Techreport

As usual, a bunch of cool products debuted at this year's Computex. Possibly our favorite thing to come out of the show this year is the Seasonic SCMD. That stands for System Cable Management Device, and it's a long, narrow box that sits behind your motherboard tray. Rather than trying to run modular cables around your system and into your power supply, you can simply route shorter cables from the SCMD to all your devices. ...Read more...

How about those fancy G-Sync HDR monitors, eh? If you got one and hooked it up to your GeForce graphics card using DisplayPort, you might be met with a blank screen or even a system hang on boot. That's not a good look for someone who spent $2000 on a monitor and probably another $750 or more on graphics cards. Fortunately, Nvidia already has a fix all ready.The fault doesn't just concern G-Sync HDR displays; any monitor using DisplayPort 1.3 or 1.4 could be affected. Nvidia's fix comes in the form of a firmware update for most GeForce, Titan, and Quadro graphics cards based on the Maxwell ...Read more...

Once upon a time if you asked someone to name a company that made cell phones and was named after a fruit, the answer would have been BlackBerry and not Apple. The Canadian firm has had a rough go of it since app stores and touchscreen keyboards began to dominate the mobile device landscape, but it's still designing hardware. The company's latest offering is the Key², an Android phone with midrange hardware specs, BB's signature physical keyboard, and a battery the manufacturer says lasts up to two days. ...Read more...

Intel's 5-GHz Core i7-8086K is available for order at Amazon, Newegg, and Best Buy for the un-marked-up price of $425. Yours truly had expected a markup on the limited edition of 50,000 chips (of which 8,086 are apparently already reserved for give-away purposes), but it seems that retailers are playing fair with prices so far. No telling what allocations US e-tailers got for these, so I would move fast if you want that sweet, sweet single-core speed.In fact, I've put my money where my mouth is and secured one of these chips independently . Stay tuned as I figure out what ...Read more...

The folks over at TechPowerUp met up with Zalman at Computex to see what the company's been up to. As it happens, the South Korean group has been working on a new series of all-in-one liquid coolers called Oymyakon. The company also showed off a couple of new tower coolers.

Want a free shot at Intel's limited-edition Core i7-8086K? The company is giving away (you guessed it) 8,086 of these CPUs across the globe in a random draw after a 24-hour entry window that starts tonight at 5 PM Pacific Time or 8 PM Eastern Time. Residents of the USA, Canada (excluding Quebec), the UK, France, Germany, South Korea, Japan, Mainland China, and Taiwan are eligible to enter. 2,086 of those CPUs will be made available to win in the USA alone. ...Read more...

Folks that are really bought into Amazon's Prime ecosystem can potentially have a lot of devices plugged in around the house. Getting enough Echo or Echo Dot speakers to respond to commands in every room along with Fire TV devices for each television can add up to a lot of gear, particularly when the overlap between "room with a TV" and "room where an Echo might be handy" is so large.Lucky for those Prime content addicts, the technology goliath with a rainforest name has released the Fire TV Cube , a shiny, slab-sided ...Read more...

My grandpa used these to record nature shows on the Discovery Channel for us before we got satellite TV.

The big news at Computex seems to have been the continued proliferation of RGB LED illumination in its original and addressable forms. EVGA is no stranger to color-changing lights, but the company apparently focused its efforts on making new hardware that is either smaller than usual or greatly outsized, instead of working on ever-fancier illumination.

Trog says hullo and waves. Trog think puny gerbils have enough Computex. Good deals there are, Trog think you click and buy them. Trog is holding big club, forget not. ...Read more...

Trog says hullo and waves. Trog think puny gerbils have enough Computex. Good deals there are, Trog think you click and buy them. Trog is holding big club, forget not. ...Read more...

Asus' high-flying ROG Phone is probably the most interesting smartphone of the week for TR readers that like to game on the go. Motorola is hoping its Moto Z3 Play mid-range Android handset can appeal to a different audience with its large OLED screen and ability to add extra capabilities. The company's Moto Mods add-ons include auxiliary speakers, 360° and optical zoom cameras, gamepads, projectors, and more. ...Read more...

When we come to the end of a memory technology's life cycle, we start to see products that perform so fast that the rest of the system has a hard time keeping up. While we may have a good while left on DDR4's mainstream applicability, we're already seeing sticks of RAM with absolutely stratospheric transfer rates. If you thought 4133 MT/s memory was overkill, how about 5066 MT/s? Well, that's what G.Skill just showed off at Computex. ...Read more...

Bezels keep shrinking on anything with a screen, and MSI's latest pair of laptops take part in that trend. The GF63 gaming laptop packs burly eighth-gen Core H-series processors and available Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics into a package under an inch thick, while the PS42 productivity portable pairs the latest round of Core U-series chips with a GeForce MX150 video card in a 2.6-lb 14" laptop.

Peripheral-and-portable manufacturer Razer announced partnerships with not one, but multiple third-party parts makers to extend the compatibility of its Chroma RGB LED illumination control software. Lian Li and Razer showed off a special version of the E-ATX PC-O11 Dynamic chassis co-developed by the two companies. In a separate announcement, Razer said it will collaborate to bring certain AMD, Ducky, Lian Li, MSI, NZXT, Thermaltake, and Vertagear products under the Chroma umbrella.

It wasn't all that long ago that keyboard enthusiasts were pretty much limited to a few options for real mechanical keyboards. Now we're spoiled for choice, and I mean that in the very most literal sense. You can get a keyboard with heavy switches, short-throw switches, tactile switches, maybe with your choice of fixed-color or RGB LED lighting, and so on. Roccat's latest keyboard, the Vulcan, is a bit of all of the above.

The rumors were true: Samsung is bringing FreeSync to its TVs. AMD and Samsung jointly announced the upgrade yesterday, and it applies to all of Samsung's QLED TVs from 55" to 82" sizes, as well as the NU8000 and NU8500 series. ...Read more...

As part of AMD's Computex press conference, new Radeon Technologies Group senior vice president of engineering David Wang took the stage to demonstrate the company's first seven-nanometer Radeon Instinct graphics card. The Vega-architecture GPU on this product is meant for server and workstation computing. It'll have 32 GB of HBM2 RAM layered across four stacks of memory—increasingly a prerequisite for the kinds of large data sets businesses want to chew through for machine learning applications and more. ...Read more...

Today at Computex, AMD announced its second-generation Ryzen Threadripper CPU family. The company says second-gen Threadrippers will have up to 32 cores and 64 threads, and they'll drop into the existing TR4 socket on X399 motherboards. Like other second-gen Ryzens, Threadripper with Zen+ will be built on GlobalFoundries' 12-nm process. Second-gen Threadrippers will have all four dies under their integrated heat spreaders enabled to reach that core count. ...Read more...

Asus's VivoBook line of notebooks has considerable mass-market appeal, and it's easy to see why. These notebooks are slim, stylish, and capable. For this year's refresh, Asus updated the processors to the latest models from Intel, slimmed down the display bezels, and made sure to give purchasers plenty of options. Let's take a look. ...Read more...

The RGB LED party started with backlighting on keyboards. When that wasn't enough, the programmable lighting trend spread to motherboards, graphics cards, and mice. When the color-changing LEDs came to memory modules, SSDs, and power supplies, we thought for sure those pieces of kit would be the logical conclusion. We were wrong, and the diodes found their way into headsets and speakers. Lian Li thinks it's on to the next big thing in RGB with its Strimer RGB LED-illuminated 24-pin ATX power cable extension. ...Read more...

Antec is an old and respected name among PC hardware enthusiasts. While the company has produced some flashy offerings in recent years (like the DF500), Antec has for the most part avoided the outlandish and polarizing designs offered by some of its competitors. That might be changing, though. At Computex this year, Antec is showing off three new chassis and a case concept unlike anything else we've seen from the company.

Gigabyte's booth at Computex this year has a big section dedicated to the company's laptops. Portable PCs with both Gigabyte and Aorus branding are on full display. The biggest news is probably that Gigabyte's Sabre laptop is the first portable to use Optane Memory. Additionally, both the Aero series and the Aorus X-series laptops are proudly exhibiting their eighth-generation upgrades.

Intel spent most of its stage time at Computex promising limited-edition-mainstream and high-end chips that would cross the arbitrary 5-GHz border before the end of the year. The company's latest addition to its 3D XPoint Optane 905P family has a more concrete release date, though. The new 380-GB Optane 905P SSD is less capacious than its forebears, but it fits into the compact M.2 form factor. ...Read more...

New notebooks are announced all the time, but the basic formula hasn't changed that much over the years. The screen flips up revealing a keyboard and touchpad and most of the internal hardware fits into the base. Asus has a concept notebook in the works that challenges this formula. The Project Precog notebook ditches the keyboard and touchpad entirely and replaces them with a second screen. ...Read more...

Good folks of the gerbildom, I bring tidings! If it should happen that you're living under a rock and have missed the deluge of news about Computex, you should totally check out our front page now. Most of the major hardware players have brought out their bags of goodies, and we've been checking them out in detail. All that new stuff is all well and good, but it's yet to reach stores and we're sure the hardware upgrade bug is biting you mercilessly. Here's our selection of deals to help. ...Read more...

Antec has a pile of announcements for this year's Computex. We'll be digging into some cases from the manufacturer in a bit, but first let's take a look at smaller items Antec is showing off. Two new power supply units are on the way: the Neo Eco TUF Gaming Alliance Edition and the Antec Signature Titanium. The company is also bringing out a series of RGB LED-infused case fans, and perhaps most surprisingly, it's also getting into the RAM business.

Once upon a time, a smartphone chip designer like Qualcomm wouldn't have a place at PC-centric Computex. Last year, though, we witnessed the introduction of a new class of Always Connected Windows mobile PCs built around the then-top-shelf Snapdragon 835 (SD835) chip. Qualcomm took to the Taipei trade show to announce the Snapdragon 850 (SD850), a new ARM SoC designed specifically for compact PCs running Windows 10. The company also announced that its competitor-slash-customer Samsung would be the first manufacturing partner to offer a Windows 10 PC with the new chip as its beating heart. ...Read more...

Manufacturers typically love to announce a large number of notebooks at Computex, and this year was no exception. Asus in particular has a wide variety of new portables on the way. We'll take a peek at the new entrants to its ZenBook line. ...Read more...

As part of its Computex keynote today, Intel teased a 28-core, 56-thread high-end desktop CPU in a single-socket system. Incredibly—and I do mean incredibly—the company demonstrated this part with a 5-GHz all-core clock speed while running Cinebench. The company was apparently able to do that without using exotic cryo-coolants, too. The systems on display appeared to be in standard desktop cases using chilled water cooling.

Intel's Computex press conference in Taipei today was heavy on processor news. First off, the company celebrated 40 years of the x86 instruction set architecture with the Core i7-8086K desktop CPU. The company says this chip is its first with a 5-GHz Turbo frequency, up from 4.7 GHz for a single core on the Coffee Lake Core i7-8700K. ...Read more...

Asus boldly claims that PC gaming is in the midst of a renaissance. The company sees a new generation of gamers eyeing up their first PC build, and it's orienting its TUF sub-brand toward these neophytes. Along a budget-conscious lineup of motherboards, notebooks, and desktops, Asus is adding a series of peripherals to the TUF family. The new products include the TUF Gaming M5 mouse, the TUF Gaming K5 keyboard, and the TUF Gaming H5 headset. ...Read more...

Good news for users of Apple's phones, tablets, notebooks and other devices: iOS 12 is coming, and it's bringing a number of welcome improvements. Notably, iOS 12 should bring a variety of performance improvements to a broad range of devices. Additionally, the OS is set to offer more control over notifications, more information about app and device usage, and improved Siri functionality. New augmented reality tools promise more robust AR experiences. Finally, an iOS update wouldn't be complete without updates to emoji, messaging, and FaceTime.Apple is making bold claims about the performance improvements on the way with iOS 12 to hardware old and new. In a test comparing the performance of iOS 11.4 and iOS 12 on its iPhone 6 Plus (a device launched in 2014), Apple claims that the camera app launched up to ...Read more...

Peak SSD throughput exceeded the capacity of the aging 6 Gbps SATA bus a long while ago. Additionally, the NVMe interface has plenty of advantages over SATA than just straight-line performance. However, the first wave of mainstream NVMe SSDs cost considerably more coin than their SATA brethren. Corsair's first-generation Force Series MP500 NVMe drives were pretty pricey, but the manufacturer's new Force Series MP300 storage sticks are considerably more affordable. ...Read more...

The RGB LED craze shows little sign of abating, but options still exist for builders who don't need their PC cases to double as nightlights. The TUF Gaming GT501 chassis is a sturdy and spacious unit that takes the "gamer" aesthetic in a different direction than usual. ...Read more...

Besides the case, power supply, and cooling hardware, Asus has also revealed some Republic of Gamers peripherals at Computex. The ROG Delta headset uses a USB Type-C connector, while the ROG Balteus Qi is an RGB LED-lit mousepad with fancy functionality to go along with its good looks. The company also let loose a wireless version of the ROG Gladius II mouse. ...Read more...

Most users probably find power supplies pretty boring, but a computer doesn't work well with a crummy one and doesn't work at all without one. Corsair introduced two new PSU series at Computex: the 80 Plus Platinum-certified SFX-form-factor SF Series and the affordable 80 Plus Silver-certified Vengeance Series. ...Read more...

This year's Computex doesn't have a new CPU family or graphics card to focus around, so manufacturers' offerings have been more varied than we've seen from past shows. Asus' diversified offerings include three 802.11ax-capable Wi-Fi routers built with the future of home and small-office wireless networking in mind. The ROG Rapture GT-AX11000, AiMesh AX6100 Wi-Fi System, and the RT-AX88U all support at least two Wi-Fi bands.

Keen-eyed readers might already be aware of Asus' TUF lineup of reliability-focused motherboards. The company has decided to expand the sub-brand's lineup to include a variety of durable and affordable systems and components. In addition to a previously-announced TUF gaming notebook, Asus has let loose the TUF Gaming FX10CP desktop. The manufacturer claims that this rugged machine will serve as a solid entry point for folks just getting started on PC gaming. ...Read more...

Yessirree, gerbils—it won't be long before you can build an entire system with ROG-branded hardware. That's probably the goal, of course, but in any case Asus has taken two more steps toward that eventuality with the release of the ROG Strix Gaming Chassis and the ROG Thor 1200-W Platinum power supply. ...Read more...

The list of parts in your PC that you can embellish with ROG branding is growing. Asus' latest entries in the ROG family are the Ryujin and Ryuo series of closed-loop liquid coolers. Both lines of coolers include RGB LED illumination and color OLED displays atop the pumps.

Over at Computex, Asus has three new premium screens on display. The VG49V double-wide gaming display, CG32UQ console gaming monitor, and ProArt PA34V professional display have all the trim and fittings needed to serve specific markets with particular needs.

Gigabyte is showcasing a lot of new products at its booth at Computex. Besides the Aorus RGB Memory we showed earlier, the company is also debuting its first Aorus-branded power supply as well as a new high-end gaming mouse. Let's have a quick look at each piece of kit.Who's your first pick for power supplies, gerbils? A lot of companies put their name on PSUs, and Gigabyte ...Read more...

Today marks the launch of Corsair's iCUE app, the company's new unified RGB LED lighting control software. But what fun is a lighting control app without new hardware to bedazzle with synchronized lighting effects? We're not surprised, then, to see that Corsair has new RGB LED-equipped products. The Obsidian 500D RGB SE is a showcase chassis that takes the solid good looks of the Obsidian 500D as its foundation and adds a pane of tempered glass, three colorful fans, and a lighting-and-fan controller. ...Read more...

Corsair has quite the lightshow going on this year at its Computex 2018 booth. Its new iCue unified lighting and cooling control software has officially launched, and a number of its product lines have been refreshed with new lighting options. The company added to its evergreen Vengeance lineup of memory products with the Vengeance RGB Pro series. These DDR4 memory sticks combine blazing speeds with flashy looks. ...Read more...

Asus has been hacking away at the smartphone market for a while now with its ZenFone line of Android handsets. Today, the company used Computex as a launch pad for its first-ever ROG-branded phone designed especially for gaming. The simply named ROG Phone has what Asus calls the world's first speed-binned Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC. The speedy chip is paired with 8 GB of LPDDR4 memory and either 128 GB or 512 GB of speedy UFS 2.1 storage. ...Read more...

Good morning, gerbils. It's Computex time, and that means that it's time for tons of news about new products. One of the more surprising product announcements we're likely to hear this year comes from Gigabyte's Aorus gaming division. The folks there have produced the company's first DDR4 memory product, simply called Aorus RGB Memory. ...Read more...

Hard drives and SSDs have always had logic chips. Spinning platters and moving heads in hard drives need some smarts to keep them from smashing together, and SSDs need some brains for encryption, wear leveling, and splitting data streams between several flash dies.NGD Systems says the multi-core ARM processors embedded in its Catalina-2 U.2 SSDs give the drives a completely different level of computational smarts. AI and machine learning applications can have enormous data sets that might not even fit in terabytes ...Read more...

You may recall that Acer launched a whole bunch of new gaming hardware last week. The company would like you to know that it is a paragon of inclusiveness and that it'll offer some of the machines with AMD CPUs. The red team's processors will come to the Predator Helios 500 laptop, the Predator Orion 5000 high-end gaming desktop, and the Nitro 50 small-form-factor gaming desktop. ...Read more...

Anandtech reports that model numbers for ten new entry-level Intel Xeon chips have popped up, thanks to a document the company made available to its manufacturing partners. The decade of purported processors are apparently all based on the same Coffee Lake architecture found in the company's eighth-generation Core CPUs. The document suggests that new E-series badging will replace the E3 prefix found on the current-generation equivalents. The chips are believed to target the entry-level workstation and server markets and feature up to six cores. The seven models with "G" suffixes likely have IGPs.The document says the rumored processors will work with motherboards based on Intel's C246 chipset. Xeon models traditionally add ECC memory compatibility absent on their Core cousins. The new chips will also probably have enhanced remote management capabilities when compared to ...Read more...