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The Wi-Fi Alliance has only just begun to validate hardware with the newest 6E wireless-data standard. This is good news for MediaTek, which has had its latest access point and client-side wireless solutions picked up for use in this official body's new test bed. Therefore, the company might now find it easier to pitch these components to OEMs who make routers, broadband equipment or PCs.

According to an unverified rumour from a South Korean tech forum, AMD could shift some of its GPU/APU production to Samsung. AMD wants to ramp up production, but TSMC is unable to keep up due to prior commitments.

The latest market research report from Canalys shows that the PC market enjoyed success not seen in years during 2020. It posted shipment volumes not seen since 2015, hitting 143.7 million units (a 35% year-on-year (YoY) increase) in the last quarter (4Q2020). Tablet and Chromebook shipments also saw record increases, with the latter doubling in number compared to 2019.

Intel is riding the "work from home" wave by literally turning the retail box for its latest NUC into the shape of a house. The NUC 11 mini PC introduces PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD support and Qi wireless charging for the first time in the series.

We already know that the Apple M1 SoC offers substantial performance and battery life improvements compared to Intel-powered MacBooks. However, Apple has shared the rated-power consumption of the M1 in the Mac mini, providing comparisons between the ARM chipset and chipsets back to the PowerPC G4.

Intel has unveiled the Iris Xe desktop graphics card, better known by its codename of DG1. The Iris Xe Graphics has a 30 W TDP, 4 GB of VRAM and will only be available via OEMs. The Iris Xe DG1 will probably compete against NVIDIA's budget cards, such as the Pascal-based GeForce GT 1010.
Updated: VRAM details and Colorful statement added.

With a tempting price tag of less than US$70, the new mechanical keyboard from Sharkoon comes with two switch choices - red or blue. The SKILLER SGK30 sports a classic design and its list of features includes n-key rollover, support for saving up to 20 game profiles via the companion software, 15 lighting presets, and more.

A new report suggests that Intel has outsourced a good chunk of its future manufacturing to TSMC. Production is expected to kick off when TSMC's 3nm node is fully operational, which is expected to happen sometime in H2 2022. Intel is reportedly assisting TSMC in its 2nm R&D too.

An internal MSI document has spilled the beans about three Intel Rocket Lake-S processors, the Core i9-11900K, Core i7-11700K and Core i5-11600K. It reconfirms reports from earlier, stating that the Core i9-11900K and Core i7-11700K would come with eight cores and sixteen threads, while the Core i5-11600K will serve as six-core, twelve thread CPU. It also sheds some light on the processor's base clock, boost clock, L3 cache, etc.

Micron has launched its latest form of DRAM, which is also now in volume production. It is based on the company's 1-alpha (1α, or fourth-generation) 10 nanometer (nm) node, and also incorporates 176-layer NAND for the first time. Micron asserts that has up to 40% more memory cells, and is up to 15% more power-efficient, than its predecessor.

Intel's Xe DG1 dGPU will only work with select CPU and chipset combinations and will require a BIOS update in order to be recognized. Intel said that Coffee Lake-S and Comet Lake-S CPUs are supported on specific midrange and budget 300 and 400-series chipsets. This rules out any possibility of the GPU being compatible with AMD systems.

The Intel Core i7-11700 has been spotted producing an enormous single-core score on a synthetic benchmark site. The Rocket Lake-S chip outpaced the i7-10700K by quite a margin and even scored higher than the maximum result for the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X. However, this strong i7-11700 mark was recorded on the contentious UserBenchmark site.

Apple has done nothing to the iMac design since 2012, and its huge bezels have not aged well. However, a new report claims that Apple is finally on the verge of unveiling a complete redesign. The new-look iMacs will launch alongside a cheaper alternative to the Pro Display XDR, too.

According to new rumours, AMD will be upping its GPU game massively with its next-generation cards. Apparently, Navi 31 will be the first chiplet-based GPU and one that delivers up to 160 CUs, or 10,240 stream processors. The RDNA 3 GPU may offer around 37 TFLOPs of FP32 performance, too.

NVIDIA indicated that it would release the GeForce RTX 3060 with 12 GB of GDDR6 VRAM towards the end of February, following its announcement this month. New reports suggest that NVIDIA will begin selling the Ampere card in the final week of February, and that multiple embargoes are in place for the GeForce RTX 3060.

Intel may launch the 12th gen Alder Lake-S family as early as September this year alongside 600-series chipset-based motherboards, just six months after Rocket Lake-S becomes available. Alder Lake-S will feature a similar Xe LP iGPU as Tiger Lake and Rocket Lake-S but now, we may also get to see a GT0.5 variant.

The Intel Core i9-11900K has posted the highest single-threaded rating on PassMark, putting it 6% ahead of the Core i7-11700K and 7% beyond the Ryzen 7 5800X. AMD's Vermeer processors retain a massive lead in other PassMark metrics, though.

The first major patch for Cyberpunk 2077 has arrived, with CDPR promising to have addressed numerous problems in its latest game. Sadly, the company has introduced a new game-breaking bug as of Patch 1.1, and it is one that is difficult to avoid.

Millions of people search for news on Google or Facebook; therefore, those tech behemoths should pay media outlets for their content. At least, this is the Australian government's position in a dispute with the companies in question. Google has responded by threatening to deprive the country of its Search service.

Another Rocket Lake-S processor has shown up on Geekbench in the form of the 6-core, 12-thread Intel Core i5-11500. The sample produced a surprisingly good result that nipped past a recent i7-11700K single-core test score. The i5-11500 reached a maximum frequency of 4.57 GHz and offered excellent gains over the i5-10400F.

YouTube VIK-on demonstrated a way to replace the Micron 8 GB GDDR6 modules on a Palit GeForce RTX 2070 card with Samsung 16 GB ones thereby confirming that NVIDIA did have plans to launch a 16 GB RTX 2070 back then. The experiment resulted in the PC booting up, but the GPU crashed under load and posted low 3DMark Time Spy Graphics scores.

NVIDIA claims that the GeForce RTX 3060 will start at £299 and US$329 when it launches next month, but early board partner pricing suggests otherwise. Instead, many custom GeForce RTX 3060 cards will sell for £499.99 through official channels, with prices varying between £457 and £513.

MSI is targeting professionals with the PRO MP271 series of monitors. The series peaks at a WQHD and 60 Hz model, which also has a 120 mm height-adjustable stand. All members of the MSI PRO MP271 series are TÜV Rheinland certified.

The GeForce RTX 3090 is the most power-hungry single-GPU card to date. This, however, didn't deter EK from releasing a Quantum Vector water block that promises lower temps and (possibly) higher overclocks.

The Intel Core i7-11700K has appeared on Geekbench 5 to showcase its single-core and multi-core performance. The eight-core processor cannot match the single-core performance of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X and even falls behind the multi-core performance of the Ryzen 5 5600X, AMD's latest six-core processor.

AMD was supposed to unveil the RX 6700 XT at CES, but the company is still not sure how to market this GPU. Word on the street is that the current test samples can easily beat the RTX 3060 12 GB models from Nvidia, and it even bests the RTX 3060 Ti in select games. However, we might not get to see these cards launched sooner than May.

Previous rumors were reporting that Intel may start outsourcing for some 10 nm and 7 nm CPUs in the next few years, but the latest financial report suggests that the company will not rely too much on external fabs. Apparently, Intel managed to fix its 7 nm nodes and will produce most of the 2023 CPU in its own fabs, while the 10 nm nodes should become fully working this year with quadrupled supply unit growth.

A sample of the Intel Core i9-11900K has finally been unearthed on Geekbench and the Rocket Lake-S chip has produced a gigantic single-core score. Utilizing a Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Master board enabled the i9-11900K to score over +32% higher than the i9-10900K and leave the Ryzen 9 5950X and Ryzen 7 5800X playing catch up.

It has not been long since NVIDIA proclaimed that crypto miners were not a driving force behind stock shortages of the new GeForce RTX 30 series. However, it seems that MSI plans to launch GPU-mini specific cards under a MINER sub-brand. Currently, only MINER versions of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti have been certified with the EEC in Russia.

Samsung has announced the latest in its EVO series of SSDs. The OEM is pitching the 870 at users with network-attached servers (NASs) as well as consumer PCs. It is rated for top SATA read and write speeds and for 30% performance improvements over its predecessor.

The Rocket Lake-S hexa-core is around 10% faster than the Comet Lake-S predecessor, and it almost matches the i7-8700K with considerably higher clocks, but it still lags behind the Ryzen 5 3600X in multi-core loads, while the Ryzen 5 5600X is on a completely different level with 31% higher multi-core results.

The Ryzen 7 5800G is on its way, according to a GPU-Z validation. The Cezanne APU will feature a Radeon RX Vega 8 GPU with 8 CUs, 512 stream processors and support for up to just PCIe 3.0.

NVIDIA may have got stuck into the Ampere architecture over the last few months, but it is reputedly going to have another crack at releasing Turing cards. In fact, the company and board partners will re-release the GeForce RTX 2060 and GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER for €300 and €400, respectively. If that is the case, then it would make the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER more expensive option than the GeForce RTX 3060.

Bloober Team, developers of The Medium, the first next-gen exclusive title to release on PC, recently shared update minimum, recommended, and ray-tracing system requirements for the game. PC gamers will require a GeForce RTX 1060 for a min-spec experience, with the GeForce RTX 3080 recommended for ray-tracing.

Get brand name features without overpaying for the name. The EasySMX may not have everything, but its core experience is solid and reliable.

AOC has introduced its latest curved gaming monitor, which supports high refresh rates and a peak resolution of 1440p. The AG323QCX2 offers a 1500R curvature and is VESA HDR400 certified.

A 16-core Alder Lake-S processor from Intel has been spotted revealing some of its secrets on the SiSoftware database. Along with once again confirming support for DDR5 memory, the listing gave some details about the Xe Gen 12.2 iGPU and revealed a 30 MB L3 cache. Clock rates were measured at 1.8 GHz to 4.0 GHz.

Apple's TV+ is its answer to other streaming platforms such as Netflix. One year's worth of free access to the service was bundled with compatible hardware bought at its September 2019 launch. That offer was then extended so as to end in February 2021 - however, the OEM has now prolonged it again until July.

Rocket Lake-S will use the Tiger Lake Xe graphics core, but it will be named as UHD Graphics 730 (24 EUs) and UHD Graphics 750 (32 EUs), according to leaked driver listings. A UHD Graphics P750 for the enterprise is also seen. Rocket Lake-S will only offer up to 32 EUs in order to accommodate the larger CPU cores.

Gigabyte has added a sort-of-new product to its graphics card range in the form of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Gaming OC PRO 8G (rev 2.0). Desktop PC builders will likely be intrigued by the revisions that have been made to this RTX 3060 Ti variant, but it appears the biggest difference to the original model is a height reduction.

Pricing information for Intel's upcoming 11th gen Rocket Lake-S chips has leaked on Belgian retailer 2compuite's site. According to prices listed by 2compute, the Core i9-11900K looks to be about 10% cheaper than the Core i9-10900K. However, other retailers seem to show a 10% increase in pricing making it a tad difficult to infer anything until Intel officially announces the MSRPs for Rocket Lake-S some time during end of Q1 2021.

NVIDIA appears to have silently announced a GeForce GT 1010 GPU earlier this week. The GT 1010 is a Pascal card featuring the 14 nm GP108 GPU similar to the GT 1030. The GT 1010 has only 256 CUDA cores enabled, supports 2 GB GDDR5 VRAM, and has a TDP of 30 W. Availability information is not known yet.

NVIDIA has just unveiled a 12 GB version of the GeForce RTX 3060, which will be available sometime in February. However, a new EEC registration by Palit suggests that even more Ampere cards are on the way. Specifically, the board partner has registered multiple SKUs for the GeForce RTX 3050 Ti and GeForce RTX 3080 Ti; both are rumoured to be arriving within the next few months.

With Bob Swan gone, new Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has set out a bold aim for the chipmaker ahead of the beginning of his reign next month. Apparently, he wants Intel to build better chips than the Apple M1, which has impressed with its custom ARM cores' performance. Naturally, Gelsinger belittled Apple as a 'lifestyle company in Cupertino'.

ASUS recently announced the Fanless Chromebox, a small form-factor PC based on the ChromeOS platform, with a wide range of display outputs and great wireless connectivity.

The latest addition to the Sound Blaster Z lineup comes with updated features, new gaming profiles, microphone and headphone EQ presets. The Sound Blaster Z SE has the same audio specs as the regular edition, such as up to 116 dB SnR and 24-bit/192 kHz sound. However, now there is virtual 7.1 support for headphones and 5.1 discrete audio on speakers.

Although they have different colors and frequencies (minor factory overclocks, of course), the two new ZOTAC video cards that use the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 as foundation stay within the 170 W TDP value of the reference design. Thankfully, since these are (almost) low-end parts, finding them should not be a problem.

Alder Lake is probably the last CPU lineup to be produced exclusively by Intel's fabs. After that, Intel plans to gradually outsource CPU lineups to TSMC, with the low-end Core i3 models scheduled to be produced by the Taiwanese fabs in the second half of 2021. A year later, TSMC is also expected to begin mass-production for Intel's mid-range and high-end processors on the 3 nm nodes.