Desktop

Rocket Lake can go up to 8 cores, 16 threads and a top spped of 4.98GHz. At least, this is what is claimed in a new leak featuring on the Geekbench website. The silicon in question apparently exhibited this boost clock in an existing HP system.

The new Sharkoon lightweight gaming mouse joins the existing Light² products by adding the "S" to the 100 and 200 which have been around for a while. Its highlights include a honeycomb structure that allows it to weigh just 78 grams, a 6,200 DPI optical sensor, eight customizable buttons, as well as an ambidextrous design.

The five new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti-based video cards by Asus cover all areas of desktop gaming, from the "hold nothing back" design of the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3060 Ti all the way down to the Dual GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Mini, a card that has been customized to be used in SFF enthusiast systems.

Although apparently slower than both the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 by 19% and 4%, the upcoming AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (apparently a reference design board was used in the tests) is around 13% faster than the RX 6800 XT and no less than 35% faster than the RX 6800. However, it seems like the retail version will be faster.

The pocket-sized dock is compatible with MacOS, ChromeOS, Windows, and Android and it includes a one-year manufacturer warranty.

NVIDIA claims that the new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti will cost US$399, but leaked prices suggest that custom cards will be nowhere near that level. Instead, custom cards are expected to launch tomorrow for 20% to 66% higher than NVIDIA's MSRP.

The latest market research reports on gaming worldwide indicate that this space has grown to about US$159 billion in 2020. Furthermore, this value is thought to grow to US$256.97 billion over the next 5 years. This may be influenced by factors that include cloud gaming, the rise of e-sports and the increased importance of in-place entertainments.

Sharkoon's latest case, namely the TG5 RGB Silent PCGH Edition, comes with damping mats on the top and side panel, as well as special fans designed to keep things as quiet as possible by running at only 800 RPM. The manufacturer's suggested price for this ATX case is 89.90 Euros (roughly US$108).

NVIDIA has announced the first GPU in the RTX 3060 family, the RTX 3060 Ti for US$399. The RTX 3060 Ti effectively replaces the RTX 2060 Super but is slated to offer more performance than the RTX 2080 Super at lower power draws. The RTX 3060 Ti will be available as a Founders Edition card from NVIDIA and as custom AiB cards from December 2 worldwide.

The release of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is right around the corner, and the upcoming GA104 is already flexing its muscles in CUDA, OpenCL and Vulkan benchmarks. The RTX 3060 Ti comfortably beats out the RTX 2080 SUPER across the three tests and is a match for the AMD Radeon RX 6800. The RTX 3060 Ti is not far off the RTX 3070, either.

Raspberry Pi has launched a case fan for its popular Raspberry Pi 4 single-board computer. The new fan kit works with the official Raspberry Pi case accessory and giving current and future owners an upgrade path should they choose to get into more intensive processing tasks.

A set of AIB BIOSes accessed by Igorslab indicate that board partner Radeon RX 6700 XT could leverage the 7nm process to hit significantly higher clocks than existing Big Navi cards, meaning near-3 GHz overclocks on air cooling could become a reality.

The new Vermeer CPU from AMD, the Ryzen 5 5600X, has made a strong showing in the latest Mindfactory CPU sales data that covers Black Friday. The Zen 3 chip joins 12 other AMD processors in outselling every single Intel part on the list. Additionally, 2,290 units of the top-selling Ryzen 5 3600XT were purchased in comparison to just 290 Intel Core i5-10400F processors.

AMD is struggling to fulfill orders for the new Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 desktop graphics cards. A leaked delivery situation form that allegedly comes from the Danish retailer Proshop details the dire straits Team Red appears to be in terms of delivering the RX 6800 XT and RX 6000. Just 0.47% of customers can expect to receive a Navi 21 card.

CD Projekt Red has just held its third-quarter earnings call for 2020, during which its president and joint CEO Adam Kiciński fielded various questions, many of which were about the upcoming title Cyberpunk 2077. One of them may also have been on the minds of those who still own "non-Pro" PlayStation 4 or Xbox consoles.

Select X470 and B450 motherboards from ASRock and Gigabyte are already getting beta BIOS versions supporting the Ryzen 5000 CPUs with SAM function. MSI and Asus are also offering unofficial BIOS updates for testers. However, these are not stable versions by any means, so users are advised to wait for the official AGESA V2 1.1.0.0 BIOS releasing in January.

The XFX Speedster MERC319 AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT BLACK features a dual-BIOS design with overclocked speeds of up to 1925 MHz (base clock), 2110 MHz (game clock), and 2360 MHz (boost speed), all alongside 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory. Sadly, this new graphics card is not in stock yet, but it should become available soon.

Early 3DMark results for the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti have made their way online, a week before its expected announcement. The results show NVIDIA's upcoming budget Ampere card offering 88% of the performance of the RTX 3070 at an expected 79% of the price.

We have not yet seen any mini-ITX platforms with Threadripper support, but ASRock is now doing us one better with its proprietary Deep mini-iTX form-factor motherboards supporting server-grade AMD EPYC Rome CPUs with up to 64 cores and 128 threads.

There is a possibility of Apple enabling eGPU support via Thunderbolt 3 in M1-powered Macs with a future update to macOS 11. At the moment, eGPUs seem to be recognized by macOS 11 Big Sur, but they don't seem to provide any hardware acceleration due to lack of driver support.

The first Radeon RX 6900 XT from a board partner is here and is by ASRock. The card is merely a reference AMD design by another name though, with no ASRock branding or customisations to speak of. Custom RX 6900 XT cards should arrive after December 8, if there are any.

The Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has reportedly held a ribbon-cutting event for a new fabrication unit dedicated to the production of 3 nanometer (nm) chips. They are the basis for next-gen processors in which companies such as Intel may have already expressed an interest.

AMD may have an answer to the RTX 3060 Ti, along with other budget cards from NVIDIA. Apparently, AMD is gearing to release the RX 6700 and RX 6700 XT, which will both use its Navi 22 GPUs. The cards will have 12 GB of GDDR6 VRAM too and may arrive as early as January 2021.

The two new compact cases from Sharkoon come with stylish looks, optimal airflow, and plenty of space to accommodate tall CPU coolers and long video cards, as well as additional coolers. For both the SK3 and TK4, the manufacturer's suggested prices do not exceed the 50 Euros (roughly US$59) barrier.

Instead of using the potentially more harmful method involving raised voltages, the latest Ryzen 5000 desktop CPUs make it easier for users to obtain impressive overclocking results through undervolting. This way, users do not need sophisticated cooling solutions, and can just utilize regular AIOs. However, there is greater variance between samples, as well, so it all is more dependent on the luck of the draw.

With the advent of Apple silicon for Macs most people had given up on the idea of Apple supporting Windows installations on its computers. The door to the prospect, somewhat surprisingly, has been opened by Apple’s software chief Craig Federighi in recent interview with Ars Technica.

A new report has shed more light on Intel's next desktop processors, the Rocket Lake-S series. Apparently, the processors will be compatible with Z490 motherboards and will support PCIe 4.0. However, Rocket Lake-S will be built on a new 14 nm process and will only offer up to 8-core SKUs.

AMD's 7nm Big Navi architecture continues to impress with strong overclock scaling. Overclocker Takukuo managed to push the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT to a remarkable 2.8 GHz under LN2, just 10 percent short of the world record for GPU clock speeds.

ViewSonic has announced new monitors with specific kinds of support for accessibility in content creation. The OEM claims they come with color accuracy certified by Pantone out of the box, and also include color-blindness modes. These 24- and 27-inch displays are also equipped with a USB type C port that can support video, audio and charging.

The new T-FORCE ZEUS DDR4 memory kits by Team Group target both desktops and laptops, featuring multiple frequency options, up to 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) capacity choices, and high-quality IC with stable performance under heavy workloads. All kits will come with a lifetime warranty, but there is no pricing information available yet.

BOE has announced that it has made active-matrix quantum dot light-emitting diode (or AMQLED) technology 4K and TV-sized for the first time. This emerging display standard is based on quantum dots, as is QLED, but does not require a backlight. This may mean it offers more consistent colors and brightness compared to those high-end panel types.

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition has made a photographic debut in a handful of images that show the Ampere graphics card from the front and rear, and even the Nvidia-branded packaging makes an appearance. The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition, which is expected to launch on December 2, looks identical to the RTX 3070 Founders Edition.

AMD's Scott Herkelman hinted that the company is working to offer an open implementation of super-sampling in partnership with Intel and NVIDIA that works across PCs and consoles unlike NVIDIA's proprietary DLSS. He also said that ray tracing performance of current Radeon RX 6000 cards will improve with time. Further, Frank Azor added that AMD will look into the possibility of enabling Smart Memory Access with non-500-series chipsets as well.

Priced at US$1,999.99, EVGA's flagship product GeForce RTX 3090 KINGPIN Hybrid targets extreme overclockers and it should be accompanied by the Hydro Copper variant as well, which doesn't have a price yet. The list of features includes a triple-BIOS design with pre-configured OC and LN2 profiles, PROBEIT support, and much more.

The MateStation B515 is here, but not with Huawei's in-house processor, as was expected. Instead, the B515 comes with a choice of the AMD Ryzen 5 4600G or Ryzen 7 4700G. A 23.8-inch IPS monitor and a keyboard will come bundled with the MateStation B515, while Windows 10 Pro is pre-loaded, too.

Bypassing Apple's onerous restrictions on game streaming apps on the iOS App Store, including individual game certification and approval, NVIDIA recently launched a beta version of its GeForce Now service as a web app for the Safari browser.

Nvidia reported nice growth figures in its Q3 2020 earnings call, but things might not look that good for Q4. Team Green is now estimating that the RTX 3000 supply shortages could continue well into 2021, and this problem may also impact AMD with its newly launched RX 6800 / XT cards.

Asus has released the sequel to its Chromebox 3 range, which were powered by Intel 8th gen silicon. The new Chromebox 4 range comes equipped with faster, more efficient Intel 10th gen chips and other improvements.

Huawei is now said to be about to mimic Apple in launching a PC with its own in-house ARM CPU. However, this putative desktop can also apparently support DDR4-2400 RAM, M.2 SSDs and PCIe 3.0 expansion. These internals may be housed in a relatively slim tower-form case, and may be paired with the OEM's also-rumored first-gen monitor.

AMD now holds the 3DMark Fire Strike world record, and with its second-fastest graphics card to boot. Impressively, the Radeon RX 6800 XT took the crown from the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 with a reference cooler.

Newer laptops are dropping ports left and right for thinner and sexier designs. As a result, you're going to need a USB-C docking station sooner or later if you want to connect any sort of monitors, keyboards, USB sticks, or even SD cards to your PC.

The RX 6800 GPU particularly efficient when it comes to undervolting, as its TGP can be reduced by 45 W down to 183 W. These figures are already laptop-friendly if we look at Nvidia's RTX 2080 Super mobility GPUs, so we can expect to see an RX 6800M GPU with 150-180W TGPs that matches the performance of a desktop-grade RTX 2080 Ti soon.

AMD is back in the game with the latest RX 6800 / XT cards. Does it steal the performance crown? Not quite, but we still haven't seen what the RX 6900 XT has to offer. Nevertheless, the new AMD cards appear to be priced correctly, and we reckon the RX 6800 could end up as the preferred solution for the majority of gamers.

Just as expected, the Red Devil video card takes it way above and beyond the reference Radeon RX 6800 XT design. PowerColor's custom card features a triple-fan design, dual-BIOS, a 14+2 phase VRM with DrMOS, high polymer capacitors, and two 8-pin PCI-E connectors. It should hit the market in a week or two.

AAEON has announced its latest single-board computer, the UP Xtreme i11. Also available as an Edge Compute Enabling Kit, the UP Xtreme i11 comes with a choice of Intel Tiger Lake processors, USB 4.0 connectivity and socketed DDR4 SO-DIMM RAM.

It doesn't quack, but the no-frills HyperX Ducky is easy to use and with all the RGB bells and whistles we've come to expect from a mechanical keyboard for gamers.