Desktop

Dell has announced a whole range of sales events and deals for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and winter 2020 in general already. They include discounts on some Alienware laptops, desktops and monitors. Some of this hardware will be cut by up to 50% in price during these events.

Dell's end-of-2020 holiday deals have been outlined in good time this year. They are a range of discounts on PCs and monitors for entrepreneurs as well as those looking for gift ideas already. This includes Vostro-brand machines, in addition to the new XPS 13 Touch.

X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter. Only a year after the first-class Jedi Fallen Order, EA sends its next Star Wars epic into the race. Squadrons offers action-filled space fights and turns out to be surprisingly undemanding when it comes to hardware.

According to a Gematsu report, the Korean Game Rating and Administration Committee listed ratings for "Mass Effect Legendary Edition." This fuels speculation that the unannounced but very likely Mass Effect trilogy remaster might be arriving soon.

An Aliexpress seller recently listed what appears to be a rare, unreleased AMD APU from the Excavator era. The 8-core A9-9820 leverage R7 350 graphics and bear striking similarities to the Xbox One's performance profile.

ASUS will support the X470 and B450 chipsets into Zen 3, the company has confirmed. It has reaffirmed support for the two chipsets after representatives apparently informed a customer that the X470 chipset would never receive the BIOS upgrade to run Ryzen 5000 processors.

AMD may have increased price points for the Ryzen 5000 desktop CPUs, but keep in mind that we have not yet seen any non-X versions. According to a new leak, the non-X Ryzen 5000 CPUs are expected to launch in Q1 2021, and the Ryzen 5 5600 could be priced at $220 while almost matching the performance of an Intel Core i7-10700.

You can't expect too much from a 21.5-inch monitor for less than $100 USD. The Auzai is great for basic browsing and multimedia tasks, but casual gamers or even amateur content creators will want to invest in something better.

ASUS will not be enabling support for Ryzen 5000 Zen 3 processors on X470 motherboards. The move comes following AMD's confirmation that the X470 and B450 chipsets should start receiving beta BIOSes that enable support as of January 2021.
Update: ASUS has stated that a customer service representation was misinformed in their comments.

The Radeon RX 6000 series will support the new AV1 hardware acceleration, Microsoft has confirmed. AMD joins NVIDIA and Intel in supporting the AV1 video codec, which promises to offer up to 50% better compression than H.264 and 20% better than VP9.

AMD Ryzen 5000 Zen 3 support has been added to multiple 500 series motherboards, including the likes of the A520 and X570 chipsets. ASUS, ASRock, Biostar, Gigabyte and MSI are the first manufacturers to add support, but it will be at least January 2021 before 400 series chipsets like the B450 or X470 can run Zen 3 processors.

Last year, AMD started its anti-NUC initiative, as many of its embedded and laptop-grade APUs can now easily be included in mini PCs. This initiative could soon culminate with gaming mini PCs that are based on AMD's Project Quantum presented 5 years ago at E3.

NVIDIA has stopped selling the RTX 3080 FE and RTX 3090 FE on its online store. The Founders Edition cards will only be available from Best Buy in the US, but there is no word on European fulfilment options.

The Gold P31 NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD in particular was the world's first consumer SSD with 128-layer NAND when it launched just over a month ago. Its $110 sale price will net users 3500 MB/s read and 3200 MB/s write speeds instead of the slower PCI x2 speeds commonly found in this price range.

Unveiled during today's RazerCon 2020 virtual event, the Razer Viper Ultimate Cyberpunk 2077 Edition is a light wireless gaming mouse with an impressive 20,000 DPI resolution and a battery life of roughly 70 hours. This limited-edition accessory for Cyberpunk 2077 fans will hit the market next month for US$159.99.

An eagle-eyed Redditor has spotted that Intel just introduced the Core i3-10100F with minimal fanfare. This direct successor to the i3-9100F still has no integrated graphics - although it does have hyper-threading, which is a first for its nascent series. It also has the same recommended price range as its preceding generation.

The US State of California's legislative body has passed a resolution that makes today (October 10, 2020) Blue Light Awareness Day in the jurisdiction. The device certification group Eyesafe has welcomed the motion, particularly in light of the trend towards remote working and learning and, thus, the ever-growing rate of screen use in the region.

Corsair's MP400 SSD is another midrange PCIe Gen3 entry, as the market heats up close to the launch of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, both of which feature ultra-fast storage. The MP400 promises reasonable read/write speeds and massive storage capacity, at up to 8TB. The increased storage capacity comes at an immense cost, though, with the top-end variant selling for nearly US$1400.

The GMK NucBox has arrived on third-party retailer Banggood, following its successful Indiegogo campaign. The NucBox will begin shipping from the retailer before October 21 and starts at US$219.99. GMK still sells the NucBox for less, albeit only on Indiegogo.

Is Nvidia ditching Samsung for TSMC in 2021? It looks like Nvidia is not at all pleased with the supply problems created by Samsung's 8 nm nodes with reduced yields and is at least diversifying risk with a significant order of 7 nm chips from TSMC scheduled throughout 2021.

Dell’s Alienware division has just revealed its upgraded Aurora desktop gaming PCs. As you would expect, the new models feature Nvidia’s vaunted new RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 GPUs, although they have been customized by Alienware to fit more easily into the chassis of the PC.

Rumour has it that NVIDIA has scrapped the RTX 3070 Ti, which would have slotted in below the RTX 3080. The card was supposedly based on a full-bore GA104 GPU. The RTX 3060 Ti is still on for a mid-November release, though.

New versions of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 and GeForce RTX 3080 could be arriving as soon as December, according to a new report. Apparently, these new cards will be the 16 GB edition of the RTX 3070 and the 20 GB version of the RTX 3080.

AMD showed off a sneak preview of the upcoming Radeon RX 6000 series Big Navi's gaming performance in Borderlands 3, CoD: Modern Warfare, and Gears 5. The RX 6000 was paired with a Ryzen 9 5900X, but comparisons with available RTX 3080 benchmarks show that AMD is within striking distance in these titles and if priced right, may end with potential success.

AMD has revealed the much anticipated Zen 3 Vermeer lineup today led by the flagship Ryzen 9 5950X. According to AMD, Zen 3 offers 19% IPC increase, 2.8x higher performance-per-watt, and up to 26% higher gaming performance. In Zen 3, core counts remain the same from last generation, but with higher boosts, a US$50 higher price, and no bundled Wraith cooler.

Equipped with a quad-core / quad-thread Atom x6425RE low-power CPU, the SPC-6000 mini PC is specifically designed for IoT / AIoT applications that require advanced features like Time-Coordinated Computing and Time-Sensitive Networking. The system also supports up to 32 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, plus an NVMe SSD and a SATA III SSD/HDD for storage.

Intel has officially confirmed that Rocket Lake-S will be Comet Lake-S successor for desktops and gaming PCs. The 11th gen Rocket Lake-S will offer Xe-LP graphics, support for PCIe Gen4, and is slated for a Q1 2021 availability. Intel didn't go any further into configuration specifics, but we do get to hear that Rocket Lake-S will be based on the Cypress Cove architecture, which is a backport of Willow Cove on 14 nm.

According to some AIB partners cited by Videocardz, Nvidia managed to troll AMD, as it switched the GA104 SKU with the GA102 model in the RTX 3080 GPU at the last minute, so now, apparently Big Navi (Navi 21) is only matching the RTX 3070. Other leakers believe that AMD is trolling the AIB partners misrepresenting Navi 21 as Navi 22, which has only half the CUs.

Dell has announced a new range of UltraSharp monitors starting with the U2421E. The U2421E is a FHD 60 Hz IPS panel with a 16:10 aspect ratio. The U2421E offers a host of connectivity options including data, display, power, and MAC address pass-through through a single USB-C cable to the laptop.

A report by HDTechnologia states that Intel's upcoming Rocket Lake S CPU series is set to release in March 2021, alongside the new Z590 chipset. This late launch date could give AMD a boost, with the Ryzen 5000 series enjoying over five months alone on the market.

The APC Back-UPS Pro Gaming UPS features sine-wave battery backup and automatic voltage regulation combined with a set of features that enable it to protect gaming systems and accessories from "more than seven different types of power interruptions." Pre-orders will go live soon at Amazon, Newegg, B&H Photo, Best Buy, and Microcenter.

Nvidia plans to release the first DPUs named BlueField-2 in 2021. These cards will include a Mellanox NIC and an ARM processor with 8 Cortex-A72 cores. There will also be a BlueField-2X card that includes an Ampere GPU for AI-based tasks. DPUs are meant to relieve server CPUs of certain tasks, making them perform 30% faster.

Even though the CPU ID reads 16C 32T, the thread count only shows 24 threads. Apparently only the 8 Golden Cove big cores support hyperthreading, while the 8 Gracemont small cores do not. The test sample seems to support only DDR4 memory, but this is probably due to the absence of DDR5 specs in the testing software.

Dell is currently launching its latest UltraSharp monitors for home-office and prosumer use. The OEM also now unveils the SB521A, touted as the "world's lightest and slimmest soundbar". This accessory can snap onto a monitor from its own brand with its top-mounted magnets, thus immediately adding 3.6W RMS audio power to the display in question.

Remote-working products reign supreme at present; however, Dell has prepared its new Meeting Space Solutions against the come-back of the real-life boardroom. They are bundles tailored to in-person conference settings of different sizes and conformations, and also adapt to the software preferred by the business client in question: Microsoft Teams or Zoom.

Dell announced three new monitors joining its P-series of displays today. Included in the announcement are a 27-inch 4K monitor, a 32-inch QHD display, and a 34-inch Ultrawide (21:9) WQHD monitor. Each of these displays features a USB-C port that can be used for USB pass-through or a display input and can deliver up to 65 W of power to a connected device.

OWC has launched its first dock specifically aimed at PCs equipped with Thunderbolt 4 ports. It offers a further 3 USB type Cs with the same standard, as well as a 3.2 type A port. It is rated to support dual 4K displays or one 5 to 8K monitor, as well as a range of additional peripherals, storage media or devices to 1 state-of-the-art machine.

NVIDIA has published initial performance figures for the GeForce RTX 3070, which will arrive on October 29. The Ampere card is apparently over 60% faster than the RTX 2070 in mixed applications and around 8% more powerful than the RTX 2080 Ti.

French outlet Cowcotland claims that the first-gen Navi RX 5700 is no longer being manufactured, just weeks ahead of AMD’s supposed RDNA2 hard launch. Interestingly, the RX 5700 XT, RX 5600 XT, and even a number of older Polaris cards are still being manufactured, per the report.

AOC has presented three new entries in its E2 series, called the Q3232N, Q3432A and U32E2N, respectively. All three monitors offer good value for money, yet are designed for different use cases.

NVIDIA has announced that the launch of the GeForce RTX 3070 will be postponed by two weeks to October 29. Apparently, the delay will ensure better availability than the calamitous release of the GeForce RTX 3080.

Gigabyte has certified four RTX 3060 Ti models with the EEC, @KOMACHI_ENSAKA has discovered. The four cards will have 8 GB of VRAM and are expected to use NVIDIA's GA104-200 GPU. 4,864 CUDA cores are apparently due for the RTX 3060 Ti too, which may debut as soon as this month.

Tom from Moore's Law Is Dead shares a wealth of info regarding confirmed and unconfirmed specs, possible price points and expected release windows for the Navi 21 / 22 / 23 gaming GPU models. We also learn about a professional Navi 21 version that could compete with the RTX 300 GPUs from Nvidia.

Trusted sources claim that only the 8-core Ryzen 7 5800X and 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X will hit retailers by October 20. However, around December this year, AMD also plans to release the 6-core Ryzen 5 5600X and the 16-core Ryzen 9 5950X models and price points might be slightly higher compared to the current Ryzen 3000 CPUs.

The GeForce RTX 3070 has a GA104-300 GPU, Gainward has confirmed. The card, which will be arriving later this month, has 5,888 CUDA cores and 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM.

The new BRIX PRO mini PCs are powered by either the i3-1115G4, i5-1135G7, or i7-1165G7 Tiger Lake-U CPUs. Users may add up to 64 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, while the systems offer support for a PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe SSD, another PCIe Gen 3 x4 NVMe SSD and a SATA III SSD or HDD. There is a Thunderbolt 4 connector and the integrated Xe-LP GPUs can output through the included 4x HDMI 2.0b ports.

Atari’s long overdue VCS PC/console hybrid is finally on the way from the factory to backers. The device was originally revealed in June 2017 with pre-orders beginning on May 30, 2018 and has repeatedly been delayed since.