPG Z490 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard with a factory-fitted monoblock, the MPG Z490 Gaming Pro Carbon EK X. As its name suggests, the monoblock is supplied by EK Water Blocks. It uses nickel-plated copper as its primary material, and has a clear acrylic top with some faux carbon-fiber embellishments. The block is studded with addressable RGB LEDs that plug into one of the motherboard's 3-pin ARGB headers.

The monoblock uses a micro fin lattice over the CPU socket, and has its main coolant channel pass through not just the CPU, but also the CPU VRM area. There's some prominent "Carbon EK X" branding over another strip of faux carbon-fiber at the PCH heatsink. The rest of the board's design and feature-set are identical to the original MPG Z490 Gaming Pro Carbon. The company didn't reveal pricing, although an EK Quantum series monoblock like the one featured here should add at least $140 to the original board's price.

AMD's timely announcement of the Ryzen 3 "Matisse" processor series could stir things up in the entry-level as Intel kitted its 10th generation Core i3 processors as 4-core/8-thread. Last week, a head-to-head Cinebench comparison between the i3-10300 and 3300X ensued, and today we have a 3DMark Firestrike and Time Spy comparison between their smaller siblings, the i3-10100 and the 3100, courtesy of Thai PC enthusiast TUM_APISAK. The two were benchmarked on Time Spy and Fire Strike on otherwise constant hardware: an RTX 2060 graphics card, 16 GB of memory, and a 1 TB Samsung 970 EVO SSD.

With Fire Strike, the 3100-powered machine leads in overall 3DMark score (by 0.31%), CPU-dependent Physics score (by 13.7%), and the Physics test. The i3-10100 is ahead by 1.4% in the Graphics score thanks to a 1.6% lead in graphics test 1, and 1.4% lead in graphics test 2. Over to the more advanced Time Spy test, which uses the DirectX 12 API that better leverages multi-core CPUs, we see the Ryzen 3 3100 post a 0.63% higher overall score, 1.5% higher CPU score; while the i3-10100 powered machines post within 1% higher graphics score. These numbers may suggest that the i3-10100 and the 3100 are within striking distance of each other and that either is a good pick for gamers, until you look at pricing. Intel's official pricing for the i3-10100 is $122 (per chip in 1,000-unit tray), whereas AMD lists the SEP price of the Ryzen 3 3100 at $99 (the Intel chip is at least 22% pricier), giving AMD a vast price-performance advantage that's hard to ignore, more so when you take into account value additions such as an unlocked multiplier and PCIe gen 4.0.

AMD's upcoming B550 desktop chipset, which plays second-fiddle to the premium X570, could bring relief to gaming PC builders wanting to put together 3rd gen Ryzen desktops with PCI-Express gen 4.0 graphics and M.2 SSD connectivity on the cheap. Pricing of a handful ASUS B550 motherboards was leaked to the web by Australian retailer ICIT.net.au, who listed the somewhat premium ASUS ROG Strix B550-F Gaming for AUD $262.90, including GST (converts to USD $167 including all taxes). The retailer also lists TUF B550-Plus Gaming and Prime B550M-A at the same exact price, which could be pre-launch inflation (so we're going by the price of what could be the best-endowed SKUs among the three).

If this pricing holds up, B550 based boards could launch at prices close to those of B450 boards at launch. The B550 is AMD's mid-range desktop chipset that is expected to enable PCI-Express gen 4.0, at least where it matters the most (the main x16 slot and the M.2 slot that's wired to the AM4 SoC). Much like its predecessors, the B450 and B350, it could enable CPU- and memory overclocking. Reports dating back to Q3-2019 point to the B550 being ASMedia-sourced, and having a far lower chipset TDP than the X570 (making do with passive heatsinks like the AMD 400-series).

NVIDIA will give its DGX line of pre-built deep-learning research workstations its next major update in the form of the DGX A100. This system will likely pack number of the company's upcoming Tesla A100 scalar compute accelerators based on its next-generation "Ampere" architecture and "GA100" silicon. The A100 came to light though fresh trademark applications by the company. As for specs and numbers, we don't know yet. The "Volta" based DGX-2 has up to sixteen "GV100" based Tesla boards adding up to 81,920 CUDA cores and 512 GB of HBM2 memory. One can expect NVIDIA to beat this count. The leading "Ampere" part could be HPC-focused, featuring a large CUDA-, and tensor core count, besides exotic memory such as HBM2E. We should learn more about it at the upcoming GTC 2020 online event.

The Intel Graphics Twitter account was on fire today, because they posted an update on the development of the Xe graphics processor, mentioning that samples are ready and packed up in quite an interesting package. The processor in question was discovered to be a Xe-HP GPU variant with an estimated die size of 3700 mm², which means we sure are talking about a multi-chip package here. How we concluded that it is the Xe-HP GPU, is by words of Raja Koduri, senior vice president, chief architect, general manager for Architecture, Graphics, and Software at Intel. He made a tweet, which was later deleted, that says this processor is a "baap of all", meaning "big daddy of them all" when translated from Hindi.

Mr. Koduri previously tweeted a photo of the Intel Graphics team at India, which has been working on the same "baap of all" GPU, which suggests this is a Xe-HP chip. It seems that this is not the version of the GPU made for HPC workloads (this is reserved for the Xe-HPC GPU), this model could be a direct competitor to offers like NVIDIA Quadro or AMD Radeon Pro. We can't wait to learn more about Intel's Xe GPUs, so stay tuned. Mr. Koduri has confirmed that this GPU will be used only for Data Centric applications as it is needed to "keep up with the data we are generating". He has also added that the focus for gaming GPUs is to start off with better integrated GPUs and low power chips above that, that could reach millions of users. That will be a good beginning as that will enable software preparation for possible high-performance GPUs in future.

Update May 2: changed "father" to "big daddy", as that's the better translation for "baap".
Update 2, May 3rd: The GPU is confirmed to be a Data Center component.

Schenker today announced the release of their XMG Ultra laptops, which have been purpose/built as desktop alternatives. This means there are no limitations on hardware, and that portability or battery life aren't crucial factors - power is. To that effect, the XMG Ultra launches with a Z490/based motherboard and support for up to a ten-core Intel Core i9-10900K (the Core i7-10700K, with 8 cores, and the Core i7-10600K, with six cores, are also available). You can pair these CPUs with NVIDIA's RTX 2060 SUPER, 2070 SUPER, or 2080 SUPER for close to ultimate performance when it comes to available hardware. You can configure your XMG Ultra with up to 128 GB of system RAM.

Monitor options include a 17,3" 1080p 240 Hz, G-Sync panel, or an Ultra HD G-Sync panel with the same diagonal. The XMG Ultra's call to fame is that it is the first announced laptop with a 10-core Intel solution. And, since you'd be hard pressed to find an AMD offering that packs a comparable CPU with these very same graphics solutions (since OEMs, for some reason, have maxed out AMD CPU + NVIDIA GPU combos with up an RTX 2070 non-SUPER graphics card), this may be your best bet at getting a decent CPU paired with maximum mobile GPU power. Bear in mind that a pretty standard configuration will, however, set you back some €2,799.

Deepcool today announced a refresh of their previously-released GAMMAXX X 400 tower cooler. The new version will see improved cooling performance, due in no small part to the new dual-fan support. DIMM clearance has also been revisited, so as to prevent the new GAMMAXX 400 EX from interfering with your DIMM slot installation. The number of fins has been increased to 56, which means an extra 20% heat dissipation are that can be served by the increased airflow from the dual-fan configuration. A 4x 6 mm sintered copper heat pipe design (sintered as in, produced via pressure or temperatures that don't liquefy the copper) with Direct Touch technology should accelerate heat transfer form the CPU heatsink through to the cooling fins.

This is kind of a weighty design, coming in at 930 g for a cooling solution. Dimensions stand at 129 mm width, 103 mm thickness, and 157.5 mm height. It's expected the GAMMAXX 400 EX will be available around the $39 mark. For that pricing, it includes 2x TF120 high performance fans.

Maybe it's hard to fathom an Intel chipset that actually supports more than a single generation of CPU designs; and if so, you're forgiven, because it seems the blue giant has mostly forgotten of thinking about platform longevity and upgradeability. However, we might be in for a rare treat, if the words from a Gigabyte representative are to be taken seriously. In a Q&A regarding Gigabyte's latest generation Z490 motherboards, a user questioned the Gigabyte representatives whether their Z490-based platforms would support upcoming Rocket Lake designs. The answer, which came with a caveat of "I don't know if this should be made public", was that yes: Z490 will support Rocket Lake-S.

If true, this may shed some light on why motherboard manufacturers have given so much importance to PCIe 4.0 marketing on their Z490 motherboards... Whose chipset doesn't support PCIe 4.0 from the get-go. However, with next-generation Rocket Lake-S expectedly sporting the same 14 nm fabrication process albeit with a new microarchitecture, a wider DMI 3.0 8x band, Intel's high-performance Xe graphics architecture design and PCIe 4.0 support on a platform level, it does begin to make sense that manufacturers would mention PCIe 4.0 support on the current Z490. Because if CPU compatibility is maintained, that means that users looking to drop-in a Rocket Lake-S CPU will at the very least be able to enjoy 20 lanes of PCIe 4.0 in these ready-made motherboards.

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Historically, Intel has separated its processors and chipsets that accompany them to overclockable and non-overclockable ones. That means that only the "K" CPUs can be overclocked. With the latest generation, only some parts of the lineup are K CPUs, like the Core i9-10900K, i7-10700K, i5-10600K, etc. Those processors could only be overclocked one put in motherboards based on "Z" chipset, like Z390 and Z490. However, it seems like ASRock has developed a new technology that will overclock non-K CPUs on non-Z motherboards, which is quite impressive.

Called the Base Frequency Boost (BFB) technology, it will allow for overclocking the non-K processors on chipsets like B460 and H470. How will that work you might wonder? Well, ASRock will take the TDP of the CPUs and make it run in the PL1 mode, which increases the processor TDP form 65 W and turns it into a 125 W TDP beast. This will, of course, be user selective and case dependent, meaning that if your cooling system can not handle that much heat coming out from the overclocked processors, it is unlikely that they will reach the peak clocks ASRock can target. You can check out the slide below:

The winds of change are beginning. The ATX12VO PC power-supply standard, earlier thought to be an OEM-mainstay with later introduction in the DIY retail channel, has already reached it. The ASRock Z490 Phantom Gaming 4SR is the first board. Gone is the 24-pin ATX power connector, a smaller 5-pin pure-12 V input takes its place. A 6-pin PCIe connector takes in additional 12 V input. The 8-pin EPS connector (another pure-12 V input) is right where it should be, near the CPU VRM area. There are two small 4-pin connectors, which could be 5 V and 3.3 V outputs from the motherboard, to SATA power connectors.

The part of the PCB next to the memory area is bustling with a few more power phases than vDIMM. These convert 12 V to 5 V and 3.3 V (essentially what a PSU with DC-to-DC switching does). The rest of the board's I/O feature-set is fairly standard: four SATA ports, a single M.2-22110 slot, an M.2 E-Key slot holding an 802.11ac WLAN card, 6-channel audio, and 1 GbE wired networking driven by an Intel i219-V controller. The company didn't reveal pricing or availability.

ASRock, proudly announces its latest range of motherboards featuring Intel 400-series chipsets and supporting the latest Intel 10th Generation processors with up to 10-cores using the LGA1200 socket.

Whatever the build requirements, with over 30 models available, ASRock has the right motherboard to meet your needs. This includes the flagship Z490 Taichi and Z490 PG Velocita for performance and overclocking enthusiasts, and extreme gamers; popular Z490 Steel Legend, Pro and Phantom Gaming series'; comprehensive mini-ITX options for SFF builds; plus H470, B460 mainstream and H410 entry options.

During Microsoft's Q3 2020FY Earnings call, it was confirmed that Xbox Live was seeing record levels of engagement with over 90 million monthly users. On top of this, Microsoft announced that Xbox Game Pass had surpassed 10 million subscribers for the video game subscription service. Xbox Game Pass is available for Xbox One and PC giving users access to a library with hundreds of games including many large recent games such as Gears Tactics, Halo Master Chief Collection, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. This makes Xbox Game Pass the largest game subscription service far outnumbering EA Access and Origin Access. Microsoft also noted that interest in Project xCloud the experimental game streaming service was high with "hundreds of thousands" of active users.

The Epic Games store has seen continuous updates since its launch in 2018 adding various additional features, now surpassing many other game launchers such as Origin, Uplay, and battle.net in terms of features and hot on the heels of Steam. In the latest update to the platform Epic has added support for five new local currencies, users in Canada, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway can now pay for games on the launcher in their native currencies. This addition is one of many Epic have been releasing from their public roadmap which lists trending pages, mod support, and offline sign-in all as features coming soon.

AMD and Oxide Games today announced a multi-year partnership to co-develop graphics technologies for the growing cloud gaming market. By combining leadership gaming hardware and graphics expertise from AMD with Oxide's proven development capabilities and innovative Nitrous game engine, the companies plan to create a robust set of tools and technologies for cloud rendering designed from the ground up to embrace the real-time demands of cloud-based gaming.

"At AMD, we pride ourselves on our ability to push the boundaries of what technology can do so it elevates the gaming experience," said Scott Herkelman, corporate vice president and general manager, Graphics Business Unit, AMD. "Oxide shares this passion and is an ideal partner for us as we expand the way gamers play, while delivering the quality experience they demand."

A Viking raider named Eivor leads a group of people away from endless war in Norway, only to seek refuge in hostile 8th century England. A clash of civilizations ensues. In Assassin's Creed Valhalla, you lead deadly longship raids against rival Saxon strongholds for resources to build your settlement. "Raids will be more action-packed and brutal than anything Assassin's Creed has seen before, thanks to a visceral new combat system that lets you bash, dismember, and decapitate your foes," say the developers. Of course it wouldn't be an Assassin's Creed game without stealth assassination missions. Catch the world premiere trailer below.The world premiere trailer follows.