Desktop

Rumour has it that Apple will announce a new iMac at WWDC 2020 next week, with the all-in-one computer said to be sporting an iPad Pro-esque design. Now, a schematic image found in a leaked build of iOS 14 suggests that Apple has overhauled the design of its next iMac.

AMD has announced the A520 chipset and Ryzen 3000XT processors, which will be available from August and July respectively. The Ryzen 3000XT series comes in the form of the Ryzen 5 3600XT, Ryzen 7 3800XT and Ryzen 9 3900XT. Little appears to have changed from the Ryzen 3000X series, but AMD has stopped including a Wraith Prism RGB LED cooler in the box, too.

HTC Vive has announced a new suite of XR applications to help those whose work or pursuits have moved into a remote format. An example of these is Vive Sync, which may take on other similar platforms such as Microsoft Teams or Zoom. The new suite also features various software and hardware partners that operate in areas relevant to these apps.

The AMD Ryzen 3 4200GE has leaked on 3DMark, confirming a host of specifications for the 35 W Renoir APU. The Ryzen 3 4200GE may even be capable of reaching 4.1 GHz, which would be quite the feat for the quad-core and Socket AM4 processor.

The upcoming Asus PN50 mini PCs will offer four APU options: Ryzen 3 4300U, Ryzen 5 4500U, Ryzen 7 4700U, and Ryzen 7 4800U. As always, these are barebones models so users still need to provide RAM and storage. That said, the included motherboard offers support for up to 64 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM and an M.2 slot along with a 2.5-inch bay for storage.

If you thought that NVIDIA had finished with the GeForce GTX 1650, then you thought wrong. A new version of AIDA64 has confirmed that NVIDIA has at least TU116 and TU106 SKUs planned. Yes, the GPU from the RTX 2060 and RTX 2070 is coming to the GeForce GTX 1650.

Acer Veriton N is the company's newest compact PC for the Indian market. It can be configured with 8th and 9th generation Intel processors, up to 64GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage. Prices start at INR 9,999 for the entry-level variant.

Following a leak, EA has confirmed that a new Star Wars game is in the making. Star Wars Squadrons is being developed by EA Motive, the team behind Star Wars: Battlefront II and will focus on dogfighting.

The market for wall-warts that charge devices via USB is now projected to be worth an additional US$9.9 billion by 2028. It is a sector of the overall wall-charger market, which is thought to grow by up to $23 billion over the same period. Even given the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, various regions are thought to be capable of adding hundreds of millions of USD to its value.

Some of the world's biggest tech companies have recently returned positive gains as stock markets in general start to rebound from the effects of Covid-19. However, Apple and Microsoft were the biggest winners this week, as their market caps now exceed half a trillion US dollars. They are also the first firms to do so in history.

Asus has added BIOS Support for Renoir desktop processors. AMD is thought to have developed up to twelve APUs that have either 35 W or 65 W TDPs. The Ryzen 5 4400G has been spotted on 3DMark too, confirming several specifications about the 65 W APU.

Apple promised that WWDC 2020 would be big, and the latest set of rumours suggest that this year's conference will not disappoint in that regard. An ARM-powered MacBook and an iPad Pro-inspired iMac may be joined by Air Tags and the AirPods Studio, too.

Intel has undoubtedly had more than its fair share of chipset security issues over the past couple of years. However, the end to the company’s security woes doesn’t yet seem to be in sight after yet another vulnerability has been discovered, this time deep in its silicon’s built-in security measures.

The AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT has been spotted in an Ashes of the Singularity benchmark. The CPU achieved an average framerate of 113.2 FPS on the Crazy preset when paired with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080. The Ryzen 7 3800XT is expected to launch alongside the Ryzen 5 3600XT and Ryzen 9 3900XT.

Mini ITX gaming rigs are hugely popular at the moment as they can offer a good balance of value, performance and compactness that makes them very practical. Whether you want to grab your PC and head out to a LAN party or you simply don’t want your rig to dominate your desktop, the mini ITX config is certainly having its day in the sun and for good reason.

The AMD Ryzen 7 4700G has appeared on 3DMark Time Spy. The 8 core and 16 thread Renoir APU may be part of a huge Ryzen 4000G release later this year, with AMD potentially having up to 12 APUs in the pipeline.

Intel's upcoming 11th gen 14nm Rocket Lake-S processor for mainstream desktop users may not launch this year, according to a recent performance enthusiast roadmap from Intel. Rocket Lake-S looks to bank on improved IPCs than raw core counts and early 3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy scores of the 32 EU Gen12 Xe iGPU indicate about a 10% improvement over Ice Lake UHD Graphics G1.

The Raspberry Pi 4 is the most powerful single-board computer (SBC) released by the Raspberry Pi Foundation to date, and it got even more powerful recently with the introduction of the new 8 GB variant. We’ve got our hands on the new Pi and paired it with one of the most popular cases custom built for it, the Argon ONE, to find out if it could make for a reasonable desktop computing solution.

A series of fan-made renders of the upcoming Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 have been published online shortly after the revelation of a photo of the alleged reference design hit the news headlines. The Ampere-based RTX 3080 looks very different from the designs utilized for the GeForce 20 series.

New sales data from German retailer Mindfactory has revealed that 34 times more Matisse AMD Ryzen 5 3600 processors were sold than the Intel Core i7-10700K, which was the best-selling Comet Lake chip for this particular period. AMD took 87.25% of the sales share compared to Intel’s paltry 12.75% portion.

LG has introduced a new monitor, known as the "Ergo". This is due to its new kind of "C-Clamp"-enabled stand that confers a full range of motion on the 27-inch panel. It also has USB type C with 60 watt (W) Power Delivery, so as to enable 1-cable operation with this display.

A picture purporting to be the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 has leaked, possibly showing what RTX 3000 reference designs will look like. Specifications for the RTX 3080 have been offered, too.

The AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT has graced 3DMark again, this on Time Spy. The processor has shown that it is capable of reaching 4.8 GHz, 300 MHz above the Ryzen 7 3800X. Improvements over even the Ryzen 7 3700X are negligible, though.

Asus recently decided to enable support for all four generations of Ryzen processors on its ASUS ROG Strix X570 motherboard. This means that everything from 2017's budget Ryzen 3 1200 to upcoming Ryzen 4000 parts will be compatible, thanks to a generous 256 Mb BIOS chip.

AMD's GPU shipment volumes are now reported to have exceeded 500 million. This figure, which encompasses discrete and integrated graphics, beat corresponding numbers for Intel and NVIDIA. This success is projected to benefit even more from future projects such as a new partnership with Samsung.

Eurocom has announced the Nightsky ARX15 superlaptop that can be fitted with up to a 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 3950X processor. The laptop starts at a price of US$1,999 but a multitude of diverse configuration options can take the price for the Eurocom Nightsky ARX15 beyond US$15,000.

Intel has announced that a raft of processors based on the Coffee Lake architecture have reached the end of their life. This new notice encompasses Core i3-, i5- and i7-8xxx CPUs. It also extends to certain Pentium Gold and Celeron desktop chipsets.

Earlier this year, it emerged that certain OEMs had been misrepresenting some of the hard drives they sold in terms of the storage technology they used. One of these companies was Western Digital (WD), who subsequently admitted to doing so with some SKUs of its Red, Black and Blue HDD series. Now, a law firm has filed a suit in order to procure redress for their owners.

Backers of the Atari VCS have had to endure repeated delays, but there looks to be light at the end of the tunnel. The team behind the console has announced that they will have an initial run of 500 units ready for a June launch, with more units expected to ship thereafter.

A retailer has confirmed that the Ryzen 5 3600XT, Ryzen 7 3800XT and Ryzen 9 3900XT will be receiving improved base and boost clocks compared to their predecessors. The Matisse refresh, also known as Matisse 2, is expected to arrive imminently.

Disney launched its own streaming services only about 6 months ago. Despite this, a new study has found that 25% of its US-based respondents have already subscribed to it. This puts it in the top 5 of such apps alongside more established names like Netflix.

The Pancake VR Starter Kit transforms Half Life: Alyx into something approximating a standard FPS game on PC. This allows users without the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, or Valve Index to enjoy the title.

Along with the recent launch of the new 8 GB variant of the Raspberry Pi 4, the Raspberry Pi foundation also decided to give its customized Linux variant a new name. Raspbian is now known as Raspberry Pi OS going forward and brings with it a new 64-bit beta variant designed to take full advantage of the RAM upgrade.

The 49-inch Samsung Odyssey G9 1000R Curved Gaming Monitor is now available for pre-order and those interested will have to pay up £1,279.99 (US$1,581) for the pleasure of owning the magnificent display. The monitor has a 240 Hz refresh rate and 5120x1440 resolution to go with the ideal 1000R screen curvature.

Next year's Windows 10 revamp, known as 21H1, is set to deliver a number of enhanced features from a smarter search to better multitasking in Edge, to a touch-native interface for Edge.

TechPowerUp has announced a new version (2.32.0) of its popular GPU-Z tool. It adds support for a number of new cards and CPUs, 10th-gen Intel silicon included. This update also includes the more granular detection of stepping in Comet Lake-S processors.

This mini PC is designed for industrial or commercial applications that require rapid prototyping, as well as for entertainment and DIY projects like arcade-style video game systems, as it comes with the latest Arduino programmable coprocessor.

MSI has confirmed that its 400-series motherboards will be compatible with AMD's upcoming Zen-3 desktop processors. Codenamed Vermeer, the processors will work with MAX and non-MAX boards.

“Warhol” has apparently been leaked as the codename for AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series of mainstream desktop CPUs. According to the leak, Warhol will feature Zen 3-based parts utilizing a 7nm manufacturing process and offering PCIe4 support. The series would seemingly slot between Vermeer and Raphael in AMD’s roadmap.

If AMD manages this feat, the PC competitive landscape could drastically change in favor of team red, leaving Intel way behind struggling to make the jump to 10 nm. However, these may as well be just unfounded rumors, as a production shift from 7 nm to 5 nm on such short notice may not prove to be that easy.

The 3DMark scores for the upcoming Ryzen 4000 desktop APUs show solid performance gains over the older models as far as CPU cores go, but the iGPU gains are quite minimal since the chips essentially use the same Vega cores from last year.

A new report on future Intel and AMD CPUs by Chinese publication Expreview confirms much of what we've been hearing about upcoming AMD processor codenames up till 2022. The report indicates Rembrandt APUs will herald the advent of new I/O technologies while also concluding that AMD's roadmap looks to have better prospects in the next few years compared to Intel's.

Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced the immediate availability of a new 8 GB variant of its popular Raspberry Pi 4 SBC. The new board will be its most expensive yet at US$75, but it will help to extend the usefulness and usability of the board in a wide range of applications.

A new market research report states that the gaming headset sector broke records in terms of US retail sales in April 2020. This study also found that 8 of the 10 best-selling devices in this category were from the brand Turtle Beach. Of these, its Stealth 600 has accrued the most revenue in 2020 so far.

The AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT and Ryzen 9 3900XT have hit 3DMark Fire Strike. Offering incremental improvements over their predecessors, it would appear that they are just better-binned versions of the Ryzen 7 3800X and Ryzen 9 3900X. Talk of 300 MHz higher base clocks and 200 MHz higher boost clocks seems unfounded, too.

Through the use of a special 45-element light field relying on horizontal parallax principles, the new 8K holographic screen can display 3D images without the use of separate 3D glasses. For now, the screen comes only in a 32-inch size and is designed for medical imagery, advanced topography and experimental marketing.

After nearly a decade of rehashing its stock cooler, Intel's finally made substantial (although entirely cosmetic) changes to its stock cooler design for a limited number of Comet Lake S SKUs.