The USB 3.0 Promoter Group today announced the pending release of the USB 3.2 specification, an incremental update that defines multi-lane operation for new USB 3.2 hosts and devices. USB Developer Days 2017 will include detailed technical training covering USB 3.2, fast charging advancements in USB Power Delivery, and other exciting topics.

While USB hosts and devices were originally designed as single-lane solutions, USB Type-C cables were designed to support multi-lane operation to ensure a path for scalable performance. New USB 3.2 hosts and devices can now be designed as multi-lane solutions, allowing for up to two lanes of 5 Gbps or two lanes of 10 Gbps operation. This enables platform developers to continue advancing USB products to fit their customers' needs by effectively doubling the performance across existing cables. For example, a USB 3.2 host connected to a USB 3.2 storage device will now be capable of realizing over 2 GB/s data transfer performance over an existing USB Type-C cable that is certified for SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps.

"When we introduced USB Type-C to the market, we intended to assure that USB Type-C cables and connectors certified for SuperSpeed USB or SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps would, as produced, support higher performance USB as newer generations of USB 3.0 were developed," said Brad Saunders, USB 3.0 Promoter Group Chairman. "The USB 3.2 update delivers the next level of performance."

Dell has just announced immediate retail availability of their new UltraSharp U3818DW monitor. As the model name might suggest, we're looking at a 37.5" panel. It features a 3840 x 1600 resolution (which isn't that common to begin with), and supports a USB Type-C input (via DP 1.2 alternate mode.) Sadly for the gamer side of every one of us TPU users, Dell is positioning the U3818DW as a business-class monitor - it gets professional-market oriented features, such as an anti-glare coating, but loses support for AMD's FreeSync or NVIDIA's G-SYNC, which is a shame.

The panel is an 8-bit + FRC IPS solution, a 24:10 aspect ratio, 2300R curvature, and 1.07 billion colors. The panel is manufactured by LG, and if you fancy its size, curvature and resolution but fancy some gamer-oriented features, you can look towards LG's 38UC99 and Acer's XR382CQK, which both use the same panel but include FreeSync support. Refresh rate on the Dell UltraSharp U3818DW is locked at 60 Hz; it features a 5 ms gray-to-gray response time, and maximum brightness is set at 350 cd/m². Inputs range through 1x DisplayPort 1.2, 2x HDMI 2.0, and 1x USB 3.0 Type-C. The U3818DW also features a 4x USB 3.0 hub with support for 4x USB-A. Each screen is sRGB-calibrated to Delta E < 2 accuracy, and the monitor also technically supports the DCI-P3 color gamut, but only covers 78.1% of it. Dell's UltraSharp U3118DW is now available directly from Dell for $1500.Source: AnandTech

TechPowerUp and Patriot Memory brought you the 4th of July Giveaway to celebrate America's 241st Independence Day. Up for grabs were three of Patriot's finest Viper Gaming peripherals, including the latest Viper Gaming V770 gaming keyboard, V570 gaming mouse, V370 gaming headset, V530 gaming mouse, and V361 gaming headset with stand. Open to residents of the US and Canada, the giveaway concluded today, and without further ado, here are the winners:

• 1st prize - Sam from Worcester MA: Wins a Viper Gaming V770 keyboard + Viper V570 mouse + Viper V370 headset
• 2nd prize - Colton from Pittston PA: Wins a Viper V361 headset with headset stand and USB 3.0 hub
• 3rd prize - Victor from Machias ME: Wins a Viper V530 mouse

A huge congrats to you guys! TechPowerUp and Patriot Memory Viper Gaming will return with more such interesting giveaways!

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, unveils its new TwoDrive with Lightning and USB 3.0 connectors. Super Talents TwoDrive is a high-speed flash drive with Lightning and USB 3.0 dual end connectors to quickly and easily transfer files between devices, and works with use of free STT Mobile Manager app from App Store. The TwoDrive flash drive features a rotational connector design to allow user to swing the Lightning plug while the plug is in use.

Colorful today launched its flagship socket LGA2066 motherboard, the iGame X299 Vulcan X, which it showcased earlier at the 2017 Computex. The board is available in two variants based on their color-schemes, white and black. The white model features a white PCB, I/O shroud, and white PCH and VRM heatsinks, while the black variant is almost completely black. Both variants have an identical feature-set. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, 8-pin EPS, and 6-pin PCIe power connectors, and uses a 10-phase VRM to power the CPU. The CPU is wired to eight DDR4 DIMM slots, and four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots.

Storage options include a 32 Gb/s M.2-22110 slot, a 32 Gb/s M.2-2280 slot, and six SATA 6 Gb/s ports. USB connectivity includes two USB 3.1 ports (one each type-A and type-C), six USB 3.0 (four on the rear panel and two by headers); and two special USB 2.0 ports on the rear panel which are optimized for gaming input devices, with additional electrical stabilization. Of its two gigabit Ethernet connections, one is driven by an Intel i211-AT controller, and the other by Realtek DragonLAN 8118AS. Audio includes a Realtek ALC1220 CODEC with 120 dBA SNR; a headphones amp, audio-grade capacitors, and ground-layer isolation. The board features dual-BIOS with manual switching, and a host of overclocking features. The company didn't reveal EU pricing.

As the third generation of the "XPC nano" series, which was originally introduced in 2015, four new models are now being added to the product range. The seventh generation of Intel Core processors (Kaby Lake) boosts the level of performance while simultaneously reducing the energy consumption once again. The core components supplied with the NC03 barebone models are the chassis, mainboard, cooling system and the power supply unit. Choosing a model will also determine the particular processor, which is already soldered on the mainboard - either a Celeron, Core i3, Core i5 or Core i7. The base model NC03U features an Intel Celeron 3865U dual-core processor clocked at 2x 1.8 GHz. The tried-and-tested 14 nm architecture and power consumption of just 5 Watt in idle mode represent a particularly high level of energy efficiency.

Like the previous range of NC02 models, the chassis dimensions here are 141 x 141 x 42 mm and can accommodate one 2.5-inch drive with a maximum height of 15 mm. When undoing the two screws of the covers of the black chassis, space for the above mentioned 2.5-inch drive in the form of a high-capacity hard disk or SSD comes to light. Two SO-DIMM sockets can be fitted with up to 32 GB of DDR4 memory in total. In addition, one free M.2 expansion slot is available and, thanks to it being PCIe, it supports fast NVMe cards with a length of 80 mm. A second M.2 slot is already equipped with a WLAN module.

PNY Technologies (PNY) considered one of the worldwide leaders in consumer electronics market and flash memory products, is ready to take on the gaming industry by storm with the launch of the Gaming Series to Asia market. The PNY Gaming Series offers best-in-class PC components to deliver gaming performance ranging from affordable to the most intense for die-hard gamers. Scheduled to be released in the 2nd half of 2017, the product categories will include gaming grade graphics cards, SSDs, and PC memory products that promise to deliver the competitive edge advantage in PC gaming.

ASUS today introduced the BE27AQLB, a 27-inch business-grade monitor designed for ergonomics and eye-comfort for protracted hours of business-usage. The monitor features a frame-less bezel design, with a stand that allows 90° rotation, height, tilt, and swivel adjustments, besides featuring a VESA mount on the stand, not just the main panel. The monitor uses a rheostat control for its illumination, and boasts of TÜV Rheinland Certification for flicker-free back-lighting. It also features a low-blue light illumination.

The BE27AQLB features an IPS panel, with WQHD (2560 x 1440 pixels) resolution, 178°/178° viewing angles, 5 ms (GTG) response time, 350 cd/m² maximum brightness, and dynamic mega-contrast ratio. Inputs include both a standard and mini-DisplayPort, HDMI 2.0, and dual-link DVI. Other features include 2W stereo speakers, and a 4-port USB 3.0 hub. The monitor features a typical power-draw of less than 18.82 W. Measuring 615 mm x (382~532 mm) x 226 mm, it weighs 7.7 kg. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Club 3D is proud to announce the next generation of SenseVision video splitters today with the introduction of two brand new splitters, CSV-1474 (USB-A to HDMI 2.0 Dual Monitor 4K 60Hz) and CSV-1477 (USB-A to DP 1.2 Dual Monitor 4K 60Hz) with this press release.

Former generation video splitters or USB graphic adapters based on USB 3.0 or 3.1 suffered from a limitation of 30 Hz if you were aiming at using the highest resolutions like 3840 x 2160 (4K). The latest developments from DisplayLink make it possible now that with CSV-1474 and CSV-1477 the resolutions can be taken to a new level. Not only one time 4K60Hz is possible, both splitters offer Dual Monitor functionality and each of the outputs can offer 4K 60Hz. The only requirement is to have a free USB Type A 3.1 Gen 1 socket in your device. The two new SenseVision products are powered by DisplayLink 6950 SoC. Our new future-proof products will be ready for shipment on June 30th. Wide availability of the products in the market we expect in the first week of July.

Especially intended for out of the ordinary use in vertical markets, Shuttle is now offering a fanless barebone PC in a versatile 3-litre format. Under the name XC60J, the range of the mini PC manufacturer now adds a 7 cm tall mini PC with an Intel Celeron J3355 dual-core processor (2 GHz) in 14 nm architecture.

The virtually silent platform, which is suitable for constant operation (24/7) at an ambient temperature of up to 40 °C, boasts a total of eight serial interfaces (8x RS-232, one of which can be switched to RS-422/RS-485) as its key spec and is therefore aimed at the areas of automation, POS, industry and machine control in which USB or IP-based transmission will not apply.

GIGABYTE, the world's leading premium gaming hardware manufacturer, today announced the release of the highly-anticipated AORUS GTX 1070 Gaming Box, a true plug-and-play external graphics solution that was unveiled earlier at COMPUTEX 2017 with much attention received for its innovative design and affordability. Pre-installed with a high-end GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card, the device can easily transform any Thunderbolt 3-enabled laptop into a powerful gaming battle station.

Unlike most conventional external graphics enclosures that come with an empty dock, the AORUS GTX 1070 Gaming Box is a complete package with a factory-overclocked GTX 1070 graphics card already built inside, requiring no extra hassle or cost to put together an accommodating graphics card separately. Thanks to the Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, the device is able to provide a significant graphics boost to laptops with a blazing-fast data transfer speed of 40Gbps, while delivering up to 100W of power to the connected laptop at the same time with the embedded 450W PSU. The Thunderbolt 3 plug-and-play support also allows for quick, easy connections without having to reboot the PC.

Microsoft Sunday dropped its mic with the most powerful game console on paper, the Xbox One X, formerly codenamed "Project Scorpio." The bottom-line of this console is that it enables 4K Ultra HD gaming at 60 Hz. Something like this requires you to spend at least $1,200 on a gaming desktop right now. Unlike a Windows 10 PC that's been put together by various pieces of hardware, the Xbox One X is built on a closed ecosystem that's tightly controlled by Microsoft, with heavily optimized software, and a lot of secret sauce the company won't talk about. The console still puts up some mighty impressive hardware specs on paper.

To begin with, at the heart of the Xbox One X is a semi-custom SoC Microsoft co-developed with AMD, built on TSMC's 16 nm FinFET node (the same one NVIDIA builds its "Pascal" GPUs on). This chip features a GPU with almost quadruple the single-precision floating point compute power as the one which drives the Xbox One. It features 40 Graphics CoreNext (GCN) compute units (2,560 stream processors) based on one of the later versions of GCN (likely "Polaris"). The GPU is clocked at 1172 MHz. The other big component of the SoC is an eight-core CPU based on an unnamed micro-architecture evolved from "Jaguar" rather than "Bulldozer" or even "Zen." The eight cores are arranged in two quad-core units of four cores, each; with 4 MB of L2 cache. The CPU is clocked at 2.30 GHz.

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.

Patriot Memory unveiled its Singe series performance-segment SATA SSD, and its Spark series external SSD at Computex 2017. Built in the 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor, the drives take advantage of the SATA 6 Gbps interface. The Spark, on the other hand, features 5 Gbps USB 3.0 interface. The company didn't talk about the NAND flash type or even the controller, but focused on their performance figures.

The Singe comes in 240 GB and 480 GB capacities, and offers sequential transfer speeds of up to 555 MB/s reads, with up to 500 MB/s writes, and up to 70,000 IOPS 4K random read/write performance. The Spark, on the other hand, comes in a wider variety of capacities - 120 GB, 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB; and offers performance of up to 465 MB/s reads, with up to 460 MB/s writes. It uses a single cable for both power and host connectivity.

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.

Patriot, a global leader in performance memory, SSDs, gaming peripherals and flash storage solutions, today announced the release of the Viper Gaming Headset Stand /USB 3.0 Hub providing users with additional, easy-access, USB ports and a convenient storage solution for their favorite headset.

Powered by a USB connection on the rear of the base, the Patriot Viper Gaming Headset Stand is equipped with three USB 3.0 ports and a 3.5mm audio and microphone jack for a seamless connection to USB storage solutions, gaming peripherals and audio/visual devices. Offering easy plug-and-play functionality, no software is needed and connected devices will be detected almost instantly. A power switch at the rear of the stand allows users to easily turn the device off without having to power down their PC.

ZOTAC broke new ground with its first tower-type SFF gaming PC, the ZOTAC Mek. This is one of the first ZOTAC PCs that isn't brick or box-shaped, and competes with your game console or the likes of Falcon Northwest Tiki in looks. It comes in white and black with blue LED accents. A sliding door up front covers the power button, status LEDs (ring-shaped), a pair of USB 3.0 type-A, and HDA jacks. Under the hood is some serious gaming hardware - an Intel Core i7-7700 quad-core processor, 16 GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory, and GeForce GTX 1080 graphics. Also featured is a 240 GB M.2 NVMe SSD. Powering it all is a 450W SFX power-supply.

In addition to the Thunderbolt 3 External Graphics Dock, ZOTAC also showed off a smaller contraption which does essentially the same thing - wire your laptop to a graphics card over Thunderbolt 3. This device is unnamed for now, too, and is referred to as "Thunderbolt 3 External Box" (with "graphics" being a notable omission).

Unlike the graphics dock, this one looks like a ZBOX. It takes in Thunderbolt 3 (40 Gb/s) input, too, but isn't designed for high-end graphics cards. What you have instead, is a 120W power-supply which doesn't have any additional PCIe power connectors, and a PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot, which can hold on to graphics cards that make do with slot-only power. The card can be dual-slot, but no more than 17 cm in length. You also get a 32 Gb/s M.2 NVMe slot, which you don't on the dock, and four downstream USB 3.0 ports.

ZOTAC also showed off its unnamed external graphics dock. This dock is designed for high-end graphics cards connected to your notebook over Thunderbolt 3 (40 Gb/s) interface. The dock encloses a 400W power-supply with two 6+2-pin PCIe connectors, which should prove sufficient for a high-end single-GPU graphics card. The dock can seat one dual-slot graphics card up to 22 cm (9-inch) in length. A ZOTAC GTX 1080 Ti Mini was showed off in the dock exhibit. The dock even has a downstream Thunderbolt 3 port, and four USB 3.0 ports, including a quick-charge (2,000 mA) port. Ventilation is care of a 140 mm front intake fan, and a 120 mm rear exhaust. The body, which opens up like a clam-shell, is made of ABS with brushed aluminium finish, with acrylic windows.

ZOTAC, at its Computex 2017 booth, showed off the ZBOX MA551 compact desktop with an AMD socket AM4 motherboard inside. Currently, this desktop is being displayed with a 7th generation A-series "Bristol Ridge" APU, but the board is ready for upcoming Ryzen "Raven Ridge" APUs up to 65W TDP, which combine a "Zen" CCX (quad-core complex) with a "Vega" based integrated GPU.

We took a peek under its hood, which reveals a custom-design motherboard, with an air cooling solution over the APU. The board also features a 2.5-inch drive bay with SATA back-plane, a 32 Gb/s M.2-2280 slot, an M.2-2240, an additional mPCIe slot (probably for the WLAN card). Two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots hold on to up to 32 GB of dual-channel memory. Other connectivity includes six USB 3.0 ports (including a type-C), an SD/micro-SD card reader, gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.2 WLAN, and display outputs that include HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2 outputs.

At its Computex 2017 showcase, Sapphire showcased (ahem) an upcoming e-GFX enclosure. The unit delivers its display signal through a Thunderbolt 3 port, which is being hailed as "The USB-C that does it all", with up to 40 Gb/s connections, dual 4K @ 60Hz support, charging capabilities, and support for the USB and DisplayPort interfaces.

The unit makes use of what appears to be a SFF PSU (it isn't clear whether or not a PSU comes bundled with the chassis), and space for a dual-slot high performance graphics card. The side of the enclosure presents an airflow-enabling grill, so that your graphics card can pull in fresh air from the exterior. There's also what seems to be an Ethernet port and 2x USB 3.0 ports, which means this enclosure can be used as a hub, or as an extra charger for your other pieces of tech. Aesthetics-wise, this unit uses the tried and true black and white contrast, with a black design language on the front and back, and a smooth white contour on the top and sides of the enclosure. I enjoy the understated design here, with no extremely hard and "gaming" screaming angles, and the neutral color scheme and LED design doesn't look half bad. It remains to be seen whether that blue LED lighting is too strong so as to be distracting, but if it's not, it stands as a good complement to the overall design. Expect this unit to be released sooner rather than later, though no details on pricing or specifications were at hand.

Remember the Taku Monitor Stand PC Case, that Cryorig showcased mid-2016? Well, it's now made its way to Kickstarter, a likely way for Cryorig to gauge interest in such a product whilst letting consumers foot part of the manufacturing bill. It's an interesting one, really - at least it's different from most other SFF PCs, though I've seen more compact designs. The press-release follows.

CRYORIG, the PC Cooling and peripherals innovator is releasing their first PC case project the Taku on crowdfunding website Kickstarter. The Taku, first announced and exhibited last summer, will also be shown during Computex 2017. The TAKU has been in development for over 2 years in house, with over 6 months of co-development with manufacturing partner Lian Li. The Taku Kickstarter campaign begins on May 29th and ends on July 28th. Besides offering backers the chance to be the first people to receive the Taku, backers are also offered multiple customization options only available on Kickstarter.

ASUSTOR Inc., a leading innovator and provider of network storage solutions, has announced that it has added two new models to its 70 series NAS devices with the AS7004T-i5 and AS7010T-i5. These two new models utilize powerful Intel Core i5 quad-core processors and feature 8GB of built-in memory with mixed capacity expansion support up to a maximum of 16GB for enhanced flexibility.

When compared to ASUSTOR's previous generation of Core i3 models, the AS7004-i5 and AS7010-i5 provide significantly enhanced performance, especially with regards to multimedia playback, transcoding and the processing of large volumes of files. The AS7004-i5 and AS7010-i5 are both equipped with 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports which can provide balance and stability under high loading and heavy network traffic. This provides increased efficiency for multi-tasking and multi-user access. Additionally, the AS7010-i5 also comes equipped with a 10GbE network card expansion slot, allowing users to flexibly upgrade their equipment to operate under high speed network access environments.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today released the TVS-1582TU - a pioneering 19-inch rack-mountable Thunderbolt 3 NAS that is suited for moving vehicles and outdoor media editing environments. The TVS-1582TU includes four Thunderbolt 3 ports, two 10GbE ports, and can utilize its Thunderbolt 3 ports to have USB-C 3.1 Gen2 (10 Gbps) connections for high-speed data transfer and backups. The collection of high-speed connections provides an ideal 4K solution for SNG/OB van live productions in the fast-paced media industries.

"TV and film production and outdoor broadcasting require on-location recording and editing, and need their videos to be backed up immediately to prevent file loss," said David Tsao, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "The TVS-1582TU is designed for this environment, and its 19-inch rack form factor makes it especially usable for SNG/OB van live media production that requires frequent relocation."

ASUS has further increased its Intel 200-series chipset-based motherboards with the addition of two Mini-ITX motherboards. The H270I and B250I join the ROG staple of motherboards from ASUS, which means these come packed with features and are being marketed for gamers. Though the features are looking a bit thin, which was to be somewhat expected given the lack of PCB real-estate to house them.

These two motherboards do not support any kind of OC, and memory speeds are thus limited to the stock Intel 2400 MHz (and further limited to two sticks of memory up to a 32 GB total.) Furthermore, there is a single PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, a gaping absence of PCI ports, but a saving grace of two M.2 ports in each motherboard. Which are, yes, very hard to see: one of them fits in the front of the PCB, under the double-decker heatsink design over the PCH that allows an M.2 drive to be stacked on top of it, which means the PCH and the M.2 drive are cooled by the top of the heatsink. The other, which we can't see in the pictures, is located on the back of the motherboard. Both M.2 connectors can handle full-speed PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSDs, as well as Intel Optane Memory, but only one of them supports SATA-based M.2 solid state drives.