Not long ago, Keychron announced Zephyr Gaming Mouse as an upcoming open-source firmware project for gaming mice. More recently, the peripheral maker announced MKF (Magnetic Keyboard Firmware), an open-source firmware project designed for TMR and Hall effect gaming keyboards. The project has yet to feature any public code contributions, but there is a landing page that outlines what Keychron aims to do with the project.

MKF is meant to serve as "an open firmware foundation for magnetic gaming keyboards, with room for the project and its community to grow," and its current feature outline includes support for the obvious, like 8 kHz polling, adjustable actuation, Rapid Trigger, and SOCD, but it will also apparently support custom response curves, PDO—sending more keypresses the deeper a key is held—and controller emulation. It currently seems as though only wired connectivity is planned for the initial release, but the project will be open to new features and use cases outside of competitive gaming.

After announcing the Keychron G6 HE as its latest wireless gaming mouse, Keychron has officially made the new Hall effect gaming mouse available for pre-order and finally divulged the mouse's entire spec sheet and features list. The G6 HE is a 49 g wireless gaming mouse with a symmetrical shape, flagship internals—a PixArt PAW 3955 sensor and Nordic 54LM20A MCU with 8 kHz polling—and hybrid MagOpt Hall effect/Optical switches with adjustable actuation and Rapid Trigger functionality. The official pre-order is now live on Keychron's online shop, with pricing starting at $89.99 for the swappable battery version and $74.99 for the built-in battery version, which is seemingly not yet available. While pre-orders are open already, shipping is only expected to start in late November.

The Keychron G6 HE weighs in at a respectable 49 g in wireless mode with the swappable battery installed, but that weight can be reduced to 41 g if run in wired mode. However, Keychron also includes two optional weight blocks for tuning the mouse to 56 g or 66 g, which may be preferred by some gamers for stability purposes. If you're looking for the lightest possible version of the G6 HE, the version with the built-in battery comes in at a svelte 42 g. The G6 HE measures in at 123.7 (l) × 63 (w) × 41 (h) mm, and it has a similar shape to the Logitech G Pro X mice. The shell is available in five frosted translucent colorways—lavender, mint, pink, ice, and smoke—as well as solid black and white. The main clicks feature 0.65 mm of total travel with 11 steps of actuation adjustment and a 100 million-click MTBF rating. It also features a 24-step optical scroll wheel and Keychron's new Zephyr-based ZGM open-source mouse firmware.

Arduino S.r.l., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., today opened pre-orders for Arduino VENTUNO Q, its most advanced edge AI platform to date, powered by the Qualcomm Dragonwing IQ8 Series. Now available worldwide, VENTUNO Q was built for developers, prioritizing familiarity and ease of use with the right software, accessories and extensions.

One Board to Sense, Decide, and Act
The VENTUNO Q has a dual-brain architecture, pairing a Dragonwing IQ-8275 processor, delivering up to 40 dense TOPS of AI performance, with 16 GB LPDDR5 memory, 64 GB eMMC and expandable M.2 NVMe storage, alongside a dedicated STM32H5 real-time microcontroller, enabling systems that don't just interpret sensor data but respond to it physically, immediately and offline.

Zephyr, a Chinese manufacturer of custom NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards, has shared some insights into the development of their "Sakura Snow X" GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER 16 GB model. Last week, a progress report was published via the company's official Bilibili blog. A lone shot of this upcoming SFF-format gaming product shows a familiar shroud design—last year, TechPowerUp covered Zephyr's similarly decorated "Sakura Snow X" GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB model. The NVIDIA board partner is nearing the finish line with their latest Mini-ITX project—they describe this new model being almost complete, due to it passing their own "35℃ constant temperature chamber test."

The still-in-progress "Sakura Snow X" GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER candidate's power consumption reached Team Green's reference limit—the "full 285 W"—whilst meeting performance standards of the standard issue board design. Zephyr's diminutive cooling solution consists of a single fan and a contained heatsink module. Engineers tried out two different fan speeds—3000 and 3800 RPM—combined with three finstack material options. "Under normal open conditions" they found that their pure copper module performed best, albeit with a driving up of costs. The graphene-coated aluminium module recorded similarly results-wise when compared to a bare aluminium subject. Zephyr noted that the black finish—on the graphene-augmented variant—gave off the appearance of being a higher-end product.

October is a busy month for Endorfy, packed with exciting new releases. After expanding its lineup with a microphone and headphones in the unique Alt Gray color, and just two days after unveiling the white Arx series case - the brand is launching the Zephyr 92 fan. Designed with smaller PC cases in mind, the Zephyr proves that effective cooling doesn't always come in large sizes - sometimes, it's all about smart design. The result is a perfect blend of solid craftsmanship and high performance, wrapped in a clean, minimalist form and offered at an accessible price.

Performance that fits in your hand
At first glance, the Zephyr 92 looks like a classic black fan in a compact size. But take a closer look, and you'll see that every detail, from the blades to the frame, is engineered for maximum efficiency. The result? Smooth airflow and effective cooling, even in small PC cases where every millimeter counts.

AMD's entry-level graphics lineup sees the Radeon RX 6400 at the very bottom, followed by the RX 6500 XT, which is for all intents and purposes, an entry-level discrete GPU, given that its performance is in league of processor integrated graphics (iGPUs). It turns out that AMD had planned a SKU between the two, the RX 6500 (non-XT), and this chip is beginning to surface on entry-level graphics cards in China. A less-known AIB named Zephyr is selling an interesting single-slot low-profile card with dimensions resembling some RX 6400 cards. There's also a more fleshed out full-height, dual-slot card.

The RX 6500 appears to have the same core-configuration as the RX 6500 XT, both SKUs max out the "Navi 24" silicon they're based on. These chips are powered by the two generations older RDNA 2 graphics architecture, AMD's first to meet DirectX 12 Ultimate logo requirements. The RX 6500 is configured with all 16 CU present on the silicon, giving it 1,024 stream processors, and 16 RT accelerators, besides 64 TMUs and 32 ROPs and 16 MB of Infinity Cache. The chip gets 4 GB of GDDR6 memory across the 64-bit wide memory bus of the silicon.

Zephyr has presented a new Small Form Factor (SFF) graphics card design that houses previous-gen NVIDIA GPU hardware. The Chinese board partner showcased its GeForce RTX 4070-based "Sakura Snow X" via a 1-minute 42-second long teaser video; according to their bilibili channel this compact wonder is: "the world's first mass-produced CNC single-fan graphics card. A small space aesthetic benchmark—a balance of high performance and exquisite size." Zephyr's latest Mini-ITX offering seems to be a more premium—in terms of enclosure materials—alternative to last year's GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB "Sakura Blizzard" model—examples were placed next to each other in the AIB's demonstration video (aluminium versus plastic). This brand-new dual-slot entrant has arrived with a slightly larger cooling solution (see relevant screenshot below), and a fancier 105 mm airflow fan design—outfitted with more blades (11 vs. 9). VideoCardz has observed "Sakura Snow X" first batch listings on an undisclosed Chinese e-tail platform; launch pricing seems to be 4399 RMB (~$602 USD).

Unlike its pink-hued sibling, Zephyr's sober metal design integrates an I/O plate—giving off the impression of a unibody-esque setup. SFF enthusiasts will welcome this truly compact design, albeit with the disadvantage of playing host to old hat "Ada Lovelace" silicon. Throughout early 2025, Team Green and certain manufacturing partners have hyped up various "SFF-Ready" new-gen solutions. Last week, ZOTAC updated its "Blackwell" gaming portfolio with a dual-slot GeForce RTX 5070 Ti SOLID SFF card. This slimmed down triple-fan option is still a lengthy prospect (304.4 mm); thus quickly dismissed as unworthy of its moniker by compact graphics solution connoisseurs. Similarly, GIGABYTE sells 304 mm-long "SFF" variants—launched months ago in WINDFORCE and EAGLE guises.

Altera, an Intel Company, today unveiled an array of FPGA hardware, software and development tools that make its programmable solutions more accessible across a broader range of use cases and markets. At its annual developer's conference, Altera revealed new details on its next-generation, power- and cost-optimized Agilex 3 FPGAs and announced new development kits and software support for its Agilex 5 FPGAs.

"Working closely with our ecosystem and distribution partners, Altera remains committed to delivering FPGA-based solutions that empower innovators with leading-edge programmable technologies that are easy to design and deploy. With these key announcements, we continue to execute on our vision of shaping the future by using programmable logic to help customers unlock greater value across a broad range of use cases within the data center, aerospace and defense sectors, communications infrastructure, automotive, industrial, test, medical and embedded markets," said Sandra Rivera, CEO of Altera.

PC enthusiasts who crave powerful graphics in compact systems have a new option from Zephyr. The Chinese manufacturer has launched the world's first ITX-sized GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card. Dubbed the Sakura Blizzard, this GPU packs NVIDIA's AD104-250 chip and 12 GB of GDDR6X memory into a footprint of just 172 x 123 x 42 mm. While slightly taller than standard PCIe brackets, the two-slot cooler should fit most Mini-ITX cases. The card's cute pink shroud and solitary cooling fan give it a unique aesthetic. But don't let the pink looks fool you - Zephyr claims this compact powerhouse can keep the GPU and memory up to 10°C cooler than some dual-fan RTX 4070 designs, which needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Thermal testing videos show the fan spinning at 2,400 RPM to maintain GPU temperatures around 73°C under load in a 25°C room. Meanwhile, synthetic benchmarks reportedly demonstrate no performance compromises versus full-sized RTX 4070 implementations.

Zephyr's initial production run has already sold out in China. However, a second batch is slated for mid-July availability to meet the apparent higher demand for small form factor RTX 40-series GPUs. The launch comes just weeks after NVIDIA unveiled new "SFF-ready" design guidelines at Computex 2024. As the power-hungry RTX 40 lineup hit the market, many voiced concerns over the cards' ever-growing dimensions. NVIDIA's renewed SFF PC focus signal options like the Sakura Blizzard could become more common. For space-constrained enthusiasts, having top-tier GPU muscle in a properly-cooled Mini-ITX card is a big win. Zephyr's ITX-sized RTX 4070 shows powerful things can come in small packages, and we hope more manufacturers follow this philosophy.

Zephyr and VK Valkyrie have collaborated on a very high-end custom GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER graphics card model, as revealed in a teaser video posted to the former's Bilibili account. VK Valkyrie is a well regarded DIY brand in the Chinese PC gaming market, while Zephyr is a relatively young manufacturer—their unusual GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Compact ITX design with a pink PCB was introduced last summer. TPU's June 2023 news report is featured prominently within their website's news section—greatly appreciated! The Zephyr x VK Valkyrie GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER will be a limited edition release—the two partners have been working together since last August, but a specific launch date and pricing were not revealed in Zephyr's teaser trailer.

Zephyr has, so far, only released air-cooled custom graphics cards—their upcoming VK Valkyrie collaborative model will mark a debut entry into liquid cooled territory. Their chunky 3-slot design consists of a substantial heatsink covered by an RGB-adorned silver shroud and metallic backplate, with an AIO liquid cooling solution. A 280 mm radiator (with 2 x 140 mm fans) is hooked up to the card via twin white braided tubes. A rear-firing 12VHPWR connector provides an elegant means of semi-concealing your 90-degree power cable, if need be. The promotional video includes benchmark results generated by 3DMARK Speed Way, Time Spy Extreme, and Fire Strike Ultra suites (check the relevant screenshot below). Zephyr claims that their limited edition GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER model was cool enough to not exceed 52 degrees Celsius during a heavy Furmark session. The company recommends that interested parties should check its social media accounts for further announcements. The Zephyr x VK Valkyrie GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER could arrive at some point after the Chinese Spring Celebration.Update Feb 9th: Valkyrie informed us that, for the moment, this collaboration is specific to the Chinese Market, but they are discussing options internally whether it makes sense to bring the card to the West, too."

CES always gives us an exciting look at what's next for hardware, and with gaming at the forefront of technological innovation, it's no surprise that CES 2024 has revealed some truly next-generation Windows 11 gaming PCs. Microsoft and our partners are leading the way in combining traditional power with advancements in AI, and this selection of new announcements are a perfect way to future-proof your gaming experience on PC.

Every PC on this list is designed to run the latest games - including those on PC Game Pass, which will help you to jump into some of the greatest games on the platform the moment you switch on your new machine. Even better, every single computer listed below comes with at least one free month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, giving players access to hundreds of high-quality PC, console and cloud games.

Zephyr has produced an NVIDIA GeForce custom graphics card that sports a very unique pink printed circuit board—bright and pastel colors have featured on cooling solutions in the past, but this new-ish product presents the first example of a PCB with a tinge of blush. Renowned hardware tipster harukaze5719 broke from his normal delivery of very cold and macho tech on social media, and shared his discovery of Zephyr's GeForce RTX 3060 Ti compact ITX card.

International buyers will be disappointed to learn that the pink Ampere card is a China market exclusive, with the company only offering a limited number of products on JD.com. VideoCardz notes that the card's specifications are not at all special, despite its interesting compact form factor and brightly toned cooling solution design. It is a non-overclocked model based on the older RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6 GPU variant with a standard 1750 MHz boost clock, 8 GB VRAM configuration, and a single 8-pin power connector.

Mindshunter has made available ordering for its upcoming Zephyr mouse - a PC peripheral rodent that features a built-in cooling fan to, quote, "prevent sweaty palms". The Zephyr weighs just 68 g on account of its palm rest being highly perforated, which not only allows air from its built-in fan to cool your hands, but also reduces the mouse's weight (Mindshunters says its geometric design doesn't compromise rigidity or durability of the palm rest).