At this year's CES, we heard whispers about Lian Li resurrecting its LanCool brand of cases that deviate from Lian Li's core style, and combines them with lower-cost materials. LanCool's comeback creation is the LanCool One, a feature-rich full-tower case with a focus on practicality and features. The case is characterized by a French door-looking front fascia with RGB LED elements along the divider, and brushed aluminium cladding; tempered glass side-panels, and a contemporary ATX/E-ATX full-tower interior layout, including horizontal compartmentalization, a roomy crawlspace behind the motherboard tray to route your cables, and vertical expansion slots to let you show off your graphics card. The case could also feature a modern front-panel with type-C USB 3.1 ports. The LanCool One will be shown off at the 2018 Computex.

Ahead of Computex 2018 CRYORIG announces new M.2 cooler Frostbit and RGB enhanced C7 RGB CPU Cooler. CRYORIG's Frostbit is not only the industry first aftermarket M.2 NVMe SSD cooler with dual heatpipes, it allows full adjustment of the Secondary Heatpipe and large volume Heatsink. The C7 RGB is based on CRYORIG's award winning ITX cooler C7, with a 12v RGB lighting enhanced 92 mm fan. Both products will be shown at CRYORIG's Computex booth at Nangang Exhibition Hall I0527.

AMD today started the formal invitation procedure for the company's Computex 2018 presence, which should result in an updated state of affairs for the company as it aims to deliver its 2018 roadmap. You'd be forgiven to think AMD had exhausted its product portfolio for the year with its 12 nm Ryzen 2000 series, but the 2018 release schedule for AMD still counts some notable products.

Chief among these (for enthusiasts, at least) is the company's second generation Threadripper lineup, which will update the company's premium, many-core HEDT products to the current 12 nm process. However, the impact of AMD's Pro products shouldn't be underestimated - as tamer (in consumers' eyes - as they are compared to the screaming wildcat that is a 16-core CPU, these products usually carry higher margins for AMD - the company just also has to count on proper volume being there, which, if AMD's Zen architecture strength is anything to go by, really should keep gaining momentum. Of course, the real question on anyone's minds now regards AMD's RTG, and more precisely, what graphics technology advancements - and especially products - can be expected from the company. The 500 series (well, 400 series on steroids) is old in the tooth by now, and Vega is what it is. Here's hoping the Computex conference will bring some light to these matters. The Press Release follows.

Intel recently celebrated 20 years of the Pentium brand that made the company a household name, with a special Pentium 20th Anniversary Edition G3258 SKU. If rumors are to be believed, the company could do something similar with the upcoming 40th anniversary of its 8086 processor, the distant ancestor of today's x86 architecture. Some sources even suggest that the company could take advantage of its 8th generation Core product cycle to launch a "Core i7-8086K" SKU.

Pictures surfaced on social media of the said "i7-8086K" SKU in the flesh, complete with a part number "SR3QQ." Based on the same 14 nm "Coffee Lake" silicon as the i7-8700K, this chip has a nominal clock speed of 4.00 GHz, a maximum Turbo Boost frequency above 5.00 GHz, an unlocked multiplier, and 12 MB of shared L3 cache. Intel could choose June 8th (around the 2018 Computex and the actual anniversary of 8086), to launch the new SKU.

ZOTAC Technology, a Hong Kong based and a global manufacturer of innovation, is excited to announce that the world's smallest Mini PC, the ZBOX pico PI225,was a winner of the prestigious 2018 iF Design Awards in the Product Computer category. Following winning several world-renowned awards for design and innovation, including the major European Hardware Awards 2017 and Computex d&i Awards. In 2016 and 2017, the recognition of ZBOX pico PI225 with iF Design Awards is a key reaffirmation that ZOTAC is a pioneer not only in engineering but also design expertise.

The ZBOX pico PI225 was recognized by the iF International Forum Design GmbH among 6,400 entries from 54 countries and won over the jury, made up of independent experts from all over the world, with its world ranking pico size and flexible and powerful desktop performance. Just a bit taller than a typical 2.5-inch SSD drive, the super-compact mini pc powered by an Intel Apollo Lake dual-core processor provides a symphony of silent performance, capitalizing on a completely fanless design. Encouraged by the recognition of the company's design expertise, ZOTAC will remain dedicated to rigorous standards and the relentless pursuit of excellence in design and innovation.

Cooler Master seems to be gearing up towards launch of their MasterCase H500P ATX Chassis on October 10th, according to a product listing on Newegg. The MasterCase H500P was first pictured during this year's Computex. It's being touted as the successor to Cooler Master's HAF (High AirFlow) cases, boasting of 2x 200 mm fans with RGB lighting as front intakes.

The MasterCase H500P has been stylized with a high quality, 3D-printed exoskeleton look, and features a built-in vertical installation slot for your 2-slot graphics card of choice (which could pose problems due to airflow restriction, though we should reserve judgement for now.) There are cable management covers, a side window made of tempered glass, a PSU shroud, and radiator support stands at 120 mm, 140 mm, 240 mm, 280 mm and 360 mm for the front of the chassis; 120 mm, 140 mm, 240 mm, 280 mm and 360 mm for the top (with a maximum thickness clearance of 55 mm), and a 120 mm or 140 mm radiator on the rear panel. Front ports include 2x USB 3.0/ 2x USB 2.0 and Audio In & Out. The Cooler Master MasterCase H500P ATX Chassis is now available for pre-order from Newegg for $149.

CRYORIG sweetened the deal for backing its upcoming compact chassis, the Taku, on Kickstarter, by including what it calls the "best ITX-ready CPU air-cooler." The company is including a C7 Cu low-profile CPU cooler for free with each Taku Kickstarter Edition case bound for its backers (by backing the project with at least $299). The C7 Cu is valued at $50.

The C7 Cu is a variant of the C7 low-profile top-flow CPU cooler, which features copper fins instead of aluminium. The cooler can cope with slightly higher thermal loads than its aluminium sibling. The company first showed off the cooler at the 2017 Computex. In addition to this deal, CRYORIG lowered the cost of backing two Taku cases down to $260 per unit (at least $520), which includes two C7 Cu coolers.

GIGABYTE today rolled out the Aorus ATC 700 tower-type CPU cooler. The company had first exhibited this cooler at the 2017 Computex event. Its design involves a large yet conventional tower-type aluminium fin-stack heatsink, to which heat drawn by three 10 mm-thick copper heat pipes, is conveyed to the fin-stack, which is ventilated by a pair of 120 mm fans in push-pull configuration. The heat pipes make direct contact with the CPU at the base.

The topmost aluminium fin is topped off by an ABS shroud with a glowing Aorus logo, which has an RGB LED element that can be controlled using GIGABYTE RGB Fusion software. Each of the two fans takes in 4-pin PWM power input, features double ball-bearings, spins between 500 to 1,700 RPM, with 14 to 53 CFM of air-flow, and noise output proportionately ranging between 12 to 31 dBA. The cooler supports most modern CPU sockets, including AM4, LGA2066, LGA2011(v3), AM3(+), FM2(+), LGA115x, LGA1366, and LGA775. The company didn't reveal pricing.

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.

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.

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?

Cooler Master celebrated 25 years of excellence recently, and took to the Computex 2017 stage to announce the much awaited successor to the Cosmos line of PC cases. The new Cosmos C700P is a concept case of their re-imagining of the Cosmos line of premium cases, and takes on the DNA of Cooler Master's Master Concept 2.0 modularity - the motherboard tray itself is removable for increased comfort in putting your rig together, and they even give you the possibility to invert the motherboard tray.

Cooler Master also showcased their more premium MasterCase H500P at Computex 2017, showing a wealth of materials and crafting capability that are seldom seen in other cases. The H500P is set as a reimagining of Cooler Master's HAF series, purpose-built for high airflow. Compared to the HAF series it replaces, the H500P makes use of a trimmer profile. The polygonal frame and 200 mm RGB fans serve as a testament for the high airflow these cases are supposed to deliver, while the polygonal frame gives the case a high quality, 3D-printed exoskeleton look.

At this year's Computex, Cooler Master showed off their hardware-quarantining PC cases in the MasterBox family. The first model we'll be bringing up is the MasterBox Q300T, which straddles the line between a PC case and art, with its angled surfaces and angled resting position. This is quite an interesting piece, and is meant to be integrated with your decor as much as with your gaming hardware.

At Computex 2017, Thermaltake, the company which makes giantly oversized PC cases, took to the stage to continue doing what it does best. The Level 20 TItanium clearly is at the top of its class: a concept design chassis with a "don't touch me, don't photograph me" attitude which was nevertheless captured by intrepid reporters who like to live dangerously. This is a great looking case, and is sure to dominate any environment it finds itself in.

At Computex 2017, Teamgroup put on a show with their products, hoping to place itself in consumers' eyes as having all the latest technologies they could possibly want. Starting with their SSD, there's the heatspreader-equipped M.2 NVMe SSD T-Force Cardea, an MLC SSD (so, a dying breed) with either 240 or 480 GB capacity, which includes a beefy red heatsink to reduce throttling possibilities.

Raijintek took to the stage to showcase, among other products, their Orcus AIO. Water cooling is all the rage these days, and the company is hoping this 240 mm unit will be the one to sway you to their camp. A rotating blade is included in the design, which rotates according to the waterflow of the system. LED lighting pimps the reservoir, which they call "the heart" of the system, and Raijintek is also calling to your attention the "extremely polish surface of water block". The fans on the radiator also include LED lighting, and the pump makes use of both a graphite pipe and a ceramic axis. The fans can speed at up to 3800 RPM, give or take 10%.

Reeven may be a relatively little-known company, but I know for a fact they are one of the PC cooling companies offering one of the highest bang-for-buck ratio products in the Reeven Justice II (it's actually better than some AIOs; you should check the out.) The company makes use of a pretty distinct design language with their yellow-bladed fans (which they have recently built upon with the RGB Kiran.)

The coolers showcased by the company include the tower coolers Reeven Hans, a slim 120 mm cooler which includes a RGB Kiran fan and the Justice II, which builds upon the company's Justice while improving thermal characteristics. This is a high TDP design, black coated product, which looks gorgeous next to the yellow fans. The six heatpipe design helps this be one of the most effective tower air coolers in the market. Finally, the Ouranos Aero ends the scale on the tower coolers, being a 140 mm tower cooler (bigger than both the Hans and the Justice), and is especially designed for overclockers. The dual fan design ensures a greater airflow (and thus, higher heat dissipation capability.)

Two of the more unique mass-market designs on show on Computex 2017 have to be the Phanteks EVOLV Shift and Shift X SFF cases. These are the essence of a tower case (though they can also lie on their side like a roman citizen at dinner time, if you are so inclined.) These are aluminum and tempered-glass crafted cases, with a ridiculous 17 (W) x 27 (D) x 48 (H) cm footprint on the Shift. The Shift X is the taller solution of the two, with a 65 cm height. These little cases than could support water cooling and component placement in multiple orientations, and include an integrated RGB controller to boot.

The front I/O contains just two USB 3.0 ports, but it's the interior which shines. Phanteks managed to cram a lot into such a compact form-factor. Motherboards will have to be of the mini-ITX type, there's no way around that; however, there's also with support for 2x PCI slots, and the Shift X brings support for 2x internal 3.5" and 2x 2.5" drives (you can also mount 2.5" solutions on the 3.5" bays, mind you.) It also supports PS2 PSUs, while the smaller Shift has to cut one of the 3.5" bays, and only supports SFF PSUs. However, for their sizes, both Shifts support 3x 120 mm and 3x 140 mm fans on the front of the case, and 1x 120 mm, 1x 140 mm fans on the bottom. The EVOLV Shift will retail for $110, while the Shift X brings that number up to $160.

At Computex 2017, Patriot put on a scorching show with their high-speed M.2 2280 NVMe SSDs, the Patriot Scorch. These leverage a Phison 5008-E8 controller to deliver up to 1200 MB/s reads and 800 MB/s writes at a 240 GB capacity. This controller is one of the only budget solutions to include a multi-core processor at its heart, which bodes well to the Scorch's rated speeds. MTBF operation is rated at over 2,000,000 hours, which is more than you'll ever need in your lifetime (and if it isn't, you really have to tell me your secret.) The Scorch will utilize Toshiba's 64-layer BiCS FLASH with 3-bits per cell (TLC) memory, which should decrease their cost, which should help Patriot release these Scorch SSDs on Q3 of this year, with a touted "attractive, budget" pricing.

ID-Cooling went on to Computex to showcase not only their air and liquid cooling solutions (for which they're really known for), but also to showcase systems fully equipped with the company's cooling portfolio (those are bonuses to the displayed at the end of this piece, though.)

Starting with the essence of life, ID-Cooling showcased their Frostflow+ 120, 240, and 280 products (whose numbering and naming scheme, as you might have guessed, inform the length of the radiator employed.) Their Frostflow+ 280 solution is certainly the most interesting, if only because of the usage of two PWM-controlled 140 mm fans to cool a 280 mm radiator. There's "premium sleeved tubing" here, as well as a high performance water pump design (but aren't they all). The Frostflow+ 240 is a more mundane, dual 120 mm fan solution, which nevertheless keeps all the features from the more premium (and better-performing) 280. The Frostflow+ 120 makes do with a "solid built" 120 mm radiator, and is apparently the only solution to incorporate any kind of LED lighting - namely, white in the pump cover. All fo these water cooling solutions are universally compatible with both Intel and AMD systems. All the units make use of a copper plate to make contact with your central processing unit of choice.

Cooler Master took to the stage on Computex 2017 showcasing its solutions for every gamer's needs, from the RGB-crazed one to the serious, twitch-shooter.

On to keyboards first, we have the Cooler Master Masterkeys PRO L RGB, which manages to fit both Cherry MX switches and a full RGB solution that can radiate 16.7 million colors. There's also on-the-fly macros and profile support, with the Fn key getting a whole lot of love. All in a sleek, minimalistic design, if you ignore the screaming LEDs. The Masterkeys PRO S is essentially the same, but lacking the number pad. The Masterkeys S, on the other hand, eschews the RGB lighting, lacks profile support and on-the-fly switching, and also ditches the number pad. The minimalistic design is somewhat destroyed by the bright, screaming, angry red WASD keys, but there's no denying you'll be hard-pressed to confuse them with other, non life-saving movement keys.

At Computex 2017, ASUS showcased the first Ryzen-powered laptop, which the company had already teased a while back. The STRIX brings to an end a period of lacking competition in the laptop space; before this, if you wanted a high-performance gaming (or even professional-grade) laptop, you went with one with an Intel processor inside, or not at all. AMD is back in the fold, and Ryzen was the one who rose to the challenge.

The ROG STRIX GL702ZC packs a Ryzen 7 1700 8-core, 16-thread CPU; the absence of an X there isn't a typo, considering AMD themselves say the company's XFR (eXtended Frequency Range) is meant to accelerate CPU speeds under the right thermal conditions (and headroom), which a laptop almost surely wouldn't have.) This is a full desktop CPU (and I stress, an 8-core, 16-thread one) running inside a laptop. And this laptop dresses itself fully in red, with the graphics workhorse being an RX 580. The RX 580 is a great 1080p card, so it will feel right at home on the ROG STRIX GL702ZC's 17.3", 1080p IPS panel with FreeSync support. Let's just hope this is the first in a wave of AMD-powered laptops. We'll be here to see what happens with Ryzen-based APUs closer to the end of the year.

At Computex 2017, Galaxy showcased two of its most premium graphics cards based on NVIDIA's GTX 1080 Ti chip. The GTX 1080 Ti OC Lab Edition features a Hall of Fame branded waterblock of appealing design, even if the colored power cables on the left of the unit do break the pleasing color scheme. The card features 3x 8-pin power connectors, for those of you who like to run wild with your overclocks. From the box, this card features a base 1569 MHz clock and a 1683 MHz Boost.

The second graphics card showcased by the company is the GTX 1080 Ti HOF Limited Edition, which makes use of the same 3x 8-pin power connectors, but sheds the waterblock for a triple-fan cooling solution. Strangely, this card features higher out-of-the-box clocks than the waterblock-equipped version, at 1645 MHz base and 1759 MHz boost. There is a LUMIN X branding on the cooler shroud, which indicates the usage of Galaxy's lighting system. It also features an LCD screen for graphics card status information, like operating temperature and current clocks and voltages.

Fractal Design, which recently announced their new Celsius S24 and Celsius S26 lines of AIO liquid cooling solutions, took to Computex 2017 to showcase their latest answer to an enthusiast's needs. The two models differ on radiator size, with the S24 materializing as a 240 mm piece, while the S36 is, expectedly, a 360 mm one. These feature integrated sound dampening, standardized G1/4" fittings, and discrete cabling for the radiator fans, with 2x or 3x 4-pin PWM fan headers on the radiator.