Remember that post on Samsung's investment on 32:9 aspect ratio monitors? The company has just materialized them, with the announcement of their 2017 flagship FreeSync 2 supporting monitors, which come in two different models and three different sizes. Samsung announced a world's first, the CHG90 QLED monitor, which leverages its alien 49" towards displaying a 32:9 presentation. That's what Samsung is calling a DFHD (Dual Full HD) screen, with a 3840x1080 resolution. This panel supports FreeSync 2, HDR, wide 178-degree viewing angles, and the now usual 1800R curvature, with blazingly-fast 144 Hz refresh rates and 1 ms response times.

At the same time, Samsung also announced the somewhat more mundane CHG70 QLED monitor, which comes in at either 27" or 31,5". Whatever your choice of panel size, these are essentially the same specs-wise, and differ little from the CHG90: they offer WQHD resolution (2560x1440), HDR, FreeSync 2, wide 178-degree viewing angles, and the now usual 1800R curvature, along with blazing-fast 144 Hz refresh rates and 1 ms response times.

NVIDIA today released the latest version of their GeForce graphics drivers. Version 382.53 of their drivers is a special, Game Ready release that provides the optimal gaming experience for DiRT 4 and Nex Machina. In addition, NVIDIA has added/updated SLI profiles for Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition, Little Nightmares, the phenomenon PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, and Transformers Online.

This release also features updated 3D Vision profiles for Tekken 7 (Fair); DiRT 4 (Not Recommended); Nex Machina (Not Recommended) and Quake Champions (Good). As always, you can grab the drivers right here on TPU. Just follow the link below, and feel free to peruse fixed and current issues after the break.DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 382.53 Game Ready Drivers

Toppc Pushes the X299 Gaming Pro Carbon AC Motherboard to Reach New DDR4 Frequency Milestone
One year ago, MSI's in-house overclocker, Toppc, broke the DDR4 5GHz barrier using G.SKILL memory and the MSI Z170I GAMING PRO AC motherboard. Today, 1 year later, he raises the bar once again and became the first ever to push DDR4 speeds to 5.5GHz under liquid nitrogen cooling using the new MSI X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC motherboard. With the MSI X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC, MSI's most customizable high-performance Intel X299 based motherboard, Toppc was running G.SKILL DDR4 memory with an unbelievable DDR4-SDRAM clock speed of 5500MHz. This world record shows MSI's dominant position on performance for X299 by using MSI's unique and patented DDR4 Boost technology. The MSI X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC is not only feature packed for gamers and great for case modding, it is also perfectly suited to deliver power for heavy gaming & overclocking sessions.

SoftBank has to be the most high-level investor in the tech world today, with multiple headline-grabbing purchases in the last year alone. First, it was ARM's multi-billion dollar purchase, which shook the tech industry almost to its knees. Then, the acquisition of a $4 billion dollar stake on NVIDIA, which is increasingly looking like a great move (and is partially responsible for NVIDIA's soaring market cap.)

Now, SoftBank has moved to acquire Google parent company Alphabet Inc's Boston Dynamics, the engineering and robotics design firm best known for being compared to the manufacturing arm of Skynet. Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank Group Corp., said that "Smart robotics are going to be a key driver of the next stage of the Information Revolution," and that he and the full might of SoftBank are looking forward to "supporting them as they continue to advance the field of robotics and explore applications that can help make life easier, safer and more fulfilling." Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but as part of it, SoftBank has also agreed to acquire Japanese bipedal robotics company Schaft. SoftBank is the octopus of the tech world, with tendrils extending towards the technologies that look to be most important in our collective future. The company already has the high efficiency processing, deep learning and AI chops for a robotic future with their acquisition of ARM and investment in NVIDIA - now, they're adding a manufacturing arm. Is this Skynet's inception?Source: SoftBank

NVIDIA has been on a roll lately with their market capitalization and share valuation, which could very well send the company soaring past the $100 billion dollar mark today. Whether or not that happens (and if it does, it will be a historical milestone for the company), NVIDIA's growth of almost $25 billion dollars since May 13th is nothing short of jaw-dropping.

The "sudden" market valuation on NVIDIA comes on the heels of the company's strong graphics execution and increasingly entrenched position in the high performance GPU computing market for machine learning. The company's Volta architecture, which was showcased by Jensen Huang at their GTC keynote on May 10th, boosted confidence in the company significantly. Since then, the company's market cap has increased from the $75 billion dollar it was at shortly after GTC, towards its $96.31 billion rated market cap today. More recently, with the recent rise of the crypto wave craze, NVIDIA's GPUs have been talked about as real alternatives to AMD's previously (and perhaps hurtful for the company) grasp on this kind of workloads.

Intel rigorously defends its hold over its core intellectual property, the x86 CPU machine-architecture. AMD is the only active licencee of x86, and has a competitive line of processors across market segments. It has been a long-cherished dream of chipmakers without an x86 license to have Microsoft, the world's leading PC operating system manufacturer, somehow emulate their Win32 API, which is inherently designed for the x86 architecture, on the more widely licensed ARM architecture. As one of the largest ARM chipmakers, Qualcomm pushed for 2-in-1 (notebook-to-tablet) convertible PCs driven by its Snapdragon processors, which run Windows 10, complete with support for Win32 software, besides Microsoft's UWP apps.

This Snapdragon + Windows 10 reference convertible is so impressive with its battery life and performance, that major PC OEMs such as Lenovo, HP, and ASUS have lined up to license the design and make their own designs. This would have been a licensable form-factor governed by Microsoft, much like how Intel governed the Ultrabook form-factor. This would hit hard at Intel's bottomline, because SoC makers with big R&D budgets like Qualcomm, Samsung, and NVIDIA, who each hold ARM licenses, could go on to power bigger and faster PCs which emulate x86, driving Intel out of the ecosystem. The company dropped the hammer earlier this week, in a passive-aggressive note without taking names, warning Microsoft and Qualcomm to cease from their efforts to build such a device.

AMD released the Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.6.1 beta drivers. The drivers come with optimization for "DiRT 4," including an AMD CrossFire profile, and up to 30 percent improvement in frame-rates with 8x MSAA cranked up. The drivers also improve performance of "Prey" (2017) by up to 4 percent, as tested on a machine with a Radeon RX 580 8 GB graphics card.

The drivers also fixed a number of issues, including virtual super-resolution (VSR) not correctly enabling on certain Radeon RX 400 and RX 500-series GPUs; HDR not correctly enabling on certain WQHD or higher-resolution displays; flickering noticed on some WQHD or higher-resolution displays connected via HDMI; fast mouse movements causing a frame-rate drop in "Prey" (2017); "Mass Effect: Andromeda" noticing a stutter with multi-GPU systems; and a system hang noticed on Radeon R9 390 series GPUs with the memory overclocked using a third-party application. Grab the driver from the link below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson ReLive 17.6.1

The change-log follows.

CD Projekt Red are the world-renowned studio responsible for RPG masterpiece The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and the two other less known, but still great Witcher RPGs before it. The company is one of the most gamer-oriented, generous game developers out there today, bar none. I say this, because this is a company who did some missteps before, but quickly backed out of them and that have created one of the most memorable and successful open-worlds to date. This is the studio that offered not only a soundtrack CD with their standard edition of the game, alongside a full-color map of the game world, but also went to the lengths of including a small letter to thank us for choosing their game over others. These developers offered 16 pieces of DLC with their game, DLC pieces that other studios had been (and have been) charging customers for.

The company outlined above have come forth in a tweet, publicly calling out an attempt from thieves to ransom stolen development files on the studios' upcoming sci-fi Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt Red said that they will not give in to demands from the individuals that have contacted them, and acknowledge that the public release of those files is likely to happen as a result. The studio also goes on saying that these files (if they even come to public now that their value has been thoroughly cut down) are "largely unrepresentative of the current vision for the game." I don't know about you, but I'd much prefer to get some info on CD Projekt Red's next project from themselves.P.S.: This editor Is sorry for the above post looking eerily similar to a rant. I just have a low tolerance for this kind of behavior from any part, but most of all, when the targeted party is actually one of the studios that is more deserving of gamers' respect.Source: CD Projekt Red Twitter

LG Electronics USA Business Solutions has added premium 4K UHD and In-Plane Switching (IPS) commercial monitors to its already-broad portfolio of cutting-edge desktop monitors. Led by the brand new 43-inch 4K UHD monitor, which will be demonstrated at InfoComm 2017, the new displays provide users the high-end picture quality and flexibility needed to maximize productivity and ease of use.

"As content formats rapidly evolve, LG's portfolio of state-of-the-art commercial monitors has been expanded with 4K and HDR (high dynamic range) technologies," said Stephen Hu, head of monitors at LG Electronics USA Business Solutions. "With a three-year warranty, advanced imaging technology, unmatched interoperability and industry-proven calibration methods, LG's new commercial desktop monitors are designed to meet evolving customer needs across different verticals."

The MaxTytan series of PSUs, which Enermax showcased at Computex 2017, will stand in as the company's flagship power supplies when they launch later into the summer. All of them feature 80+ Titanium ratings (though they're absent of the more recent and more grueling Cybenetics testing.) The Enermax MaxTytan line will include four models at 750 W, 800 W, 1050 W and 1250 W outputs. All MaxTytan PSUs support the company's DFR (dust free rotation) technology as well as fanless operation at below 55% - 60% load. The 1050 W and 1250 W models also feature Enermax' Coolergenie device for system fan control, and have an integrated power meter (this one might come in handy for those of you looking to ride the crypto wave, uh?)

The MaxTytan series feature a modular design across all models, and have 2x 4+4 CPU power connectors. The 750 W model will retail for ~$200, the 800 W will go for $210, $299 will net you 1050 W capacity and a power meter, and the 1250 W MaxTytan PSU will go for $359.Source: AnandTech

NZXT has announced it plans to start offering customers PC-builds built around specific games you are looking to play. This new service, which is now rolling out, makes use of thousands of data points collected throughout gaming PCs with the company's CAM software. These allowed the company to define performance profiles for different games available on the market, streamlining build suggestions and customization around given performance requirements of each. The customer can set a base price they are willing to pay, then select which game they're looking to trounce with their new high-performance, custom-built PC, and the software does the rest of the work, picking through hundreds of possible hardware combinations to choose what is - in theory - the best build for those performance and pricing targets. According to NZXT's founder and CEO Johnny Hou, the company has "Reached that tipping point where we have enough data to confidently say 'these top 10, 20 games, we can predict, and we're going to guarantee'". Furthermore, if the games don't run according to expectations and the guaranteed performance metrics, Hou says that NZXT will let you return the computer.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today launched the TVS-882BR Blu-ray NAS series (including the TVS-882BR and TVS-882BRT3 models). QNAP also announced a partnership with Fengtao Software to provide an all-in-one backup solution with its DVDFab software. DVDFab provides a complete solution for backing up disc-based files to the NAS for more convenient storage while also enabling NAS-based files to be written to discs for disaster recovery purposes. The TVS-882BRT3 also features four Thunderbolt 3 ports, providing a highly-efficient collaborative environment for media professionals, while also allowing instant writing of their creative works to disc. The TVS-882BR can also serve as a Blu-ray player, allowing direct playback via HDMI using Linux Station or Virtualization Station (third-party media player software required - may require separate license purchase).

"The TVS-882BR series - available with a pre-installed Blu-ray Disc drive or an empty 5.25-inch bay - takes a unique place in the QNAP NAS line-up by enabling users to directly consolidate optical disc-based data to their NAS for easier management and sharing. The ability to write data to discs also provides another layer of data protection alongside modern NAS and cloud-based methods," said Dan Lin, Product Manager of QNAP. "With robust hardware and M.2 SATA 6Gb/s support, the TVS-882BR provides users with a complete range of IT solutions, including deploying resource-demanding virtualization applications, online collaboration, and building a shared Blu-ray NAS workstation," Lin added.

PCI-SIG Developers Conference 2017 - PCI-SIG, the organization responsible for the widely adopted PCI Express (PCIe) industry-standard input/output (I/O) technology, today announced 32GT/s as the next progression in speed for the PCIe 5.0 architecture, targeting high-performance applications such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, gaming, visual computing, storage and networking. Slated for completion in 2019, the specification development is well underway with Revision 0.3 already available to PCI-SIG member companies.

"In our 25-year history, PCI-SIG has maintained its commitment to our rigorous specification development process, while delivering specifications that are in lock-step with industry requirements for high-performance I/O," said Al Yanes, PCI-SIG Chairman and President. "PCIe 5.0 technology is the next evolution that will set the standard for speed, and we are confident that its 32GT/s bandwidth will surpass industry needs."

The preceding PCIe 4.0 specification is designed with key functional enhancements that future-proof the PCIe architecture design, thereby accelerating future specification development. This undertaking, along with improved silicon design processes, serves as the foundation for the PCIe 5.0 specification.

Logitech G, a brand of Logitech, today announced the launch of the Logitech G433 7.1 Gaming Headset and the Logitech G233 Prodigy Gaming Headset. These headsets feature advanced gaming technologies, including patent-pending Pro-G audio drivers, for superior audio performance, in a lightweight, extremely comfortable fit designed to go with you beyond gaming sessions.

"If you're like me and game a lot, having an awesome gaming headset is critical," said Ujesh Desai, vice president and general manager of Logitech G. "And if you love music then having a great pair of headphones is also important. Now you can have one headset that delivers the best of both worlds. You can move seamlessly from your PC to your console, and because of the beautiful design, Pro-G audio drivers, and removable boom mic, you can step outside and wear them on the go and have a headset that fits your lifestyle."

Manli Technology Group Limited, the major Graphics Cards and other components manufacturer, today announced the latest overclocking solution, Manli GeForce GTX 1080Ti Gallardo with RGB lights. The name of Gallardo is in Italian, and represents "elegant" and "bravery." The golden and soldier elements are exactly as "elegant" and "bravery" image which Gallardo Series would like bring luxurious gaming experience to gamers.

Manli GeForce GTX 1080Ti Gallardo equipped with triple 9cm fan to improve cooling performance also up to 7 shining RGB light effects: from red, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple to white that flash and fade between those colors. Moreover, Manli GeForce GTX 1080Ti Gallardo provides two overclocking solutions: one is overclocking version which increases up to 4% (1544 / 1657MHz), and super overclocking version is with up to 7% (1594 / 1708MHz) compared with standard version.

AMD co-founder Jerry Sanders, in 2009 was famously quoted as stating that "real men have fabs," a jibe probably targeted at the budding fab-less CPU designers of the time. Years later, AMD spun-off its silicon fabrication business, which with a substantial investment of the Abu Dhabi government through its state-owned Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), became GlobalFoundries (or GloFo in some vernacular). This company built strategic partnerships with the right players in the industry, acquisitions such as IBM's fabs, and is now at the forefront of sub-10 nm fab development. It remained one of AMD's biggest foundry partners besides TSMC and Samsung, and is manufacturing its AMD processors at a brand new facility in Upstate New York, USA.

AMD, on the other hand, doesn't regret spinning off GloFo. Speaking at Merrill Lynch Global Technology and Investment Conference, CTO Mark Papermaster said, that going fab-less has helped AMD focus on chip-design without worrying about manufacturing. Production is no longer a bottleneck for AMD, as it can now put out manufacturing contracts to a wider variety of foundry partners. Its chip-designers aren't limited by the constraints of an in-house fab, and can instead ask external fabs to optimize their nodes for their chip-designs, Papermaster said. 14 nm FinFET has added a level of standardization to the foundry industry.Source: Expreview

TeamAU with GIGABYTE OC Lab successfully overclocked an Intel Core i7-7740K "Kaby Lake-X" quad-core processor to 7.50 GHz. Only 2 out of its 4 cores were enabled for the feat. A Gigabyte X299 SOC Champion was used for this feat, and liquid helium was used to keep the CPU cool. The overclockers dialed kept the base-clock constant at 100 MHz, while dialing up its multiplier to 75.0x, yielding 7.50 GHz. Its core-voltage was kept at 1.096V.Source: Canard PC Validation

ASUS is looking to have two distinct monitor product lines catering to either AMD or NVIDIA enthusiasts. Adding to their Swift line-up of NVIDIA G-Sync monitors, ASUS seems to be building up a Strix line as well, which features AMD's FreeSync technology to deliver the same fundamental variable refresh rate technology at a lower price-point (or so we hope.)

Starting with the flagship Strix monitor, the ASUS Strix XG32V has a 31.5" IPS panel with a WQHD resolution of 2560 x 1440. It's curved, so it envelops your FOV better, with the usual 1800R curve. This model can handle refresh rates of up to 144Hz, though readers looking to jump at this panel as we speak should wait for both Freesync range and pricing announcements. Connectivity-wise, we're looking at 2x DisplayPort 1.2, 1x HDMI 2.0, and an os yet unknown amount of USB 3.0 ports. ASUS has also added the inevitable Aura Sync lighting to the XG32V, materialized on both a ROG logo that shines down onto the desk, as well as an RGB LED suite on the back of the unit that can be synchronized with other Aura Sync-enabled PC components and peripherals.

In its eagerness to showcase just how important HDR (High Dynamic Range) support is for the image quality of the future, NVIDIA set up a display booth on Computex, where it showcased the difference between SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) and HDR images. However, it looks as if the green company was a smite too eager to demonstrate just how incredible HDR image quality is, considering they needed to fiddle with the SDR screen's settings to increase the divide.

The revelation comes courtesy of Hardware Canucks, who say were granted access to the monitor settings NVIDIA used on their displays while running the demo. And as it turns out, NVIDIA had changed default factory values for brightness, contrast, and even gamma in the SDR monitor, which compromised the image quality it was actually able to convey. Resetting the monitor settings to their factory values resulted in a severely less muted image on the SDR monitor than before, which plays out on the deliberate attempt to reduce image quality on the SDR presentation. Now granted, image quality perceptions comparing SDR to HDR may fall on the personal, subjective spectrum of each viewer; however, actual brightness, contrast and gamma settings being set outside even their set factory levels (which can usually be improved upon with calibration) does make it look like someone was trying too hard to showcase HDR's prowess.Source: Hardware Canucks' YouTube Channel

G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world's leading manufacturer of extreme performance memory and gaming peripherals, is excited to announce the DDR4 frequency world record at DDR4-5500MHz. This astonishing achievement was accomplished by the Taiwanese professional overclocker, Toppc, using G.SKILL DDR4 built with Samsung 8Gb ICs, on the latest MSI X299 GAMING PRO CARBON AC motherboard and Intel Core X-series processor.

Just last year, one week before Computex 2016, the renowned Taiwanese overclocker, Toppc, broke the DDR4 5GHz barrier using G.SKILL memory and MSI Z170I GAMING PRO AC motherboard. A year after, he raise the bar once again and became the first ever to push DDR4 speed to 5.5GHz under liquid nitrogen cooling. This tenacity demonstrates his overclocker's spirit of pursuing faster speed and greater performance of the latest computer hardware. This record has been validated by HWBOT.

Deepcool today formally launched the GAMMAXX GT tower-type air CPU cooler it unveiled at Computex 2017. Featuring a conventional tower-type design, the cooler features four 6 mm-thick copper heat pipes, which make direct contact with the CPU at the base, conveying heat to an aluminium fin-stack, which is ventilated by an included 120 mm fan. The topmost aluminium fin is capped off with a stylish brushed aluminium plate with a multi-diode RGB LED diffuser. The included fan features multi-diode RGB LEDs, too. From a 65,536-color palette, you can select up to two colors each for the heatsink and fan, which the diffuser then provides a groovy blend/transition effect for.

Measuring 135 mm x 84.8 mm x 156 mm (WxDxH), the GAMMAXX GT weighs 870 g. The included fan takes in 4-pin PWM power input, and spins between 500 to 1,500 RPM, pushing up to 70.08 CFM of air, with its noise output ranging between 17.8 to 29.5 dBA. It features a fluid dynamic bearing. Both the fan and the heatsink top-plate take in standard 4-pin RGB headers, and support popular standards such as ASUS Aura Sync. The cooler can handle thermal loads of up to 150W on the Intel platform, and up to 140W on the AMD platform. It supports most modern CPU socket types, including AM4, AM3(+), FM2(+), LGA2011(v3), LGA1366, and LGA115x. The company didn't reveal pricing.Our Computex 2017 images of this cooler follow.

Intel introduced the SSD DC P4501 series enterprise solid-state drives based on its latest-generation 3D TLC NAND flash memory. The drives are available in 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor with 32 Gb/s U.2 interface, and the M.2-2280 form-factor with 32 Gb/s interface. It takes advantage of PCI-Express 3.0 x4 with the NVMe 1.2 protocol.

Available in 500 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB capacities, the drives offer sequential transfer rates of up to 3,200 MB/s reads, with up to 900 MB/s writes. Their 4K random-read performance is rated at up to 360,000 IOPS, with up to 46,000 IOPS 4K random writes. Their endurance is rated at up to 1 DWPD (random) and up to 3 DWPD (mostly sequential). Both form-factor variants of the drives feature power-loss imminent protection, where a bank of capacitors gives the drives just enough power to finish its outstanding write operations in the event of a power-failure, to mitigate data-loss. The drives are backed by 5-year warranties.

AMD Radeon graphics cards have always been too good at GPGPU for their own good. The new Ethereum block-chain compute network, with the Ethereum crypto-currency, works really really good with AMD Radeon Graphics CoreNext architecture-based GPUs (that's every AMD GPU since Radeon HD 7000 series). As a result, not only have Ethereum prospectors bought out nearly all inventory of AMD Radeon graphics cards from the market, but also forced an inflation of used AMD Radeon graphics cards on online tech-forums, and used-goods stores on eBay and Amazon. Some of these used cards are priced higher than even launch-prices.

Every $1,000 spent on AMD Radeon hardware towards Ethereum mining is recovered within 2 months, and then as long as your hardware lasts and you're paying your power bills, you're swimming in crypto-currency that can be converted to Bitcoin and even US Dollars. One Ethereum (ETH) exchanges to USD $265 at the time of this writing. There's already $330 million worth Ethereum being traded, and that number is only going to grow as people sell USD or BTC to buy ETH and pay for entry into the Ethereum network, and use ETH as a crypto-currency.

Today, HP Inc. unleveled the playing field with the launch of an entirely new, cutting-edge and comprehensive portfolio of OMEN by HP gaming products. Re-designed and re-engineered from the ground up, the new lineup gives esports athletes and competitive gamers the edge and confidence needed to perform at the highest global level. Every inch inside and out of the new OMEN PCs, displays and accessories are packed with features designed to target the needs of gamers around the world, instantly changing the game like never before.

The OMEN X Compact Desktop provides a factory-overclocked GPU from NVIDIA and a versatile form-factor, creating the ability to dock and undock quickly for gaming in any room, or attach the desktop to a backpack accessory for an unparalleled, untethered VR experience. The addition of a backpack accessory to the OMEN X Compact Desktop adds a new dimension of flexibility to the platform, and by expanding the OMEN accessory lineup with a new OMEN mechanical keyboard, a mouse with weight customization, a headset with cushioned ear cups to reduce background noise and mousepads designed for precision, HP is bringing attention to every aspect of the gaming experience.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of highperformance DRAM modules, NAND Flash products, and mobile accessories today launchedthe UC360 and UC370 USB OTG Flash drives. As "on the go" protocol (OTG) USB drives, both models ensure quick, driverless connectivity with virtually any device that features USB. Both are 2-in-1 products, with the UC360 featuring USB-A and Micro USB and the UC370 combining USB-A and USB-C. Data delivery uses USB 3.1 speeds, and both drives are designed for durability and convenience across Windows, Mac OS, Android, and a host of other platforms such as game consoles and smart TVs. Consumers can choose from 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB versions of the new drives.

Noctua, a company well-known for the performance and acoustic characteristics of their fans (and especially for their love-it-or-hate-it brown and tan fan color scheme) has showcased their next-generation A-series fans, which took the company more than four years and 200 test designs to achieve. This is surely a case of discovering how to not make a product in 200 different ways. Noctua only had to get it right once; and it would seem they did.

Noctua are promising unparalleled performance at the A-Series noise levels. The reasons for this are varied, but one of them - perhaps the most important - comes from the fact that Noctua has ditched PBT - the plastic most commonly used in this kind of products - for a completely new compound, which the company calls Sterrox. Sterrox is a liquid crystal polymer of the same family as Kevlar. This means it has an ordered molecular structure (whereas PBT manifests a chaotic one), which means Sterrox is a much more rigid compound. This helps the fans keep their shape after spinning for long periods of time - something which happens with PBT-made fans. The chaotic structure and lower rigidity means the material deforms due to the centrifugal forces, effectively elongating the fan blades (an effect dubbed impeller creep), which means usual fan designs have to take this into account, usually by increasing the gap between the frame and the fan blades. Noctua aimed for a 0.5 mm tip clearance (much lower than the usual 1.5 or 2 mm), which results in much better air and noise performance. A narrower gap means that less air leaks through it back to the front of the fan, which allows more air to be pushed through heatsinks and radiators. And the fact that the fan blades are more rigid means they don't suffer microscopic wobbles and vibrations on the surface when spinning - hence, quieter. But how good are these new fans, really?

Micron, who has been at the forefront in graphics memory production, has recently announced in a blog post their commitment to achieving ever increasing speeds and performance gains with their products (which isn't all that uncommon.) What this announcement has that better carves it as different and newsworthy, though, is that the company has seemingly achieved 16 Gbps speeds on GDDR5X memory - which up to now, ticked at up to 12Gbps. Some NVIDIA cards you probably know about actually had their GDDR5X memory clocked up to 12.4 Gbps.

The new achievements under GDDR5X will aid the company in better executing their vision for GDDR6 and its speed goals. Micron expects to have functional silicon of their G6 program very soon, being confident they can push products to market on early 2018. GDDR6 will bring some specific differences in regards to GDDR5X, such as dual-channel memory (GDDR5X is single-channel) and the introduction of a FBGA180 ball package with increased pitch, to accommodate these fundamental differences.Source: Micron

Microsoft is seemingly going to introduce another version of their Windows 10 operating system. After introducing Windows 10 S earlier in the year, followed by the "Chinafinitive" Windows 10 China Government Edition, the company is seemingly responding to specific market demands of professionals and enterprises. The new Windows 10 Pro for Workstation PCs (which was first leaked by Microsoft itself through an erroneous upload to the Insider Program) will apparently come in two variants, a standard variant, and the N variant, which is built to comply with EU regulations.

The new Windows 10 Pro for Workstation PCs will introduce ReFS, the successor to the tried and true NTFS file system. The new ReFS is designed for fault-tolerance and is optimized for handling large data volume, including auto-correcting capabilities and backwards-compatibility with NTFS. Additionally, Microsoft is baking in SMB Direct protocol file sharing in Windows 10 Pro for Workstation which allows for high throughput, low latency and low CPU utilization when accessing network shares. It will also introduce support for systems with up to four CPUs (up from Windows 10 and Windows 10 Pro dual CPU limit) and 6 TB of RAM.Source: ETeknix

AMD has recently announced that at least nine models are in preparation for their new HEDT line-up, which will, for now, feature processors with up to 16 cores and 32 threads. The entry-level 16-core chip, the Threadripper 1998, will come in at 3.20 GHz with 3.60 GHz boost, 155 W TDP, and is absent of XFR.

If recent reports hold true, this entry-level Threadripper 1998 will come in at $849. Now, let's be honest - this seems like an immensely optimistic value, undercutting even Intel's 10-core 7900X, which has been announced at $999 (in tray quantities.) That's over 6 more cores and 12 more threads for $150 less. And let's just say that AMD's IPC isn't that much lower than Intel's to justify such an aggressive undercutting, a high-volume approach to the market.Source: ETeknix

You must've heard the news of increasingly tighter supply on AMD's video cards. This is kind of a "hello darkness my old friend" kind of moment, since we've seen this happening before. However, these days, the problem looks to be exacerbated with the increase in digital currencies - it's not just Bitcoin now. Ethereum and Zcash have come in to fill customer's desire for a lower entry, ASIC-resistant mineable cryptocurrency. And with the currencies' exploding pricing, people are once again looking to enter the mining craze - to ride the crypto wave, so to speak. All higher-performance graphics cards since the R200 series are flying off the shelves and second hand markets, and as we speak, virtually all RX 580 models are out of stock on Newegg. And while AMD graphics cards have historically been leagues better than their NVIDIA counterparts in mining environments, recently some specialized miners have surfaced, tailored for the Pascal architecture (more oriented to Zcash, though.)

Apple today previewed macOS High Sierra, the latest version of the world's most advanced desktop operating system, delivering new core storage, video and graphics technologies that pave the way for future innovation on the Mac. macOS High Sierra offers an all-new file system, support for High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) and an update to Metal, Apple's advanced graphics technology that powers everything from machine learning to virtual reality content creation. macOS High Sierra also includes a number of refinements to the apps Mac users enjoy every day, including Photos, Safari and Mail.

"macOS High Sierra delivers important forward-looking technologies and new opportunities for developers wanting to tap into the power of machine learning and create immersive VR content on the Mac," said Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. "The core technology innovations in macOS High Sierra, combined with our advances in hardware, will continue to push the Mac forward in exciting new ways."

Apple today gave a sneak peek of iMac Pro, an entirely new workstation-class product line designed for pro users with the most demanding workflows. The all-new iMac Pro, with its gorgeous 27-inch Retina 5K display, up to 18-core Xeon processors and up to 22 Teraflops of graphics computation, is the most powerful Mac ever made. Featuring a stunning new space gray enclosure, iMac Pro packs incredible performance for advanced graphics editing, virtual reality content creation and real-time 3D rendering. iMac Pro is scheduled to ship in December starting at $4,999 (US).

In addition to the new iMac Pro, Apple is working on a completely redesigned, next-generation Mac Pro architected for pro customers who need the highest-end, high-throughput system in a modular design, as well as a new high-end pro display. "We're thrilled to give developers and customers a sneak peek at iMac Pro. This will be our fastest and most powerful Mac ever, which brings workstation-class computing to iMac for the first time," said John Ternus, Apple's vice president of Hardware Engineering. "We reengineered the whole system and designed an entirely new thermal architecture to pack extraordinary performance into the elegant, quiet iMac enclosure our customers love - iMac Pro is a huge step forward and there's never been anything like it."

Apple today updated its iMac line with up to three times more powerful graphics, faster processors, Thunderbolt 3, faster storage options and brighter Retina displays, and added a Retina 4K display and discrete graphics to the $1,299 (US) 21.5-inch iMac. With its incredibly thin and seamless enclosure, fast processors and storage and stunning Retina display, iMac sets the gold standard for desktops. iMac delivers powerful performance for 3D graphics, video editing and gaming, and with macOS High Sierra coming this fall, iMac becomes a great platform for virtual reality content creation. Apple also today updated MacBook and MacBook Pro with faster processors, added faster SSDs to MacBook and introduced a new $1,299 (US) 13-inch MacBook Pro.

"With major updates to iMac, and a refresh of our MacBook and MacBook Pro lines, the Mac is stronger than ever," said John Ternus, Apple's vice president of Hardware Engineering. "Today iMac gets a huge graphics performance increase, faster CPU performance, Thunderbolt 3 and a brighter Retina display with support for 1 billion colors. We're also increasing CPU and SSD speed on MacBook, adding faster processors and making faster graphics standard on our 15-inch MacBook Pro and introducing a new $1,299 (US) 13-inch MacBook Pro."

AMD unveiled the high-performance, power-efficient Radeon Pro 500 series graphics, fueling beyond-UHD creativity in All-In-One computing. Available in the updated 21.5- and 27-inch iMac, Radeon Pro 500 series graphics enable extraordinary computing experiences, including stunning gaming, immersive VR on select models, and fluid content creation with exceptional performance and support for GPU acceleration across a range of creative applications on the Mac platform, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop and the Foundry Nuke, Mari and Modo. Moreover, Radeon Pro 500 series provides accelerated performance for the Radeon ProRender photorealistic ray-tracing rendering technology which is enabled for Autodesk Maya, and Maxon's Cinema 4D.

Radeon Pro 500 series graphics harness up to 5.5 TFLOPS of performance, unleashing the creativity of artists, designers, photographers, filmmakers, visualizers and engineers, and aspiring creative types across high-resolution canvases in the most popular creative applications, powering through the most demanding games, and bringing fantastic worlds to life in VR. The Radeon Pro 500 series makes use of the critically-acclaimed "Polaris" GPU architecture, delivering the perfect balance of performance and operating efficiency that makes them ideal for All-In-Ones.

G.Skill Memory and TechPowerUp brought you a chance to win a kit of arguably the best memory for AMD Ryzen processors, with our Game Faster with Flare X Giveaway. Three lucky winners chosen at random stand a chance to win a G.Skill Flare X DDR4-3200 16 GB (2x 8 GB) dual-channel memory kit, each. We're thrilled to announce the winners:

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With AMD Ryzen 5 six-core and Ryzen 7 eight-core chips having blunt the edge of the $329 Core i7-7700K, the upper-end of Intel's mainstream desktop processor line-up has lost competitiveness to Intel's bean-counters. The company is readying a new mainstream-desktop platform, which in all likelihood, heralds a new socket, and the new Z370 Express chipset.

Intel plans to launch this platform by August-September (before Q4 sets in), and it has one big difference - a new six-core part, based on the 8th generation Core "Coffee Lake" silicon. Built on a refined 14 nm process, the 6-core "Coffee Lake" chip could feature its TDP rating around the 95W mark for the "K" (multiplier unlocked) part. Quad-core parts could also be carved out of this silicon, with their TDP rated at 65W for the non-K (multiplier-locked) parts. AMD Ryzen 7 1700 eight-core chip with unlocked multipler is rated at 65W. Intel will follow up on its first-wave of "Coffee Lake" chips with additional quad-core and dual-core parts in Q1-2018, besides other 300-series chipsets (likely the H370 and B350).Source: Reddit user Zakman

AMD released the die-shot of its "Vega 10" ASIC. The multi-chip module (MCM) of the GPU die and two HBM2 memory stacks, sitting on a silicon interposer, is slightly smaller than the "Fiji" ASIC, as it features just two memory stacks. AMD didn't label the components of the GPU die, but we can make out 8 shader engines, holding 8 GCN compute units (CUs), each. This is unlike "Fiji," where the GPU holds four engines with 16 CUs, each. This would mean that each group of 8 CUs has its own dedicated geometry processor and rasterizer.

Since each CU holds 64 FP32 stream processors, we arrive at the total stream processor count of 4,096. Unlike "Hawaii," these stream-processors are FP16-capable, so simple compute tasks are handled at double the throughput. We also make out 32 render back-ends, double that of "Fiji" and "Hawaii," which could indicate 128 ROPs. The "Vega 10" ASIC features a 2048-bit HBM2 memory interface.Update: AMD stated that the die-shot appeared in one of its marketing slides, but may not be real.