GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, has launched the world's first tactical gaming monitor, AORUS AD27QD, today. Heading into a new market, AORUS is well prepared and confident that the exclusive features on the monitor can give gamers a tactical advantage over their enemies while gaming. AORUS AD27QD is a 27inch flat screen frameless monitor.

It uses an IPS panel with QHD (2560x1440, 2K) resolution and a 144Hz refresh rate in 1ms (MPRT) response time. Not only is the view angle up to 178 degrees, it also meets 95% DCI-P3 standards along with 10bits color, so the monitor can provide users astonishingly beautiful pictures. On top of that, the monitor has passed VESA certified DisplayHDR 400 standards which gives users spectacular display quality; With AMD Radeon FreeSync​ technology, the monitor can provide the most fluent gaming experience to let you enjoy your gaming without picture stripping.

GIGABYTE at CES 2019 took the lid of its ultra-secret AORUS monitor, which we covered earlier in January. It's now confirmed to be built around a 27-inch 1440p IPS panel with the flaunted 10-bit color and 144 Hz refresh rate with FreeSync support (here's hoping NVIDIA's G-Sync will support it as well). It is certified with VESA's DisplayHDR 400 (peak brightness of 400 nits). There's RGB lighting throughout the carcass of the monitor, a 90º swivel, gaming features such as Aim Stabilizer, Black Equalizer and Super Resolution, and the AORUS monitor is expected to roll out around $599.

PC World managed to get a hold of NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, picking his thoughts on AMD's recently announced Radeon VII. Skirting through the usual amicable, politically correct answers, Jensen made his thoughts clear on what the competition is offering to compete with NVIDIA's RTX 2000 series. The answer? Vega VII is an "underwhelming product", because "The performance is lousy and there's nothing new. [There's] no ray tracing, no AI. It's 7nm with HBM memory that barely keeps up with a 2080. And if we turn on DLSS we'll crush it. And if we turn on ray tracing we'll crush it." Not content on dissing the competition's product, Jensen Huang also quipped regarding AMD's presentation and product strategy, saying that "It's a weird launch, maybe they thought of it this morning."

Today EPI, the brand license partner for Philips displays and audio, announces two new high-performance monitors to add to its Philips Brilliance Collection. The Philips Brilliance 49'' SuperWide Curved LCD Display with Dual Quad HD 5120 x 1440 resolution and the Philips Brilliance 32" 4K LCD Display are being unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Showcase in Las Vegas.

ASUS at CES showcased their upcoming lineup of ROG Strix gaming monitors specifically crafted for usage with AMD's FreeSync 2. The new monitors look to cater to most of the market with their diagonals and resolutions. These are premium solutions, with the smallest, the XG32VQR, sporting a 32" 1440p panel, 144 Hz native refresh rate, and VESA's HDR400 certification. The XG438Q ups the ante to a 43" panel and 4K resolution screen, with a 120 Hz base refresh rate (overclockable up to 144 Hz) and HDR 600, while the XG49VQ is of the ultra wide variety, featuring a DFHD (3840 x 1080) resolution, 144 Hz base refresh rate, and HDR 400.

All monitors feature a FreeSync 2 range of 48-120/144Hz, all employ a VA panel and a 4 ms response rating. The 43-inch sports 10-watt speakers, the 49-inch model has a pair of 5-watt speakers and the 32-inch XG32VQR lacks the completely. No pricing was available at time of writing, but these are ASUS' premium offering s for the FreeSync ecosystem, and with those specs, they likely won't come cheap.

NVIDIA finally got around to realizing that the number of monitors with VESA adaptive-sync overwhelmingly outnumber those supporting NVIDIA G-Sync, and is going ahead with adding support for adaptive-sync monitors. This however, comes with a big rider. NVIDIA is not immediately going to unlock adaptive-sync to all monitors, just the ones it has tested and found to work "perfectly" with their hardware. NVIDIA announced that it has found a handful of the 550+ monitor models in the market that support adaptive-sync, and has enabled support to them. Over time, as it tests more monitors, support for these monitors will be added through GeForce driver updates, as a "certified" monitor.

At their CES event, the company provided a list of monitors that they already tested and that fulfill all requirements. G-Sync support for these models from Acer, ASUS, AOC, Agon and BenQ will be automatically enabled with a driver update on January 15th.

Update: We received word from NVIDIA that you can manually enable G-SYNC on all Adaptive-Sync monitors, even non-certified ones: "For gamers who have monitors that we have not yet tested, or that have failed validation, we'll give you an option to manually enable VRR, too."

Update 2: NVIDIA released these new Adaptive-Sync capable drivers, we tested G-SYNC on a FreeSync monitor.

In yet another entry to LG's (still upcoming) UltraGear lineup of gaming monitors, the curtains have been shoved aside for the 27GL850G to make its first appearance. While49" and 38" monitors are all well and good, and LG does have the specs on them to make them attractive buying options, some users don't really like to have that big a black mirror in front of them. And that's where the 27" diagonal of the LG 27GL850G comes in handy.

The panel is of the Nano IPS type, with a 2560 x 1440 (WQHD) resolution and support for a 160 Hz refresh rate (after overclocking, via the embedded OSD, from the native 144 Hz ). NVIDIA G-SYNC is present, supporting a variable refresh rate range of 30 - 160Hz. A 1000:1 static contrast ratio, 178° horizontal and vertical viewing angles, and a flicker-free enhanced phosphor backlight round out the specs.It's expected that the 27GL850G, via its Nano IPS tech, covers ~98% DCI-P3 (~135%) color space. Red LED lighting is present on the back of the monitor. A VESA mount is present, and tilt, height and pivot adjustments are possible. 1x DP, 1x HDMI, 2x USB 3.0 ports (with fast-charging - plus 1x USB 3.0 upstream port), a 3.5mm headphone jack and DC power input (external power brick) are present as well.

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA ) today introduced its new DisplayHDR True Black high dynamic range (HDR) standard, a variant on VESA's widely adopted High-Performance Monitor and Display Compliance Test Specification (DisplayHDR). The new standard has been optimized for emissive display technologies, including organic light emitting diode (OLED) and future microLED displays.

DisplayHDR True Black allows for up to 100X deeper black levels in addition to a greater dynamic range and a 4X improvement in rise time compared to VESA's DisplayHDR 1000 performance tier. This enables a visually stunning experience for home theater and gaming enthusiasts in subdued lighting environments. DisplayHDR and DisplayHDR True Black are the display industry's first fully open standards specifying HDR quality for LCD and emissive displays, respectively.

LG has announced another bang-for-buck entry in their monitor line-up, which is usually one of the best in the specs-pricing department. For the modest amount of $349, the 32QK500-W is a 31,5" affair with a QHD (2560*1440) resolution, which supports AMD's FreeSync technology for synchronized refresh rates and greater fluidity in gaming. There's an 8-bit + FRC IPS panel, with a minimum 250 cd/m² brightness (300 typical), which isn't much, but should be enough to be used in a not-too-bright room.

Of course, some of the panel's specifications do point towards the cost-cutting that needed to be done in order to get it to this price-point; the brightness isn't anything to go by (not even close), the FreeSync support tops out at a maximum of 75 Hz, and the 8 ms response time is enough for casual gaming, but not for cutthroat competitive gaming. Some LG technologies such as Black Stabilizer, Crosshairs, and Reading Mode are available. Output connectors stand at 2x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort, and 1x MiniDP, with an additional headphone jack. The monitor is VESA wall-mountable.

HANNspree, are pleased to announce that its performance series of monitors is set to offer a new 27 inch solution featuring Quantum Dot technology. The enhanced display of the HQ272PQD is ideal for gamers, designers and multimedia professionals, offering visual excellence and enhanced color accuracy for all graphic content.

In addition to a WQHD resolution and HANNspree's active contrast ratio, the HQ272PQD display is enhanced with unmatched color purity and brilliant visual brights. Thanks to Quantum Dot technology the HQ272PQD display recreates the full color palette that your natural eye can see and appears four times brighter than a standard display. With enhanced blue and yellow colors through the panel, the HQ272PQD has a vastly enhanced display ability with 116% Adobe RGB, 110% NTSC, and 156% HDTV BR.709 color to bring you a more 'what you see is what you get' experience. Quantum Dots are also durable, meaning colors won't fade, and are the most efficient light emitting material on the planet, ensuring a longer life display that is almost 100% energy efficient. Furthermore, the HQ272PQD also features HS-IPS technology for super wide viewing angles to ensure you can enjoy high-quality visuals from almost any direction, and an easy to use settings menu of intuitive pre-set picture modes.

Intel processor integrated graphics will get its first major hardware update in 4 years since Gen 9.5 "Skylake," with the introduction of the Gen11 architecture that debuts with the company's "Ice lake" processors. The company confirmed in an XDC 2018 conference presentation that the iGPU will support DisplayPort 1.4a along with VESA DSC (display stream compression), enabling it to support display resolutions as high as 5K (5120 x 2880 pixels) with 120 Hz refresh-rate.

Without DSC, 5K-120 Hz requires 42.4 Gbps of bandwidth (not counting interconnect and protocol overheads), which even DisplayPort with HBR3 cannot provide, as it caps out at 32.4 Gbps. DSC offers "visually lossless" compression of the 5K-120 display stream down to roughly 14 Gbps, which can be comfortably handled by DisplayPort 1.4a. 8K (8192 x 4320 pixels) at 60 Hz also becomes possible. Merely supporting these new high resolutions doesn't imply Gen11 iGPUs can game at those resolutions. Support for them is necessitated by rapid increases in resolutions (pixel densities) and refresh-rates of high-end notebooks and ultra-portable devices.The complete slide-deck follows.

LG unveiled their new UltraGear lineup of desktop, gaming-oriented monitors, which bring top of the line features for gamers. The monitors both feature a 34" diagonal and a 3440x1440 resolution. They both feature a 21:9 aspect ratio; brightness is left at a relatively sparse 400 nits (with VESA's DisplayHDR standard compliance) and static contrast only reaches 1000:1. The G-Sync panel (UltraGear 34GK950G-B) offers up to 120 Hz refresh rates with 4 ms GtG response times (via overclocking, only 100 Hz out-of-the-box), while the FreeSync 2 monitor (34GK950F-B) brings that up a notch to 144 Hz with 5 ms GtG response times.

The usage of nanoparticles applied to the screen's LED backlighting serves to absorb excess light wavelengths and improve intensity, purity, and accuracy of the on-screen colors - LG claims that both LCDs can display 1.07 billion colors while covering 98% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. There's ULMB support for the NVIDIA monitor and a similar technology for the FreeSync 2 display; LG's proprietary DAS (Dynamic Action Sync) which follows TV's Game Mode to cut post-processing of images to reduce lag; and there are brightness presets according to game types (FPS, RTS) for the G-Sync panel, while the FreeSync 2 features a black stabilizer tech.

TechPowerUp and Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) bring you an opportunity to grab an ECS LIVA Z2 mini PC. The LIVA Z2 can be a great addition to your living room as an HTPC, as its HDMI 2.0-equipped graphics solution is capable of 4K UHD video playback, complete with 10 bpc HEVC hardware-accelerated decoding. We reviewed it recently. Its 802.11ac WLAN serves up sufficient bandwidth for 4K @60 fps video streaming, while Bluetooth 4.1 enables wireless keyboards, mice, and headphones to work in tandem. Its Intel Pentium Silver SoC also makes it sufficiently fast for basic productivity, and its VESA wall-mount lets you mount it behind your monitor and save space on your desk. Here's your chance to get one - simply fill up a form to help us get back to you, if you're the randomly selected winner, at the end of the giveaway on 13th September. Good Luck!

To participate, visit this page.

Intel's Chris Hook (there's something strange there) said in a conversation with r/Hardware's moderator dylan522p that the company is still planning on adding support for VESA's Adaptive Sync (also known as AMD's own FreeSync branding) in Intel GPUs. To put this in perspective, Intel is the single largest player in the overall graphics market; their integrated solutions mean they have the highest graphics accelerator share in the market, even against AMD and NVIDIA - and Intel hasn't even entered the discrete graphics market - yet.

It makes sense that the blue giant would be pursuing this option - royalty-free frame syncing beats developing a proprietary alternative. A quick thought-exercise could point towards NVIDIA's G-Sync being rendered irrelevant with such strong support from the industry.

Straight off the heels of Gamescom 2018, where Dell announced their new gaming monitors and the refresh of their Alienware desktops, the excitement continues at IFA 2018. Dell is unveiling a new suite of innovative devices that elevate the computing experience for the everyday consumer, mobile professional and fast-paced small business owner. The enhanced Inspiron, XPS and Vostro portfolio is built with a combination of beautiful design, superior materials and top performance dedicated to deliver a device for every function and user. In addition, Dell is expanding its monitor leadership with a stunning new Dell 27 USB-C Ultrathin Monitor built with beauty and function.

Dell's commitment to thoughtful design and truly immersive cinematic experiences on the PC continues with this generation of new products. Launched at CES 2018, Dell Cinema is the combination of several cutting-edge technologies all working in concert to give the viewer an immersive, captivating experience on their PCs. Dell Cinema is available across the XPS portfolio and new Inspiron products starting this autumn.

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

Newer generations of NVIDIA GPUs such as "Pascal" and "Maxwell" meet or exceed the hardware requirements of AMD FreeSync, as they feature DisplayPort 1.4 connectors that include the features of DisplayPort 1.2a, required for VESA adaptive sync. In a bid to promote its own G-SYNC technology, NVIDIA doesn't expose this feature to monitors or software that support FreeSync. Redditor "bryf50" may have found a way around this. The trick is deceptively simple, however, you'll need games that support on-the-fly switching of rendering GPUs, and an AMD Radeon graphics card at hand.

When poking around with system settings in "Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth," bryf50 discovered that you can switch the "rendering GPU" on the fly, without having to physically connect your display to that newly selected GPU. You can start the game with your display connected to VGA1 (an AMD Radeon GPU), and switch the renderer in-game to VGA2 (an NVIDIA GPU). FreeSync should continue to work, while you enjoy the performance of that NVIDIA GPU. In theory, this should allow you to pair your high-end GTX 1080 Ti with a $50 RX 550 that supports FreeSync, instead of paying the $200+ G-SYNC tax.

All-in-one PCs with a touchscreen are clever: They take up a minimum of space, avoid cable clutter, are quick to set up and, as a result, are comparatively mobile. The 15.6" fanless "X50" models have proven this for many years. Shuttle's range of models is now being expanded to include another fanless, but considerably smaller, 11.6" (29.5 cm) version.

Wherever larger all-in-one PCs are out of place, the XPC all-in-one P20U is right at home. Its external dimensions are just 29.9 x 27.1 x 5.0 cm (D x W x H). If tidied cable routing can be dispensed with, the height can be reduced by an additional 6.8 cm by removing the cable collector box on the bottom of the unit which is new with this model.

BenQ, leading global innovator of displays, today announced its latest milestone in visual technology, earning VESA DisplayHDR 400 and AMD FreeSync 2 certifications for the EX3203R entertainment monitor. Featuring dazzling HDR performance with stunning gaming capabilities, the curved 32" display delivers immersive viewing and gaming experiences protected by BenQ Brightness Intelligence Plus (B.I. +) eye-care technology.

"EX3203R ingeniously blends HDR image quality together with B.I. +, guaranteeing dark details remain crystal clear even in dim environments while softening bright images," said Conway Lee, President of BenQ Corporation. "With FreeSync 2 for ultimate gameplay, EX3203R provides endless personal entertainment in absolute health and comfort safeguarded by BenQ Eye Care."

AMD earlier this month announced that it is simply renaming its new FreeSync 2 standard as FreeSync 2 HDR, since it already incorporates hardware HDR, even though HDR is but one among many new features introduced with FreeSync 2. This caused some controversy as some FreeSync 2-certified monitors, which could now be plastered with FreeSync 2 HDR stickers, barely meet VESA's DisplayHDR 400 standards. AMD released a detailed statement to TechPowerUp, in which it clarified that FreeSync 2 HDR in no way lowers the bar for HDR, and that its certification program is both separate from and predates VESA DisplayHDR standards.

Essentially, AMD claims that all FreeSync 2 HDR-certified displays exceed DisplayHDR 400 requirements, but not all meet the DisplayHDR 600 minimums. In such cases, monitor manufacturers may stick both DisplayHDR 400 and AMD FreeSync 2 HDR logos in their specs-sheets or the product itself, but that doesn't mean that their monitors can only put out 400 nits brightness. The statement follows.

Akasa at Computex, unveiled a wide range of fan-less aluminium cases for the 7th generation "Dawson Canyon" NUC boards. The company had alreadly launched the Pascal MD late-2017. Among the new cases are the Newton S7D, Newton D3, and the Plato X7D. The Plato X7D is the largest of the three, and is characterized by a lattice of aluminium ridges that work like heatsinks for the SoC and chipset of the NUC, and diamond-cut edges along the front panel. Front-panel connectivity includes two each of USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports. Besides rear I/O holes for "Dawson Canyon" series NUC boards, the case offers a stub for an RS232 (COM) port at the back. All three cases feature VESA mounts, so you can strap the NUCs behind your monitor and reduce clutter on your desk.

The Newton D3 is the most compact case of the three, and supports fewer NUC board models, namely the NUC7i3DNBE, NUC7i3DNKE, and NUC7i3DNHE (all of which have are low-TDP SoCs and fewer connectors). You still get a 2.5-inch drive bay, mount holes for your WLAN card's antennae, two USB 3.0 front panel connectors, an IR window, and an RS232 serial port provision at the back. The Newton S7D is its larger sibling, with more metal to the bone, to cope with higher TDP SoCs, and hence supports NUC boards based on Core i5 and Core i7 SoCs.

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA ) today formally introduced the VESA Display Compression-M (VDC-M) standard, a new display interface compression standard designed for embedded mobile display applications, including smart phones and other hand-held devices. Developed in collaboration with the MIPI Alliance, VDC-M provides a higher level of compression ratio (up to 5:1) at the same visually lossless quality level as VESA's Display Stream Compression (DSC) standard (which offers up to 3:1 compression), with the trade-off of higher circuit complexity. VDC-M is the third compression standard in VESA's family of compression codecs, which include DSC 1.1 (introduced in 2014) and DSC 1.2 (introduced in 2017).

"VESA was a pioneer in the area of low-latency data compression specifically targeting the display interface," according to Bill Lempesis, executive director of VESA. "The initial application for VESA's effort in this area was the Embedded DisplayPort Standard (eDP) and MIPI DSI, both which currently use DSC 1.1, with the specific intent to increase battery life and reduce form factor. The success of this spearheaded our effort on DSC 1.2 for external displays, primarily focusing on increasing display resolution. Working again with MIPI through their liaison with VESA, we returned our focus on mobile displays with VDC-M, developing a display compression standard more optimized for smaller mobile devices such as smart phones."

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA ) today released a new DisplayHDR test tool that allows users to confirm the display parameters set forth in VESA's High-Performance Monitor and Display Compliance Test Specification (DisplayHDR), including brightness, color and contrast performance of high dynamic range (HDR) laptop and desktop monitors. The new DisplayHDR Test tool has a command line interface that enables professional and lab-level users to test and evaluate HDR displays at the three performance levels outlined in the DisplayHDR spec using an off-the-shelf calibration colorimeter. VESA also announced today that it has seen strong momentum in the adoption of its DisplayHDR standard, with several new certified displays being introduced this calendar quarter.

Growing Momentum of DisplayHDR Standard with Launch of First DisplayHDR 1000 Certified Display
Announced in December 2017, DisplayHDR is the display industry's first fully open standard specifying HDR quality. To date, nearly a dozen displays have been certified under the new spec across the three performance tiers (DisplayHDR 400, 600 and 1000) and released to the market. Among these is the first display to be officially certified for the DisplayHDR 1000 specification - the recently announced Philips Momentum 43-inch 4K display (436M6VBPAB). VESA anticipates many more display products to complete certification this year. Future releases of the spec are expected to reach beyond LCD to address other display technologies, including organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), as well as higher HDR performance levels. All tiers require support of the industry standard HDR-10 format.

As a global leader in small form factor computer technology, Shuttle always seems to be expanding their portfolio of products. Shuttle has unveiled an Intel Gemini Lake based fanless XPC slim DL10J, which is more geared towards for business use cases like digital signage and multi-display solutions. To meet the diverse applications of Internet of Things, the DL10J offers 4G/LTE network support via M.2 2230 expansion slot.

Powered by Intel Gemini lake Celeron J4005 processor, the DL10J is capable of supporting 4K/UHD content with Intel integrated graphics GPU engine, makes this model ideal for digital signage applications. At a body thickness of just 43mm, the new DL10J is equipped with a vast array of connectivity for a wide range of commercial uses; it features built-in Gigabit LAN, two COM ports, four native 2.0, two USB 3.1 Gen 1, and optional 4G/LTE SIM card adaptor. In terms of storage there is SATA 6G, M.2 interfaces. Triple displays are provided by HDMI, DisplayPort and D-sub outputs. Plus, the VESA mount complaint makes the DL10J fully integrate into diverse and space-critical environments.

GIGABYTE today launched four new BRIX mini-PC models featuring 8th generation Intel Core processors. These include the GB-BRi5-8250, the GB-BRi7-8550, the GB-BRi5H-8250, and the GB-BRi7H-8550. The GB-BRi5-8250 and the GB-BRi7-8550 are built in a more compact 0.46L (34.4 x 112.6 x 119.4mm) chassis, while the GB-BRi5H-8250 and the GB-BRi7H-8550, come in a slightly taller 0.63L (46.8 x 112.6 x 119.4mm), with added room for a 2.5-inch drive bay. As their names suggest, the GB-BRi5-8250 and GB-BRi5H-8250 are powered by the Core i5-8250U processor (4-core/8-thread, 1.60~3.40 GHz, 6 MB L3 cache, 25W TDP); while the GB-BRi7H-8550 and GB-BRi7H-8550 implement the range-topping Core i7-8550U (4-core/8-thread, 1.80~4.00 GHz, 8 MB L3 cache, 25W TDP).

The 0.46L models offer two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots, a 32 Gb/s M.2-2280 slot, a second M.2-2240 slot holding the pre-installed WLAN card, HDMI and mini-DP display output, two USB 3.0 type-A ports on the rear panel, and two USB 3.1 ports on the front-panel, including a type-C port; and network connectivity including a gigabit Ethernet connection driven by Intel i219-V controller, and Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3168 WLAN card with dual-band 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.2. Stereo audio makes for the rest of it. The 0.63L models simply add to this feature-set with a 9 mm-thick 2.5-inch drive bay that has SATA 6 Gb/s interface. All models feature VESA mounting, so you can tuck them away behind your monitor. The company didn't reveal pricing.