There’s only one motherboard you can go to for top-secret stealth missions: MSI’s MEG X570 Unify motherboard. All-black simplicity is the name of the game with this new board. While it may be minimalist in look, it’s certainly not spartan in features; this board is aimed squarely at the enthusiast crowd.

We need more power

The MEG X570 Unify has heatsinks everywhere you can see; the chipset, the M.2 slots, and VRM are covered by heatsinks, and the backplate has a nice-looking shroud. It’s tough to cover up all of the capacitors and circuitry on a motherboard, but MSI has done an admirable job of covering the board while keeping everything functional.

The board is fed with two 8-pin EPS power connectors, so you might need to upgrade your power supply should you pick this board up.

As an AMD X570 board, the MEG X570 Unify supports up to Ryzen 9 CPUs. It features dual-channel memory and can handle up to 128GB of DDR4 RAM. For PCIe, you’ll find three x16 slots and two x1 slots.

The MSI MEG X570 Unify’s connectors

Moving onto connectivity, the MEG X570 Unify features 2.5Gb/s Ethernet and 802.11ax WiFi. You’ll find 8 USB ports on the back. Two are USB 2.0 Type-A, five are USB 3.2 Type-A, and there’s even one USB 3.2 Type-C. The board also features S/PDIF out and five-channel stereo connectivity supported by the Realtek ALC1220 codec.

On the board proper, you’ll also find two each of USB 2.0 headers and USB 3.2 Gen 1 headers, for up to four each of USB 2.0 and USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, as well as one more USB Type-C port.

Cooling enthusiasts will make use of the two four-pin water-pump connectors. There are also plenty of RGB connectors, including one 4-pin RGB LED connector, two 3-pin RAINBOW LED connectors, and one 3-pin Corsair connector.

What the MEG X570 Unify is missing, though, is any built-in RGB lighting. There are 4 “EZ Debug LEDs” and 1 Debug Code LED, but that’s it. It’s too bad they couldn’t find a way to hide those. The bright-red memory LEDs on my current board are eye-searing.

Pricing and availability

MSI is, of course, not talking about pricing at this point, but MSI’s other MEG x570 boards go for almost $400 and $600.

Based on the feature set, we’re betting this stealth PCB will for a little bit less than the $400 X570 ACE. Along with the lack of pricing is a lack of release date, but keep your eyes out if you’re looking for something to go with those new Noctua Chromax fans.

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• We usually write up sales on the Intel 660p, but this time around we have something much faster: the Sabrent Rocket family of speedy NVMe SSDs. Although the company isn’t one of the major players in the space, its SSDs hit all the right spots. We have three today, with capacities ranging from 512 GB to 2 TB, all on sale at absurd prices. The 512 GB model can do 3400 MB/s in sequential reads and 2000 MB/s in writes, and 357K IOPS in random reads and 456K IOPS for writes. It’s going for just $49.99 at Amazon. The next one up is the 1 TB model, with 3400/3000 MB/s for sequential data, and a whopping 650K random read IOPS and 640K write IOPS. This one will set you back an almost-even $99.99. The biggest unit is the 2 TB model, with 3400/3700 MB/s sequential speeds, and 490K/540K IOPS for random I/O. You can pick this one up for $219.99.

• Today’s cheap RAM pack is the Adata XPG Gammix D10 16 GB set with 3000 MT/s sticks. The silver heatsinks should look good under any kind of lighting, and the timings are set at 16-20-20. The folks at Rakuten are asking but $53.54 for the pair with the checkout code SAVE15. The manufacturer offers lifetime warranty.

• It’s a hot season for Ryzen builds, and we have just the board for that. The Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro WiFi is one fine lookin’ circuit board with two PCIe x4 M.2 slots under heatsinks, a souped-up ALC1220-VB audio codec with WIMA capacitors, an Intel Ethernet chip, and metal casing on the main PCIe slot. You also get USB 3.1 Gen2 ports in both Type-C and Type-A flavors, along with Intel-powered 802.11ac Wi-Fi. The VRMs sit under decently sized heatsinks, and there’s onboard RGB LED lighting for good measure. This mobo hits all the right notes, and it’ll set you back just $109.99 at Newegg.

• If an Intel machine is more your speed, then check out the Core i3-9100F processor. This is one of the top low-end processors you can get your hands on, as its four cores clocked at up to 4.2 GHz make for a potent gaming concoction, especially when paired with a discrete graphics cards. As it happens, the “F” suffix for this model means that it does away with an IGP, making it suitable for that exact type of build. Pick this processor up from Newegg for only $84.99 with the cart code EMCTCTV38.

• It’s time to go mobile. The Lenovo Flex 15 (81SR000QUS) is a fold-back convertible with a 15.6″ 1920×1080 touch-screen, and it’s powered by a snappy Intel Core i7-8565U chip (four cores, eight threads at up to 4.6 GHz) next to 8 GB of RAM (in a 4+4 configuration) and a 256 GB NVMe solid-state drive. The machine’s just 0.81″ (20.5 mm) thick, and the price tag is equally as thin at $564.99 with the cart code LEN110.

• For a meatier hardware selection, we have just the machine. The Dell G3 15 gaming laptop (I3590-7957BLK-PUS) is one heck of a geared-up portable, powered by an Intel Core i7-9750H processor, a six-core, twelve-thread affair with a 4.5 GHz turbo and 12 MB of cache. Sitting next to the CPU are 16 GB of RAM and a roomy 512 GB NVMe solid-state drive. Pixels find their way to the screen at speed thanks to a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card with 6 GB of its own memory. The port selection includes both Type-A and Type-C USB ports, as well as an HDMI output. You can get your hands on this fast-moving beast for $1079.99 at Best Buy.

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To the surprise of absolutely no-one, Gigabyte has a big presence at Computex. The company sent over a whole packet of photos of its booth, which was mostly Aorus-flavored. Unfortunately, I'm not at Computex, and if you're reading this, you're probably not either. So instead of the booth, let's talk about the new products Gigabyte has on the way. Besides the seven Socket-AM4 motherboards based on AMD's X570 chipset, there's a trio of monitors and a PCIe 4.0 SSD to talk about.

As far as the motherboards go, I'm going to skim them real quick. If you're after the nitty-gritty, the product pages are up for each model and I'll link them as we go, or if you're impatient, I made the chart above that you can check out with the salient details.  Gigabyte also helpfully provided another chart that identifies the exact components used in the construction of each board's power delivery hardware. I'm not too knowledgeable about things at the component level, so I'll let the gerbils dissect that one.

Gigabyte's fanciest X570 board is the X570 Aorus Xtreme. I probably don't need to tell you that this E-ATX monster has everything plus the kitchen sink. Triple M.2 sockets, Intel GbE-plus-Aquantia-powered 10-Gigabit Ethernet, a fancy ESS Sabre 9218 DAC, and seven USB 3.1 ports are the functional highlights of the board. The Xtreme also has dual EPS12V sockets to drive its sixteen PowIRstages, which are in turn cooled by a microfin array heatsink whose heatpipe rests directly on the hardware just like the best CPU heatsinsks. Gigabyte brags that the board uses 5-W/mK thermal pads under the aforementioned VRM heatsink, as well as between the board and its metal backplate.

The X570 Aorus Master is only a small step down from the Xtreme. The Master board has the same triple-M.2-plus-six-SATA storage configuration, but its dual LAN trades the Aquantia chip for a Realtek-powered Gigabit Ethernet to sit alongside the Intel connection. It also steps the ESS DAC down to a 9118; what difference that makes, I do not know. You lose a couple of USB 3.1 ports in the transition, but the Master has a PCIe 4.0 x1 slot that the Xtreme doesn't. It also retains the fancy backplate and VRM cooling from the Xtreme.

The next step down in Gigabyte's X570 product family is the X570 Aorus Ultra. This board, much like other "Aorus Ultra" models before it, is sort of a "premium midrange" offering. It's stripped-down compared to its more expensive siblings, but it still has more or less all the functional parts that they do: triple M.2 sockets, a fancy ALC1220-VB audio codec, and a microfin array VRM heatsink. The majority of things that it misses are overclocker niceties, like diagnostic LEDs, onboard power and reset buttons, and a rear-panel reset button. 

Gigabyte's X570 Aorus Pro comes in Wi-Fi and no-Wi-Fi versions. Otherwise, it's yet another small step down from the Ultra model, and when I say "small" step, I'm serious. They have the exact same power delivery configuration, their stat-lines in the chart above are essentially identical, and ultimately the only real difference I can find in the two boards (Ultra and Pro) is that the Pro model loses an M.2 socket compared to its cousin. There's also no grille on the chipset fan, for what that matters.

Naturally, Gigabyte has a mini-ITX board coming: the X570-I Aorus Pro Wifi. There's something about the idea of running a twelve-core, 4.6-GHz processor in a mini-ITX machine that makes me giggle. Anyway, this board makes the necessary sacrifices for the sake of miniaturization, but it's still richly-appointed. A pair of M.2 sockets are joined by a third E-key slot for the Wi-Fi card. This is also the only board in Gigabyte's lineup that includes more than one video connection, in case you should want to use it with a chip that has integrated graphics.

Gigabyte didn't send me a picture of the Elite, so here it is in the booth.

The X570 Aorus Elite is probably the most appealing model to price-conscious gerbils. Not to say that it's cheap—perhaps "uncomplicated" is a nice way to put it. Despite its positioning in the product stack, the Elite still keeps a pair of M.2 sockets and Intel-powered Ethernet, as well as S/PDIF audio output and a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C port for the front of the case. It does lose the ability to split the CPU's PCIe lanes and hook up a pair of graphics cards to 8 lanes, though. It also doesn't come with WI-Fi.

Last and likely least among Gigabyte's X570 boards is the X570 Gaming X. Despite the decidedly budget-oriented nature of this board, it should appeal to a certain segment of users. After all, it's the only board among the lineup to have PS/2 ports—and a pair of them, too. It also has three PCIe 4.0 x1 slots mixed in with its dual physical-x16 slots and pair of M.2 sockets. The real letdown of this board is the lack of USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, although I'm not extremely excited about the single Realtek LAN chip or that ancient ALC887 audio codec, either. Still, it should be cheap.

As you'll know if you read the chart above, all of Gigabyte's X570-based Ryzen boards support ECC memory, which is interesting. Gigabyte is proud of a few of its other features too, like Q-Flash Plus, which lets you "update the BIOS even without installing a processor, memory, graphics card, or booting up the PC." Pretty handy for boards that are likely to see at least one more round of CPU releases. All of these boards also support XMP profiles for easy memory configuration, too.

Gigabyte's new monitors are the KD25F, CV27F, and CV27Q. We know the least about the CV27Q, so I'll start with that. Gigabyte says that the CV27Q is its first "curved, tactical gaming monitor" and that the 27" display uses a VA LCD in 2560×1440 resolution with 1500R curvature. The monitor supports refresh rates up to 165 Hz as well as FreeSync 2 HDR, and Gigabyte says the CV27Q can reproduce 90% of the DCI-P3 colorspace. Not bad at all.

Gigabyte also says the CV27Q supports a 1-ms response time, but I'm a little dubious on that point because the company reports the CV27F's response time as "1ms (MPRT)." For those who don't know, MPRT is "moving picture response time," and it represents the "felt" response time of a display. When talking about gaming monitors, a response time of "1ms (MPRT)" generally means that the monitor is using blur-reduction tech—usually backlight strobing—to achieve that figure. Besides, a real 1ms response time on a VA LCD is virtually unheard-of.

Other salient specs on the CV27F include a 27" diagonal, 1920×1080 screen resolution, 165-Hz refresh rate, 3000:1 static contrast, 400 cd/m² peak brightness, and FreeSync 2 support. It also has a USB 3.0 hub built-in, VESA mounting support, and like its cousin, the ability to reproduce some 90% of the DCI-P3 colorspace. I'd show you a picture of it, but it looks virtually identical to the CV27Q above, so refer to that.

I could show you the front, but it's not interesting. Check out this wacky stand!

Meanwhile, the KD25F is not like the others. This flat (i.e. non-curved) display is 24.5" from corner to corner, and it uses a TN LCD panel. You might think, "oh, it's a budget display," but you'd be mistaken. This monitor supports a 240-Hz refresh rate, after all. More interestingly, this monitor is the second (after BenQ's XL2546) that we've seen to support blur reduction strobing at 240 Hz. Gigabyte marks this model down for a 0.5ms response time, but that's an MPRT number of course.

If you're concerned about the image quality, you probably needn't be. The KD25F's TN LCD is a true 8-bit panel that can display the full sRGB colorspace, and its backlight allows it to shine at up to 400 cd/m². Typical contrast is average for a TN LCD at 1000:1. Like the other monitors, it supports VESA mounting and has a USB 3.0 hub built-in. Just make sure you sit directly in front of it.

Finally, that SSD I mentioned. Gigabyte paired up an "all-new" PCIe 4.0 SSD controller with similarly-fresh Toshiba BiCS4 NAND flash to make what it calls, simply, the "Aorus NVMe Gen4 SSD." (Maybe it'll get renamed later.) This thing is wreathed on all sides in copper to keep it cool, and that's not that surprising when you hear that it can whip out a full 5 GB/sec on sequential reads. Gigabyte's not talking random performance, unfortunately. Gigabyte's general Computex press release claims the drive comes in an 8TB capacity, but the SSD's own info only lists 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB sizes. We'll ask Gigabyte for clarification.

Gigabyte didn't say when any of this stuff would be available, or for how much. Sorry to get you excited with no payoff. We reckon the majority of the motherboards will be available in early July, around the time the CPUs for them are out. As for the rest of the hardware, it's anybody's guess.

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• Last week, we lead our deals with a high-end graphics card, and today's the time for a modest offering to shine. The PowerColor Radeon RX 570 4 GB is probably the choice pixel-pusher for those with modest needs or modest budgets. This unit in particular has a generously sized heatsink with two fans atop and a 1250 MHz boost clock. The shroud has a red-on-black dragon motif that could signify House Targaryen. The asking price right now at Newegg is a scant $119.99 with the cart code EMCTAVD55. The folks at AMD also throw in The Division 2 Gold and World War Z for free.

• Keeping with the budget theme, here are the potential processor and motherboard to go with the card above. The Ryzen 5 1600 is a six-core, 12-thread Zen processor capable of hitting a 3.6 GHz boost speed. It might not be the latest-and-greatest model, but it's still pretty potent and more than good enough for for a modest machine. The chip comes with a cooler and arrives into town with the ASRock B450-HDV motherboard, a fine circuit slab with a PCIe x4 M.2 socket. This set of two will set you back only $139.98 at Newegg, or $45 off the regular total.

• An capacious hard drive is always a handy item to have, whether it's for backups or just for storing cheese pictures. One of the most popular drives is the Western Digital MyBook 6 TB external spinner, a simple USB 3.0 affair that comes with included backup software and hardware encryption. You can currently pick one up for $95.96 from Amazon.

• Now, it's time for compact and mobile systems. The Intel NUC (NUC8i7BEH1) has horsepower that far belies its diminutive dimensions. Inside sits a Core i7-8559U processor, a 28 W affair that packs four cores and eight threads with a 4.5 GHz turbo clock. The chip also includes Iris Plus 655 graphics silicon with 128 MB of eDRAM—a cut well above your standard IGP, and more than capable for light gaming in a pinch. Newegg's currently selling this machine for $484.99, and it'll throw in a Corsair 8 GB SO-DIMM, an item with a $37 value. We'd suggest grabbing the pack plus another one of those DIMMs for a dual-channel 16 GB setup, and you'll be golden.

• Over on the mobility aisle, you'll find the Lenovo Ideapad 530S 14" laptop. This well-built machine comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 2500U processor, a quad-core, eight-thread affair with a 3.6 GHz boost clock. Next to the chip sit 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB NVMe solid-state drive. The display is a 14" 1920×1080 affair, and the keyboard is backlit. You can pick this machine up for $424.99 from Rakuten with the checkout code SAVE15.

• The final bit of kit today is the ROG Strix Hero II gaming laptop (GL504GM-DS74). On the outside sits a 15.6" display with extra-thin bezels and a whopping 144 Hz refresh rate. To slap frames on the screen at that speed, the machine uses an Intel Core i7-8750H processor sitting next to 16 GB of RAM and a GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB graphics card. For storing your game collection, you get a 256 GB NVMe SSD and a 1 TB hard drive. The cooling system uses two fans, and the keyboard has RGB LED backlighting. The price tag reads just $1099.99 at Newegg with the promo code EMCTAVD32.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

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As part of its announcements yesterday, AMD proudly boasted that it had strong support from its partners for the launch of its third-generation Ryzen CPUs. Specifically, the company said that it had "over 50" new motherboards on the way. Well, Asus is certainly doing its part—the company is releasing no less than ten different boards bearing the X570 chipset. The Republic of Gamers is here with both high-end Strix boards and premium Crosshair models, there's a TUF gaming board, a couple of more mainstream Prime offerings, and finally a Pro WS platter.

ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Formula

I'm not going to go over every single board in excruciating detail; if you're after that, Asus has a four-page article just for you. Instead, I'm just going to hit the highlights. Fully eight of the ten boards are standard-sized ATX boards, while one ROG Strix model is mini-ITX size, and the Crosshair VIII Impact is built for Mini-DTX. Experienced gerbils will be familiar with the sacrifices you make as you move down the product stack.

ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero

The top-end Crosshair VIII Formula has the works: a trio of PCIe x16 slots, Aquantia 5G Ethernet, 802.11ax Wi-Fi… and liquid-cooling for its gloriously overbuilt sixteen-stage power delivery hardware. Just as it's nothing we haven't seen before on a top-end motherboard, it's also exactly what we expect from same. The Crosshair VIII Hero is much the same motherboard, just meant for air-cooling. Compared to the top-end Formula, the Hero loses the LiveDash OLED and metal backplate, while the 5G LAN takes a hike in favor of a 2.5G chip. Don't worry; both boards have an Intel GbE controller onboard as well.

ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Impact with SO-DIMM.2 card installed

ROG's Crosshair VIII Impact is a tiny little thing. For those unfamiliar, DTX is a form factor created by AMD that is essentially mini-ITX with room for two expansion slots. There's still only one PCIe slot on the Impact, but the extra height—which would be required for a powerful graphics card, anyway—allows Asus to pack more stuff on the board. Said stuff includes virtually everything that comes on the Crosshair VIII Hero. There's only two DIMM slots, of course, and the pair of M.2 sockets have to go on a daughter card that plugs into that curious SO-DIMM slot. Otherwise, all you really lose going from Hero to Impact is four SATA ports and a couple of USB ports.

ASUS ROG Strix X570-F

Moving over to the ROG Strix family, the Strix X570-E and Strix X570-F are once again nearly identical. The main difference in the two is that the X570-E comes with Realtek 2.5G Ethernet and an Intel GbE LAN chip as well as 802.11ax Wi-Fi, while the X570-F only sports the single Intel Ethernet controller. Otherwise, the X570-F downgrades some of its USB Type-A ports to "USB 3.2 Gen 1"—better known as USB 3.0. Given that both boards come with eight USB ports onboard and another seven for front-panel plug-ins, it's probably not a problem. Probably.

ASUS ROG Strix X570-I

If you're a purist who prefers your mini-ITX boards to have proper mini-ITX dimensions, then you'll be pleased by the ROG Strix X570-I Gaming. This board is exactly what any gerbil expects to see when they hear "ROG Strix mini-ITX motherboard." It has gobs of RGB LED lighting, fairly aggressive (active) VRM cooling, and a pair of M.2 sockets—without using a daughtercard. It comes with the same SupremeFX S1220A audio that the rest of the ROG boards use, and Asus even found space for a dedicated AIO pump power header.

ASUS TUF X570-PLUS (Wi-Fi)

As we get down into the lower echelons of Asus' X570 motherboard range, the boards become harder to differentiate. The TUF X570-PLUS comes in both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi-less versions. It trades out the SupremeFX audio solution for a simpler setup based around the same Realtek S1220A codec, and it doesn't have as many USB ports (7+6) as the more expensive boards. Otherwise, though, it's pretty similar to the other X570 boards Asus is launching, with its dual M.2 sockets wired up to PCIe 4.0 x4, eight SATA 6 Gbps ports, and thirteen USB ports (7 onboard, six front).

ASUS Prime X570-PRO

We reckon most gerbils will opt for something like the TUF board, or perhaps one of these Prime models. The Prime X570-PRO is actually a little fancier than the TUF model; it can run its PCIe x16 slots in x8/x8 mode. It also has a front-panel USB 3.2 Gen 2 (read: USB 3.1) port, and an extra fan header. This writer is using a similar board from Asus' Z370 series, and I'm pretty happy with it. The Prime X570-PRO gets Intel LAN once again, but the Prime X570-P steps down to a Realtek GbE chip, like its TUF cousin. In fact, that chip is apportioned almost identically to the TUF board, although it doesn't have the option of Wi-Fi nor any USB Type-C connectivity.

ASUS Pro WX 570-ACE

Finally, Asus is launching a workstation-oriented board for Zen 2. The Pro WS X570-ACE is a no-nonsense motherboard with a downright industrial-looking aesthetic. It supports ECC memory, includes a U.2 port, and it can send eight lanes of PCIe 4.0 to each of its three PCIe x16 slots. One of its M.2 sockets has to give up two of its lanes as a compromise, though. The Pro WS X570-ACE includes a Realtek 8117 chip that provides Gigabit Ethernet and out-of-band management capabilities. Asus makes much of the board's extra durability and reliability features, like its shielded Ethernet ports.

Asus isn't talking pricing or availability on any of these parts yet. Normally we'd make some glib quip about how they'll probably run from around $130 to $400 or so, but these are the very first motherboards we've written about designed for PCI Express 4.0. It will be interesting to see if building the boards around that new high-speed interconnect adds any additional cost to the construction, and if so, whether or not that premium gets passed on to the purchaser. 

The post Asus doles out 10 boards based on Ryzen’s X570 chipset appeared first on The Tech Report.

• Here's quite the shocking deal. RAM prices have been quite low of late, but what if we had a kit that's fast and capacious and cheap? Yep, it's the G.Skill Ripjaws V dual-channel 32 GB set with 3600 MT/s sticks. No, that's not a typo—these things really go that fast, and it's a total of thirty-two gigabytes. The timings are 19-20-20-40, and the price is (drumroll) only $159.99. As usual, G.Skill offers lifetime warranty coverage. Best hurry up and grab these before they're gone.

• It's the return of the combos. The AMD Ryzen 5 2600X processor is as balanced a mid-range chip as they come, packing six Zen+ cores and twelve threads, each capable of ticking away at up to 4.2 GHz. There's a Wraith Spire cooler in the box, and AMD throws The Division 2 Gold and World War Z as freebies. Meanwhile, the Gigabyte X470 Aorus Ultra Gaming is one fine Ryzen motherboard. It sports an Intel Ethernet controller, a souped-up Realtek ALC1220-VB audio codec, and two M.2 sockets, one of which sits underneath a heatsink. There's a decent amount of metal over the VRMs and onboard LED lighting for good measure. Newegg will throw both these bits of kit in a box for the amount of $244.98, or $70 off what they'd normally go for separately.

• There's an additional combo deal today. The Intel 660p 512 GB NVMe drive should be a stranger to no-one, thanks to its ubiquity in our deals posts. It can push 1500 MB/s in sequential reads and 1000 MB/s when writing. Its combo companion is the MSI Radeon RX 70 Armor 8 GB OC graphics card, a well-known pixel-pusher with a 1268 MHz core clock. The price for the entire combo is just $189.98, or a $36 savings compared to the regular total. However, Newegg also throws in a $20 mail-in rebate that could bring the endgame total to $169.98.

• Any self-respecting desktop these days needs a good power supply to get it going, like the Corsair TX850M. This unit has semi-modular cabling and an 80 Plus Gold efficiency rating. There's a 140-mm fan inside, and the 12 V rail can push 62 A. The price is $89.99 at Newegg with the promo code EMCTAUB28, and there's a $20 rebate card on tap.

• Our cheap SSD storage today is of a slightly different breed. Sabrent might not be a household name, but the company makes some pretty darn fast SSDs. The Sabrent Rocket family of NVMe drives can push up to 3450 MB/s in sequential reads and 3000 MB/s when writing. Right now, you can pick up the 512 GB drive for $65.99 from Amazon with the checkout code 12HFT7HA, the version with 1 TB of capacity for $133.65 with the code 153EBNHY, or the big honkin' 2 TB model for $269 if you input 13BDRYQA.

• The last item today is the Asus Vivobook 15" laptop (F505ZA-DH51). Contrary to most portables, this one is powered by an AMD chip: the quad-core, eight-thread Ryzen 5 2500U with Radeon Vega 8 integrated graphics. Next to this chip sit 8 GB of RAM along with a 256 GB SSD. The display has a resolution of 1920×1080, and the price is currently set at $499 at Amazon.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Bargain basement: 32 GB of 3600 MT/s RAM for $160 and much, much more appeared first on The Tech Report.

• Mid-range CPUs are usually where the best performance-per-dollar lies, as is the case with the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X. This chip is a long-time TR favorite, thanks to its accoutrement of eight Zen+ cores and 16 threads, each capable of ticking away up to 4.3 GHz. There's a rather-good RGB-LED-lit Wraith Prism cooler in the box, too. Meanwhile, the HP EX900 250 NVMe SSD is a fine entry-level PCI Express drive, capable of pushing up to 2100 MB/s in sequential reads and 1500 MB/s when writing. Newegg will hand you both pieces of kit for just $294.99. Just add the processor to your cart and the solid-state drive will follow.

• If you live on the Intel side of the border, you'll probably be interested in the spiffy Asus ROG Strix Z390-E motherboard. It covers pretty much all the bases for most any high-end LGA1151 build. You get USB 3.1 Gen2 ports in Type-A and Type-C flavors, two M.2 slots, an Intel I219-V Ethernet controller along with an Intel Wireless-AC 9560 chip for 2×2 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0, SLI and CrossFireX support, and a souped-up Realtek S1220A audio codec. Additional accoutrements include a built-in I/O shield, RGB LED lighting, and metal reinforcement around the main PCIe slots. Boards this nice are usually quite dear, but not today: $199.99 is all you need to take one home from Newegg so long as you apply the cart code EMCTYVB24.

• We usually post deals on regular-looking RAM sticks, but we have something today with a little more pizazz. The Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 16 GB kit of 3000 MT/s DIMMs are quite the lookers thanks to their diffused RGB LEDs and dark gray heatsinks. The timings are set to 16-20-20-38, and the price is just $99.99 at Newegg.

• 'Tis becoming the season again for capacious spinning storage. The Western Digital Elements 6 TB external drive is a simple-but-steady affair. It's got a USB 3.0 connection, subdued looks, and will set you back only $99.99 at Newegg with the cart code EMCTYVB36.

• The mobiles are up next. The Dell XPS 13 (xnita3ws607h) is one of the best laptops around, and the model we have on hand today is fitted with a colorful 1920×1080 display with 400 cd/m² maximum brightness, an Intel Core i5-8265U processor, 8 GB of RAM, and a 256 GB NVMe solid-state drive. Connectivity options include two Thunderbolt 3 connectors. The asking price is but $1019.99 at Rakuten with the checkout code Q52H-HMJJ-HMV9-K7PT.

• If you'd rather have a bigger machine packed to the gills with powerful hardware, then you'll want the Dell G15 5590 (GNvca5ch7043hmp). This machine packs an Intel Core i7-8750H processor, 8 GB of RAM, and a mighty Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 6 GB graphics card. That GPU can push out pixels at rather accelerated pace, and it'll go handy with the 1920×1080 display with 144 Hz refresh rate. Grab this machine for $1232.49 from Rakuten so long as you input the code Q52H-HMJJ-HMV9-K7PT during checkout.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Bargain basement: a Ryzen 7 2700X and a 250 GB NVMe SSD for $295 and more appeared first on The Tech Report.

A fair day, good gerbils. While I'd like to think that I have a decent enough moral compass, I've been considering the infliction of bodily harm these past couple days. You see, my apartment building is glued to the next one over, and someone over there is apparently doing some serious remodeling. Given that I work remotely with a multiple-hour timezone difference, I usually sleep over the morning. The hammers started at 08:00. I'm becoming angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. The only thing that soothes me right now is sweet PC hardware deals. Here's today's catch.

• Our leading item is one heck of a combo pack. The AMD Ryzen 2700X is one of the best mid-range CPU choices of the moment, thanks to its eight Zen+ cores and sixteen threads, each capable of hitting 4.3 GHz. The chip will go nicely into the Gigabyte GA-AX370-Gaming 3 mobo, a straightforward but capable affair with metal jackets around the main PCIe slots, an M.2 PCIe x4 slot, and a souped-up Realtek ALC1220 audio codec. The folks at Newegg will sell you both pieces for $319.98, or $75 off the regular total.

• You can link that awesome combo with this hyper combo for an ultra combo finish. The first item in this here pack is the Intel 660p 512 GB—probably the SSD of the moment, thanks to its combination of low price and good performance, capable of pushing 1500 MB/s in sequential reads and 1800 MB/s writing. That drive goes well with the G.Skill Aegis 16 GB kit with 3000 MT/s DIMMs, a no-frills set that just does its job. Newegg will box you both items for just $129.98, an amount that's $28 off the regular combined total and that would get you only the RAM kit just a few months back.

• That processor above is pretty nice, but if you want something with even more grunt, we have yet another combo deal that could also go with the SSD-and-RAM pack. The Intel Core i9-9900K is a top-shelf CPU that's nigh on the best gaming chip around, and it's also a productivity beast. After all, eight cores and sixteen threads of Coffee Lake clocked at up to a sky-high 5 GHz pack some serious punch. Since that processor needs as suitable home, the Asus ROG Strix Z390-E motherboard should fit the bill. It's got sizable heatsinks sitting next to an integrated I/O shield, two M.2 slots, a high-end S1220A audio codec, Intel-powered Ethernet and Wi-Fi, USB Type-A and Type-C ports, and, naturally, RGB LED lighting. Grab both these high-end pieces of kit for $684.98 from Newegg, or $100 off what they'd cost separately.

• How about an affordable gaming monitor that hits every note just right? The Acer ED242QR is a 24" display with a resolution of 1920×1080. That's as banal as banal comes, but there's more than meets the eye. The VA panel is curved and has a maximum refresh rate of 144 Hz. There's FreeSync adaptive refresh rate support on tap, and an input selection with DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort connectors. The price? A mere $149.99 at Newegg with the cart code EMCTYTA35. That's insane.

• Bigger is oftentimes better, and that may well be the case with the LG 34UC79-G display. It's a humoungous 34" display with a resolution of 2560×1080 and a 144 Hz refresh rate. As befits a good gaming monitor, there's FreeSync support on tap. As an added bonus, this display comes with a 1 ms motion blur reduction feature that'll certainly come in handy. The price is just $454.99 at Newegg.

• The final bit of kit today is a powerful one. The Seasonic Focus Plus 550 W power supply is a quality box o' watts. It's got fully modular cabling, semi-passive cooling, and enough connectors for most any rig. The efficiency rating is 80+ Gold, and the price is $74.99 at Newegg. That's not bad, but the trick here is the $25 rebate card that can bring the endgame total to just $49.99.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Bargain basement: a Ryzen 7 2700X and a mobo for $320 and much more appeared first on The Tech Report.

• Playing games or listening to music with poor-quality output devices is borderline torture. What you're looking for is something like the Corsair Gaming Void Pro RGB Wireless headset. This sleek-looking pair of cans has 50-mm neodymium drivers, Dolby Headphone 7.1 support, and a quality boom mic. Corsair says the battery should be good for 16 hours of wireless audio, and that you can get 40' away from your computer before your teammates realize you're not there. Newegg will sell you this set for $69.99 with the cart code EMCTYTV35. Sound good to you?

• Next up: a fine, affordable board for a Ryzen system. The Gigabyte B450 Aorus M is a solid offering with an M.2 slot with a heatsink on top, a an upgraded Realtek 8118 Ethernet controller, USB 3.1 Gen2 ports, and onboard RGB LED lighting. I've built a friend's system using this model, and it worked fine, which isn't something you can say about every board. Grab one for $74.99 from Newegg.

• Here's today's pack o' NAND, the Intel 660p 512 GB NVMe drive. This model is a common sight on our deals posts, as it's a fine NVMe desktop drive as they come. It should be good for 1500 MB/s sequential reads and 1000 MB/s writes. At the price it's at, there's no need to bother with SATA drives anymore: only $59.99 at Newegg with the cart code EMCTYTA22. Alternatively, you can get the Intel 660p 512 GB drive plus a G.Skill Aegis 8 GB DDR4 stick at 3000 MT/s for a total price of just $89.98.

• Here's today's rather large pack o' NAND, in the form of the HP EX920 1 TB NVMe solid-state drive. This fine PCI Express drive can push data at a rate of 3200 MB/s for reads and 1800 MB/s when writing. Its random I/O specs ring in at 350K IOPS for reads and 250K IOPS when inhaling data. Those specs scream "high-end," but the price is decidedly budget at only $140.24 at Rakuten with the checkout code KEY25.

• A day doesn't go by without a fast gaming laptop on sale, and the one on hand today is the Dell G7 15 7590. This is a decidedly high-end model, both in build quality and specs. Ticking away inside the chassis sits an Intel Core i7-8750H processor sitting pretty next to 16 B of RAM and a storage combo setup with  a 128-GB NVMe SSD plus a 1 TB hard drive. The star of the show, however, is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card—a rather beefy pixel-pusher for a laptop. The 15.6" IPS screen has a resolution of 1920×1080, and the generous port selection includes USB 3.1 Gen2 ports of multiple flavors, Ethernet, HDMI, and mini-DisplayPort connectors. Take this portable home for $1479.99 from Rakuten.

• Looking for a meaty RAM upgrade? Here's the G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB kit of 3000 MT/s DIMMs. There's not much to say about these, and that's just fine. The heatsinks are red, the timings are 16-18-18-38, and the price is a mere $149.99 at Newegg.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Bargain basement: a Corsair Void Pro RGB wireless headset for $70 and more appeared first on The Tech Report.

• The big-hitter deal of the day is the Intel 660p NVMe 2 TB solid-state drive. This is a workhorse drive fit for any general-purpose machine, and it can push 1800 MB/s on sequential reads and 1800 MB/s when writing. The random I/O figures are actually pretty decent at 220 K IOPS in either direction. You can slap this gumstick in your PC for just $199.99 from Newegg with the cart code EMCTYTV23.

• Might as well continue along the same lines, with the Crucial P1 TB NVMe drive. This offering is roughly in the same performance bracket as the drive above, and it can push 2000 MB/s in sequential reads and 1700 MB/s when writing. When it comes to random I/O, this model clocks in at 170K IOPS for random reads and 240K IOPS when writing. You can find this drive for the same exact price at two large e-tailers right now: $104.99 at the good ol' Newegg, and $104.99 from the folks at Amazon.

• Next up, a combo deal. The AMD Ryzen 7 2700 doesn't need a lot of introduction around these parts. It's got eight Zen+ cores, 16 threads, and each core can clock up to 4.1 GHz. Those are all good things, and that's 'nuff said. That chip will slot nicely into the MSI B450-A Pro motherboard. This simple-but-straightforward affair has a metal-jacketed main PCIe slot, an M.2 slot, and actual VRM heatsinks. Newegg is packaging up both items for $289.98, or $50 off the regular combined price.

• Here's one heck of a speedy display. The Asus ROG Swift PG258Q is a 25" display with a resolution of 1920×1080. So far so banal, but there are quite a few tricks up its sleeve. For starters the maximum brightness rating is 400 cd/m², and the refresh rate is a whopping 240 Hz. Finally, there's support for G-Sync adaptive refresh rate tech and a nitfy height-adjustable stand. Grab this monitor from Newegg for $489.99 with the cart code PG258QSALE.

• Moving on to the topic of potent portables, here's a hot model: the Dell G5 15" 5587 (fncwG5F703RPhMP) gaming laptop. This quality machine comes fitted with an Intel Core i7-8750H processor sitting next to a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB graphics card. There's 16 GB of RAM on tap, thankfully in a dual-channel configuration. A combo setup with a 128 GB NVMe drive and a 1 TB hard drive handles storage duties. The 15.6" display inside the lid has a resolution of 1920×1080. Rakuten asks but $887.49 for this laptop if you input the code DELL150 during the checkout process.

• Our second mobile machine today is similar to the one above, yet different. The Asus ROG Strix Hero II laptop we have on hand also has an Intel Core i7-8750H processor and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB graphics card, but most of the similarities stop right there. The RAM allotment is 8 GB, but there's a 256 GB NVMe solid-state drive. The hottest piece of kit, though, is the display: a 15.6" 1920×1080 with a 144-Hz refresh rate and a 3-ms response time, a fine fit for fantastic fast-paced gaming action. Walmart is selling this machine for $949.99 right now.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Bargain basement: an Intel 660p 2 TB NVMe drive for $200 and much more appeared first on The Tech Report.

• We're setting off today with a nice AMD combo deal. The Ryzen 5 2600 is one of the top choices for a mid-range CPU because it packs six Zen+ cores and twelve threads clocked at up to 3.9 GHz. It comes with a nice cooler in the box, too. Today, the chip is accompanied by an Asus Prime B450-Plus motherboard. Simple as this offering may be, it's got everything you need: USB ports in Type-A and Type-C flavors, an M.2 PCIe x4 slot, and a front-panel USB 3.1 connector. You can get both items from Newegg for the low price of $249.98, or $30 off the regular total.

• If you want a gigantic pack of RAM to go with the components above, then you'll like the G.Skill Ripjaws 32 GB kit with 3000 MT/s DIMMs. That's enough capacity for running a bunch of VMs at the same time, and the sticks will set you back just $159.99 at Newegg.

• Amazon's running a sale on a selection of HyperX gear. We're fans of the brand's wares ourselves. You'll want to click here for the full list, but highlights include the HyperX Cloud Flight wireless headset for $99.99; the HyperX Alloy FPS RGB full-size mechanical keyboard for $79.99; a HyperX Alloy FPS Pro tenkeyless keyboard for $49.99; and finally the fine HyperX Pulsefire FPS Pro mouse for just $39.99.

• The second part of this post pertains to pretty posh puissant portables. The first in line is the Apple MacBook Pro 13" (MPXQ2LL/A). This ultra portable has a gorgeous display capable of covering almost the entirety of the DCI-P3 color space and packs a seventh-gen Intel Core i5 CPU coupled with 8 GB of RAM and a 128 GB NVMe SSD. You get two Thunderbolt 3 ports for connecting peripherals. You can get this machine today for just $1099.99 from Best Buy.

• The next machine is the Lenovo Legion Y7000 (81LF0005US). This 15.6" beastie has great build quality and packs a mighty six-core Core i7-8750H processor that dances along with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB graphics card. The CPU sits next to 8 GB of RAM and a 256-GB SSD. The display is a 1920×1080 IPS unit, and the asking price is just $929.99 at Walmart.

• The third and final laptop today is the gorgeous Huawei Matebook X Pro (53010CAJ). The brand isn't usually talked about much, but hear us out on this one: First off, the 13.9" display has a resolution of 3000×2000, a contrast ratio of 1500:1, and a maximum brightness of 450 cd/m². The panel supports touch input and is covered with Gorilla Glass and surrounded by super thin bezels. (The screen-to-body ratio is a massive 91%). Inside the chassis, you'll find an Intel Core i7-8550U processor sitting next to 16 GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce MX150 graphics card, and a 512-GB SSD. The 57.4 Wh battery should be good for 12 hours of video playback, while peripheral connectivity comes by way of a USB Type-A port and a Thunderbolt 3-enabled Type-C connector. The whole contraption weighs just 2.9 lbs and is 14.6 mm thick. Rakuten will hand it to you for $1234.99 with checkout code HUA115.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: Not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Bargain basement: a Ryzen 5 2600 and an Asus Prime B450 Plus mobo for $250 and more appeared first on The Tech Report.

This is a micro-ATX Socket AM4 motherboard that takes second-generation Ryzen CPUs and up to 64GB of unbuffered ECC memory. It's based on AMD's X470 chipset just like your usual Socket AM4 overclocker boards, but it's a pretty far cry from something like ASRock's own X470 Taichi. Besides the official ECC memory support, this board also has an Aspeed AST2500 baseboard management chip that can handle IPMI and graphics duties.

The AST2500 has a Realtek-powered gigabit Ethernet connection all to its own, while the host system has access to a pair of Intel-powered GbE ports. Storage accommodations include eight 6 Gbps SATA connections and a pair of M.2 sockets, both of which supports PCIe drives, and one of which additionally hooks up to SATA.

External I/O is a bit of a weak point for the board; a VGA port, two USB 3.0 ports, the three RJ-45 connections, and an old-school serial port are all you get. There is at least a front-panel header for another pair of USB 3.0 ports. Given the extensive networking and management features available on this board, you'd presumably be using it over the network, so the lacking local I/O isn't cause for much concern.

ASRock doesn't actually provide a CPU support list, but the handy-dandy block diagram above (taken from the manual for the X470D4U) notes that the board supports CPUs rated for thermal design power of 105W. By our reckoning, that's everything on up to the Ryzen 7 2700X. In theory, this board should support the third-generation Ryzen CPUs when they launch later this year.

The post Remotely manage your Ryzen workstations with ASRock’s X470D4U appeared first on The Tech Report.

• The leading deal today is a tasty combo meal. The Ryzen 5 2400G is probably our favorite budget CPU of the moment thanks to its four Zen+ cores and eight threads ticking away at up to 3.9 GHz. The chip's Vega RX 11 integrated graphics are more than competent enough for some light gaming, too. The processor will slot nicely into the Gigabyte B450M DS3H motherboard. Modest it may be, this circuit slab still offers a PCIe M.2 slot, USB 3.1 Gen2 ports, hybrid fan headers, and support for RGB LED strips. Newegg will hand you both items in exchange for just $209.98. That's $25 off the regular combined total, and there's a $10 rebate card on tap to further sweeten the pot.

• Next up are some killer RAM and SSD deals. First up is the Sandisk SSD Plus 480-GB drive. This bit bucket can push sequential data at up to 535 MB/s when reading and 445 MB/s when writing. Sandisk offers a three-year warranty, and Newegg will sell you the drive for just $49.99 with the promo code EMCXTVVU3. If you need a bigger SATA drive, the familiar Adata SU650 960-GB SSD says hi. This drive's speed ratings are similar to the previous unit, and its asking price is just $84.99 at Rakuten with checkout code AD15. That works out to under 8.9 cents per gigabyte, folks.

• SATA drives are fine for modest usage or mass storage, but chances are you want to kick things up a notch with an NVMe unit. The HP EX920 512 GB is well-known around these parts, and it can push 3200 MB/s in sequential reads and 1800 MB/s when writing. As befits a nice NVMe drive, random I/O clocks in at 350K read IOPS and 250K write IOPS. You can have one of these from Newegg for $74.99 with cart code AFM2SSD22. Should you require more of that speedy storage, consider the Adata XPG SX8200 960 GB. This drive is roughly as fast as the HP, and it's going for just $144.49 at Rakuten with checkout code AD25.

• These days, cost isn't really an excuse to run a computer with a low amount of RAM. To prove that point, we present the Adata XPG Gammix D10 16-GB kit of 3000 MT/s DIMMs. They're fast, stylish, and will run you just $80.74 at Rakuten with the checkout code AD14. Those with a preference for capacity over speed might elect to go with the G.Skill Aegis 32-GB kit of 2400 MT/s sticks. That's going for just $149.99 at Newegg. Dang.

• The last entry today is chock full of goodies. The Dell G7 gaming laptop (I7588-7385BLK-PU) is one of the finer specimens of the breed, and the version we have here comes with an Intel Core i7-8750H processor (six cores, 12 threads!), 8 GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB Max-Q graphics card. All you need to take home this beastie from Best Buy is $899.99.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: Not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Bargain basement: a Ryzen 5 2400G with a Gigabyte mobo for $210 and more appeared first on The Tech Report.

• Our leading deal today is a rather simple one: an honest-to-goodness NVMe drive at SATA prices. The Intel 660p 512-GB PCIe drive comes fitted with 3D QLC NAND and is capable of pushing up to 1800 MB/s sequentially in reads or writes. The figures for random I/O are pretty nice for an affordable drive at 220 K IOPS in either direction. Newegg will hand you this tiny drive in its tiny box for just $67.99 with the promo code EMCTVUD29.

• Our second-hottest item is the Lenovo Yoga 920 fold-back convertible. This fetching high-end machine packs quite the wallop. It's got an Intel Core i7-8750U processor coupled with 16 GB of RAM and a 512-GB solid-state drive. Those specs are impressive already, but the best part is that the 14" touch display has a resolution of 3840×2160, just the ticket for high-DPI goodness. Finally, there's a Thunderbolt 3 port for good measure. Best Buy will let you have this beast of a portable for $1,154.99.

• That Intel SSD up above is also present in a sweet combo deal. The ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming 4 motherboard has a 10-phase power layout, USB 3.1 Gen2 ports in Type-A and Type-C flavors, and an Intel Ethernet controller. As for the Intel 660p 512-GB NVMe SSD, hey, just go back a couple paragraphs for the deets. Newegg will set you up with both items for the low price of $149.98, or $55 off the regular total. 

• It's rodent season in our deals posts, apparently. The species in store today is the Corsair M65 RGB Elite. This gaming mouse has an aluminum underside with a weight tuning system, a sniper button, Omron switches, a super-duper PMW3391 18,000-DPI optical sensor, and RGB LED lighting. It can be yours today for a measly $39.99 from Best Buy.

• If you're building a machine with one of today's power-hungry high-end CPUs, it's a good idea to invest in a nice liquid cooler like the Corsair Hydro H100i Pro 240-mm CLC. This unit comes with two ML120 magnetic-levitation fans and RGB LED lighting on its quiet pump. Newegg's selling this unit for $109.99, and there's a $20 rebate card available. Should you need to go bigger, the Corsair Hydro H115i Pro 360-mm variant is currently going for $124.99 at Newegg, and you can get $25 back with the included rebate card.

• There's nothing quite like an extra-sharp, high-DPI desktop, like that provided by the LG 27UK600-W monitor. This 27" IPS display has a resolution of 3840×2160 and a color gamut that should cover 99% of the sRGB space. There's FreeSync and HDR10 support on tap as well. As an added bonus, the bezels are quite thin. Grab one of these from Best Buy for just $349.99.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: Not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Tuesday deals: an Intel 660p 512-GB NVMe drive for $67 and much more appeared first on The Tech Report.

• It's safe to say that today is RAM day. The chip factories over in Taiwan must be working overtime, seeing as a lot of DIMM makers have discounted wares right now. Starting with the higher speed grade, we have the G.Skill Ripjaws V 16-GB kit at a honkin' fast 3600 MT/s. These should be a top choice for speedy rigs, and the asking price is just $111.99 from Newegg.

• If you need a set of memory sticks that's both capacious and fast, take a look at the Team T-Force Dark 32-GB kit clocked at 3200 MT/s. The heat spreaders are a little on the garish side, but hey, it's a whole thirty-two gigabytes of fast RAM for only $199.99 at Newegg. For folks whose primary keywords for joy are "big" and "cheap," there's the Team T-Force Vulcan 32-GB kit with 2400 MT/s DIMMs at a price of $159.99 at Newegg with the cart code EMCTVTY29.

• Adata has a couple interesting options, too. The first is the Adata XPG Gammix 16-GB set with 3000 MT/s DIMMs and sleek silver-colored heatsinks. This kit is going for only $84.99 at Rakuten with the checkout code AD15. If you've gone the RGB LED lighting route, then you'll want to take a slight detour and inspect the Adata XPG Spectrix 16-GB kit at 3000 MT/s that's clad in multicolor lights and goes for $93.49 at Rakuten with the checkout code AD16.

• Next up, a combo set with two pieces for an affordable-but-meaty rig. The Ryzen 5 2400G is our top choice for a budget CPU with competent integrated graphics thanks to its Vega 11 IGP and four Zen+ cores and eight threads clocked at up to 3.9 GHz. This chip will slot right into an Asus Prime B450M-A/CSM board that's got all the basics covered, including a PCIe x4 M.2 slot. Newegg will hand you both items for just $199.98, or $30 off the individual items' price.

• 'Tis the season for building, and graphics card choices are aplenty now. The top pick of the day is the Zotac GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB with GDDR5X memory. This card has an overbuilt two-fan cooler and a nominal boost clock of 1708 MHz that'll almost certainly climb higher in actual usage thanks to Pascal's smarts. You can pick it up for $199.99 at Newegg, and the e-tailer will bundle it with an HDMI-to-VGA adapter and a Fortnite gift card.

• We're perfecting proceedings with a pair of potent, powerful, pleasant portables. The first one is the Lenovo IdeaPad 720S. This 13.3" machine has a quality metal chassis, a 1920×1080 display, and a large trackpad. Inside, you'll find a Ryzen 5 2500U processor, 8 GB of RAM, and a 512-GB NVMe solid-state drive. The price tag on it at Rakuten reads a silly-low $624.99 if you use the checkout code LEN110. Dayum.

• Fold-over convertibles are quite handy, as is the case with the Lenovo Flex 5. This 15.6" machine has a 1920×1080 display which is a little on the low-res side, but it more than makes up for it with a big Core i7-8550U processor coupled with 16 GB of RAM and a 512-GB NVMe SSD. This all makes for one powerful convertible, and the best part is that all you need to take it home from Rakuten is $759.99 and the checkout code LEN140.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Tuesday deals: a 16-GB RAM kit at 3600 MT/s for $112 and much more appeared first on The Tech Report.

• There's rarely a deals post without cheap NAND storage, and today we have discounted Crucial MX500 500-GB SSDs. These are a familiar sight around these parts thanks to their unbeatable price-to-performance ratio, and we recommended them across most builds in our latest System Guide. These drives can push up to 560 MB/s on reads and 510 MB/s on writes, while random I/O clocks in at 95K IOPS on reads and 90K write IOPS. The price today is an absurdly low $55.09 at Newegg for the 500-GB version in an M.2 form factor with cart code EMCTUVY22, or $57.99 for the 2.5" drive. Amazon will also sell you the 500-GB MX500 for $57.99 in either M.2 stick or plain 2.5" box variants.

• Feast your eyes on these big tracts of RAM. The T-Force Vulcan 16-GB dual-channel kit with 3000 MT/s DIMMs is speedy, stealthy, and going for just $89.99 at Newegg. If you're into heavy-duty computing, then you might prefer the 32-GB G.Skill Ripjaws V dual-channel kit, also clocked at 3000 MT/s. The folks at Newegg will hand you one for $189.99.

• The Ryzen 5 2600 is one of the finest mid-range processors you can get your hands on, thanks to its six Zen+ cores, twelve threads, and 3.9 GHz boost speed. This chip should go in a nice home, like the ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac motherboard, a circuit slab that's chock full of goodies like two M.2 sockets, Type-C USB ports, Intel-powered gigabit Ethernet and 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and metal jackets around the main PCIe slots. Newegg will sell you both bits of kit for $254.98, or $45 off the regular combined price. That's not all, though: you also get a $25 mail-in rebate.

• If that ASRock board isn't quite your thing, maybe you'll want to check out the Asus ROG Strix B350-F Gaming, instead. This Ryzen-ready mobo has metal-reinforced main PCIe slots, an Intel Gigabit Ethernet controller, a fancy-pants Realtek S1220A audio codec, and onboard RGB LED lighting. Get it for $79.99 from Newegg with cart code EMCTUVY23.

• A couple days ago, we had a deal on an iPad Pro, and today there's another. The iPad Pro (2017) with 256 GB of storage and Wi-Fi connectivity is one of the finest, fanciest tablets you can get. Its wide-gamut display has a 120-Hz refresh rate, making for colorful and extra-smooth visuals. Inside, you'll find Apple's A10X Fusion SoC and 4 GB of RAM. Grab yours today for $549.99 from Best Buy.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: Not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Thursday deals: a 500-GB Crucial MX500 for $55 and more appeared first on The Tech Report.

• You could say that SSD deals are perhaps too common these days, but here's a particularly good one. The Adata XPG SX8200 NVMe SSD is a speedy little beast, capable of pushing 3200 MB/s on sequential reads and 1700 MB/s on writes. The random I/O also boasts some impressive figures: 310K random read IOPS and 280K IOPS for writes. You can pick up a 480-GB version of one of these today from Rakuten for $76.49 with the checkout code AD13, or a bigger 960-GB unit for $157.24 with code AD27. Get' em while they're hot, folks!

• "FreeSync" is the word on a lot of people's tongues these days, ever since Nvidia got off its proverbial high horse and embraced the technology, also known as VESA Adaptive Sync. Perhaps consequentially, we've seen a rash of discounted displays lately. The first one is the Acer XG270HU. This 27", 2560×1440 monitor uses a pretty nice TN panel and offers a 144-Hz refresh rate and FreeSync support—just the ticket for super-smooth gaming. The panel has extra-thin borders on three sides, and the price is just $299.99 at Newegg if you input the cart code EMCTUUD55. If you feel that 27" is a little too big, then do check out the Acer KG214P. It's got similar specs but measures 24" across and has a resolution of 1920×1080 and a ridiculously low price: only $149.99 at Newegg with the cart code EMCTUUD54.

• Speedy system memory's universally cheap these days, but even then, there are a few outliers like the G.Skill Ripjaws V 16-GB kit of 3000 MT/s sticks. They have 16-18-18-38 timings and cost just $94.99 at Newegg. If 3000 MT/s isn't quite enough speed, for a few bucks more you can pick up the G.Skill Sniper X 16-GB kit with 3600 MT/s DIMMs for $119.99, also at the 'egg. How's that for fast?

• If you're looking to make the fastest gaming machine out there, you're probably eyeing Intel's Core i9-9700K or Core i9-9900K processors. Either of those chips should go in a good home, like the Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master. It's chock full of goodies, including 2×2 Wave 2 802.11ac Wi-Fi, three M.2 sockets, a fancy-pants ESS Sabre 9118 DAC handling audio output, and copious RGB LED lighting. More importantly, the VRMs are top-notch and covered with functional heatsinks. Take this mobo home for $259.99 from Newegg and use the supplied rebate card to potentially get another $20 back.

• Here's the off-kilter item of the day: The mining craze died down, but it left an indelible mark in the PC hardware landscape. Not all of it is bad, though, because there seems to be a surplus of super-powered PSUs at low prices. The first such item is the Corsair HX1200 unit. Its honkin' big in both capacity and power, and it's got enough PCIe and SATA connectors to power your entire city block. It's certified 80 Plus Platinum for efficiency, and it's covered by a 10-year warranty. The price is (drum roll) just $119.99 at Newegg with the cart code EMCTUUD27, and there's a $20 rebate card available. Now would you kindly pick up your jaw off the floor and get to ordering? By the way, if you want an even fancier unit for not much more, the Corsair HX1200i variant with all sorts of nifty monitoring capabilities is currently going for $149.97, again with a $20 rebate card on hand.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: Not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Friday deals: A speedy 960-GB NVMe SSD for $157 and more appeared first on The Tech Report.

Where we’re at

In the previous instance of our System Guide, there was much rejoicing in the fact that solid-state drives and RAM prices had come down from the stratosphere down to attainable atmospheric levels. We’re more than happy to report that the trend has continued in the intervening months, and that both of those types of components can be had for prices that could comparatively be called “dirt-cheap,” particularly in the case of SSDs. Processors from the AMD team have also been quite aggressively priced lately, particularly in the up-to-$300 arena, making them good fodder for a handful of our builds.

In turn, these price drops mean one single thing: Every single one of our builds hits harder and is better, faster, and stronger at its appointed tasks than ever before. Generally speaking, the savings in SSDs and RAM let us pick higher-end gear pretty much across the board, and our sub-$2000 builds particularly benefit from that. Those with a need (or just a penchant) for high-end-desktop (HEDT) machines brimming with gobs of CPU cores and memory will find they too have quite a few options these days—maybe too many, even. Workstation aficionados currently have valid CPU choices from either camp, with chip prices ranging from roughly $500 up to $2000. That’s a wide price bracket, and within it lie a handful of performance tiers ranging from high-end to god-like.

A while back, we said that the time was nigh to be a PC builder again after the mercy killing of the cryptocurrency bubble, and presently, and indeed, here we are. However, the glass-half-empty folks might point out the valid complaint that the good times could be even better if graphics card pricing hadn’t more or less stagnated after the crypto fad died. AMD’s lack of competitive options in the high-end graphics arena has been a sore point for a while now, and it’s no coincidence that Nvidia’s recently released GeForce RTX cards come in at a pretty penny. Sure, the RTXes do deliver potent performance, but those expecting a newer generation of cards to double the price-to-performance ratio (or close enough) of the extant models were quite disappointed.

However, there’s no arguing the RTX cards’ pixel-pushing prowess. The 2000-series cards generally slot into our builds as direct upgrades to the outgoing models, meaning the RTX 2080 is roughly equivalent to yesteryear’s GTX 1080 Ti, the RTX 2070 generally matches a GTX 1080, and so on. The mighty RTX 2080 Ti, as you’d imagine, is in a new performance tier of its own—but it dang well should, as it currently commands a price of no less than around $1300. The just-released RTX 2060 presents particularly good value, though, seeing as it nips at the heels of the RTX 2070 above it. In addition, the new cards’ ray-tracing and deep-learning super-sampling (DLSS) smarts are rather impressive, though the number of released games with support for either tech is so far rather small. Having said that, ray-tracing makes for impressive visuals in Battlefield V, and DLSS can enable smooth 4K gameplay in Final Fantasy XV, so there’s no denying the technologies’ potential in future games.

Rules of engagement

The System Guide is our list of recommended parts for building a new PC. If you’ve never built a PC before and want to, that’s great. Just be sure to read through our guide to building a PC, or kick back and watch the handy video below, before proceeding.

In the following pages, we’ll discuss our picks for the critical components that make up a PC, including processors, motherboards, memory, graphics cards, storage, cases, and power supplies. We’ve picked parts and builds to fit budgets of all sizes, without compromising on quality or performance. We’re only considering new-in-box parts, too.

Our budget builds will get you up and running with solid components that won’t break the bank. Stepping up to our “sweet spot” builds gets you even more bang for your buck. At the high end, we’ve chosen parts that represent the pinnacle of performance, without falling into the trap of spending money for its own sake. Each part will have a link to a TR review where possible.

Although we include dedicated graphics cards in nearly all our selections with the assumption that the builder has an interest in gaming, that might not be the case. In that situation, it’s easy enough to remove the card from the components list or replace it with a low-end model for basic video outputs in builds whose CPU doesn’t include an integrated graphics processor. Intel builders will reliably get an IGP, while Ryzen owners need to bring their own graphics card, unless they’re using the Ryzen 3 2200G and Ryzen 5 2400G.

If you like this article, don’t miss the rest of our guide series: our how-to-build-a-PC guide, where we walk readers (and viewers) through the PC assembly process; our mobile staff picks, where we highlight our favorite devices for on-the-go computing; and our peripheral guide, where we pick the best monitors, mice, keyboards, and accessories to make your PC experience even better.

Sample builds: budget to mid-range

Here’s where the rubber meets the road. We have parts lists that span a range of budget options. We did our best effort to present balanced rigs at various price points, but the whole point of building a PC is that you can customize it as you see fit. Feel free to swap parts around as needed to fit your budget and performance needs.

Econobox

	Component	Price	Buy (prices may vary)
Processor	Ryzen 5 2400G	$154.99
Cooler	AMD Wraith Spire (included)	–
Motherboard	Gigabyte B450M DS3H	$72.99
Memory	G. Skill Ripjaws V 8 GB (2x4GB) DDR4-3200	$76.99
Graphics	Radeon Vega 11 IGP	–
Storage	Crucial MX500 500 GB	$67.99
Enclosure	Cooler Master N200	$44.56
PSU	Seasonic S12II 520 W	$46.71
Total		$464.23

The Econobox offers a stepping stone into the world of a balanced desktop PC. Last year’s arrival of AMD’s Vega-infused Ryzen APUs ensured that buyers perusing the low end of the CPU market are now spoiled for choice. Ryzen APUs include four Zen cores and a pretty competent IGP that can offer most of the performance of a low-end GeForce GT 1030. That’s a recipe for success if we ever saw one, and the choices for our most affordable build reflect that.

The Ryzen 5 2400G we have in this machine packs enough general-purpose processing punch to handily beat the Core i3-8100 in most day-to-day tasks, and its Vega graphics processor should handle light gaming with aplomb. Games like Minecraft, Rocket League, and Dota 2 as good examples of what you can expect to easily play on the Ryzen 5 2400G. Just don’t expect 1920×1080 gaming in AAA titles or too much graphical detail. The included AMD Wraith Spire cooler is plenty adequate for cooling this chip, and you can expect the fan atop it to be pretty quiet most of the time.

Although this build’s main components are roughly the same as in the previous System Guide, the drop in SSD pricing means we can upgrade the unit in this build to Crucial’s MX500 500-GB drive. Suffice to say that half a terabyte of sweet, speedy NAND storage on a budget machine was nothing but a pipe dream not that long ago. It’s always easy to add a hard drive if you need for more storage, too.

Econobox Gamer

	Component	Price	Buy (prices may vary)
Processor	Ryzen 5 2600	$164.99
Cooler	AMD Wraith Spire (included)	–
Motherboard	Gigabyte B450M DS3H	$72.99
Memory	G. Skill Ripjaws V 8 GB (2x4GB) DDR4-3200	$76.99
Graphics	Gigabyte RX 570 4 GB	$149.99
Storage	Crucial MX500 500 GB	$67.99
Enclosure	Cooler Master N200	$44.56
PSU	Seasonic S12II 520 W	$46.71
Total		$624.22

Here’s a take on the Econobox that’s still affordable but has a little added oomph to make it a bit more suitable for moderate gaming. The choice of CPU for this build is AMD’s Ryzen 5 2600. This chip’s price of late is just way too good to pass up, and we made it this build’s cornerstone. Its six cores and 12 threads make it by far the finest choice for both gaming and productivity in its price bracket.

Last time around, we went with Intel’s Core i3-8100 and a GeForce GT 1030, but the price shifts since then mean that it now makes more sense to spend a few bucks more to bring in Gigabyte’s RX 570 4 GB to play with our Ryzen 5 2600. This combo is more than capable of handling most heavy-hitting titles at 1920×1080 with high detail levels and smooth frame rates, and should acquit itself well enough at 2560×1440 on some games, so long as you don’t go overboard on the image quality settings. If you can swing an extra $50 or so, however, the Radeon RX 580 8 GB is a very worthwhile upgrade.

Much like with the standard Econobox, we went with 500 GB of SSD storage, which should be more than enough room for a meaty collection of games. We figure that this build in particular punches far above its weight class, and its $630-or-so price belies its capabilities for smooth, high visual-quality gaming at moderate resolutions. If you were looking for a modest machine that can leave consoles in the dust, this one is it.

Middle Ground

	Component	Price	Buy (prices may vary)
Processor	Ryzen 5 2600X	$219.99
Cooler	AMD Wraith Spire (included)	–
Motherboard	Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro WiFi	$119.99
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200	$129.99
Graphics	Sapphire Radeon Nitro+ RX 590 8 GB	$259.99
Storage	Crucial MX500 500 GB M.2	$67.99
	Seagate Barracuda 3 TB	$84.99
Enclosure	Fractal Design Define C	$86.99
PSU	Seasonic S12II 520 W	$46.71
Total		$1,016.64

If the Econobox Gamer above marks the first few steps into high-performance machines, then the Middle Ground is the proverbial jog. We picked out the AMD Ryzen 5 2600X, a fantastic all-rounder that’s more than suited to the task of feeding our Sapphire Radeon Nitro+ RX 590 8 GB graphics card. The combo is powerful enough for 60 FPS or better gaming at 1920×1080 with detail levels turned up. A number of AAA titles should also play easily at 2560×1440 with the visuals turned up on this box, too. As a bonus, the 2600X will prove equally competent at productivity tasks.

Given the affordable price of RAM these days, this build uses 16 GB, an amount that ensures smooth Windows sailing by letting the operating system (and some games) keep most of the data cached in memory. We picked out an appropriate mid-range mobo, the Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro Wifi. This board includes Intel-powered Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.2. It has a souped-up Realtek ALC1220-VB chip handling audio duties, and additional accoutrements include an integrated I/O shield and two M.2 PCIe x4 slots.

Over in the storage department, a Crucial MX500 500-GB SSD has more than enough room for a handful of top-tier games, and those that don’t fit can easily go in the Seagate Barracuda 7200-RPM 3-TB hard drive that we’ve paired with it. The Fractal Design Define C case is one of our top picks, and it’s rather compact considering it can handle ATX motherboards.

Sweet Spot

	Component	Price	Buy (prices may vary)
Processor	Ryzen 5 2700X	$304.79
Cooler	Noctua NH-U14S	$63.75
Motherboard	Gigabyte X470 Aorus Ultra Gaming	$119.99
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200	$129.99
Graphics	Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060	$369.99
Storage	Samsung 970 EVO 500 GB	$127.93
	Toshiba X300 4 TB	$118.95
Enclosure	Fractal Design Define C	$86.99
PSU	EVGA SuperNova 650 G3	$79.99
Total		$1,402.37

We called the Sweet Spot the build with the best value, and thanks to price shifts, the current version is better than it’s ever been. The major upgrades in the latest iteration are the Ryzen 7 2700X processor and the first appearance of the letters “RTX” in a build, in the form of the GeForce RTX 2060. The processor’s eight cores, 16 threads, and 4.3-GHz boost clock are a potent concoction, and the super-quiet Noctua NH-U14S cooler should let the chip run at its top speed bin more often than not.

The GeForce RTX 2060 is our current pick for this build’s price bracket. After some deliberation, we elected to go with it over the RTX 2070, seeing as the bigger card’s $500 price simply doesn’t have quite the same value appeal. This combination of CPU and graphics card ought to be good for smooth and fluid gameplay in the vast majority of titles at 2560×1440 with high detail levels. You can even probably partake in high refresh-rate (over 60 FPS) gaming at that resolution if you keep the image quality sliders in check, too. Those who want a little more graphics horsepower can spend the extra $150 for the RTX 2070. It’s not a bad choice by any stretch, and it does have 8 GB onboard for any gigantic texture packs.

Over in the storage section, we step up the SSD to Samsung’s 970 EVO NVMe unit, which is one of the fastest ones you can get under $150 with a capacity of 500 GB. A 4-TB hard drive stands ready to stash any data that doesn’t fit in that precious NAND space, and an 80 Plus Gold-rated EVGA SuperNova 650 G3 PSU caps off the build.

Sample builds: high-end and beyond

Whereas the builds on the previous page are particularly considerate of budget restrictions, the options in this section loosen the purse strings a bit to buy more performance. Even so, we’re not recommending any particular parts with big price tags just for the sake of having the best hardware around—well, save for the very last build, that is.

AMD and Intel both have widely expanded their ranges of high-end desktop and workstation CPUs, and there’s a veritable cornucopia of choices available for these types of machines. We’ve elected a few choices for our intended performance tiers, but we always encourage folks playing in this arena to check out our processor reviews for a full understanding of which chip best suits their specific usage patterns.

The Hybrid

	Component	Price	Buy (prices may vary)
Processor	Intel Core i9-9900K	$529.99
Cooler	Corsair H115i Pro RGB	$129.99
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Ultra	$239.99
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200	$129.99
Graphics	EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Black	$699.99
Storage	Samsung 970 EVO 500 GB	$127.93
	Toshiba X300 4 TB	$118.95
Enclosure	Fractal Design Define R6	$135.50
PSU	Corsair RM 850x	$119.99
Total		$2,232.32

The Hybrid is our take on a powerful machine that can be present in two universes at the same time—that is, high refresh-rate gaming and productivity. The title of the build and the concept are inspired by the performance of two of Intel’s ninth-generation CPUs, the Core i9-9900K and the Core i9-9700K. This is the best box for pitch-perfect high refresh-rate gaming at 2560×1440, where per-core performance and low memory latencies rule. Only gamers after a frame rate higher than 120 FPS need apply. 

Neither CPU is what you’d call affordable, but they’re best described as having next to no weak points in terms of performance. Both pieces of silicon deliver eight Coffee Lake Refresh cores and positively stratospheric clocks. We chose the the 9900K for this build because it rolls with a 5.0-GHz turbo and 16 threads, enabling it to trade punches with chips twice its price in productivity tasks, all while delivering the lowest frame times ever to grace the TR labs. It’s worth driving the point home that there’s no single weak spot in this CPU’s performance envelope—it’s just that balanced.

The 9700K is almost its equal in gaming. Its lack of Hyper Threading means it plays second fiddle to the bigger chip in productivity tasks, although it still lives in “holy Moore, this thing is fast” territory. It’s worth noting that if all you ever care about is extra-smooth gaming, then the Core i9-9700K is just about the perfect choice, and it slots right into this build.

We paired the processor with the mighty GeForce RTX 2080. That’s the rough equivalent of yesteryear’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, meaning you’ll get an extra fluid 2560×1440 experience and 60 FPS at 4K more often than not—particularly if the game you’re playing can make use of the RTX card’s DLSS smarts.

We also went with a Samsung 970 EVO NVMe SSD for a storage performance boost. Because this CPU runs a little toasty at stock speeds and can prove a bear to cool effectively when overclocked, we decided to go with the Corsair H115i Pro RGBi closed-loop liquid cooler for this build. The accompanying Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Ultra motherboard has a beefy VRM adorned with heatpipes to support potential overclocking efforts, and Fractal Design’s Define R6 can handle these hot parts without a hitch thanks to its roomy interior and cooling accoutrements.

Serious Business

The build above is strong enough for most tasks, but if you’re doing really heavy duty work that requires lots of cores and threads or ECC RAM, you’ll want to step up to one of the following machines. Fair warning, though: From this point onward, if you’re wondering why you’d need so many cores, let it be clear that these builds are not for you. Only the most power-hungry need apply, and that means people who will be doing 3D rendering, CAD, lots of compiling, and so on. Those people that will, in fact, work on those tasks are probably frothing at the mouth already, calculating their ROI after buying such a machine… or both.

	Component	Price	Buy (prices may vary)
Processor	Threadripper 1950X	$589.99
Cooler	Fractal Design Celsius S36	$114.83
Motherboard	Aorus X399 Gaming 7	$367.63
Memory	G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32 GB (4×8 GB) DDR4-3200	$289.99
Graphics	EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Black	$699.99
Storage	Samsung 970 EVO 1 TB	$247.99
	Western Digital Red 4 TB	$124.99
	Western Digital Red 4 TB	$124.99
Enclosure	Fractal Design Define R6	$135.50
PSU	Corsair RM 850x	$119.99
Total		$2,803.91

Let’s say you want a workstation-class build with serious computing punch, but you don’t want to burn a grand on a CPU alone. Enter the Ryzen Threadripper 1950X. We gave it an Editor’s Choice award for its combination of sheer performance and unbridled platform capabilities, and although it’s technically been superseded by the 2950X, store prices for the older chip hover around $590 at the time of writing. The Threadripper 2950X might be faster, sure, but it also costs around $880, and the improvement over its predecessor doesn’t quite justify the price delta at this point in time.

Anyway, the humongous 1950X offers 16 cores and 32 threads clocked at a maximum of 4 GHz. That’s probably enough computing horsepower to run a small city, and yet here it sits under a single massive heat spreader. X399 motherboards can tap 64 lanes of PCIe 3.0 expansion direct from this CPU, too.

We’ve slapped 32 GB of fast quad-channel RAM into this system, and the Samsung 970 EVO 1 TB is now complemented by a pair of big honkin’ Western Digital Red 4 TB NAS drives. Those drives are pretty quiet but spin at 5400 RPM instead of the usual 7200 RPM. Should you care more about speed than noise, you’ll likely prefer HGST’s Deskstar NAS offerings. I own both types of drives, and I have nothing but good things to say about both. 

Fractal Design’s massive Celsius S36 closed-loop cooler, the amazing Fractal Design Define R6 case, a Corsair RM 850x power supply, and the nearly-world-beating EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Black top off this beastly build.

Really Serious Business

	Component	Price	Buy (prices may vary)
Processor	Core i9-9940X	$1,399.99
Cooler	Fractal Design Celsius S36	$114.83
Motherboard	Asus Prime X299 Deluxe-II	$499.99
Memory	G.Skill Trident Z RGB 64 GB (4×16 GB) DDR4-3200	$529.99
Graphics	EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Black	$699.99
Storage	Samsung 970 EVO 1 TB	$247.99
	Western Digital Red 6 TB	$194.99
	Western Digital Red 6 TB	$194.99
Enclosure	Fractal Design Define R6	$135.50
PSU	Corsair HX1200i	$149.97
Total		$4,168.23

For our next workstation tier, we elected to go with the Core i9-9940X. You’ve probably read about the big honcho Core i9-9980XE, and the basic description of the 9940X is that it’s fairly similar to its boss, save that it makes do with fewer cores and less cache. The main specs consist of 14 Skylake-X Refresh cores, 28 threads, a 4.4-GHz turbo, and a total of 19.25 MB of L3 cache. The performance profile of Skylake-X Refresh is that it’s consistent across pretty much all tasks. We went with the Core i9-9940X over the similarly priced Threadripper 2970WX for that exact reason in this build, although we’re glad to point out that it’s a fairly close call, and that 3D rendering pros might prefer the AMD chip.

The Editor’s Choice-winning Asus Prime X299-Deluxe II is as pitch-perfect an X299 board as you’re likely to find, too. It has particularly effective heatsinks sitting atop a heavy-duty VRM, as well as Thunderbolt 3 ports and 5-Gb Ethernet, among other niceties. The asking price is sizable, but so is the features list, and we think this board makes the best use of the 44 lanes of PCIe connectivity from the Core i9-9940X. We expect that professionals who need a machine of this caliber will use heavy-duty applications and large data sets, and that’s why there’s 64 GB of fast, quad-channel RAM on tap.

No Holds Barred

Where our previous few builds focus on the best bang for the buck, the No Holds Barred is not about that. It’s for the most demanding compute tasks around, whether those reside on the CPU or the graphics card. This system also gives power users a way to connect to every high-speed storage device or peripheral under the sun. From CPU to storage, this box is the most capable and cutting-edge desktop PC that we could make using enthusiast-friendly parts. If you want to knock yourself out with dual-socket server motherboards and other exotica, feel free, but this is meant to be our vision of the highest-performance enthusiast PC around, not something that needs its own rack to run.

	Component	Price	Buy (prices may vary)
Processor	Intel Core i9-9980XE	$1,999.99
Cooler	Corsair H150i Pro RGB	$159.99
Motherboard	Asus Prime X299 Deluxe-II	$499.99
Memory	G.Skill Trident Z RGB 64 GB (4×16 GB) DDR4-3200	$529.99
Graphics	Nvidia Titan RTX	$2,499.00	Nvidia shop
Storage	Intel Optane SSD 905P 960 GB	$1,204.00
	WD Red  8 TB hard drive	$249.99
	WD Red  8 TB hard drive	$249.99
Enclosure	Fractal Design Define R6	$135.50
PSU	Corsair HX1200i	$149.97
Total		$7,678.41

Ah, speak its name thrice, and it appears: The face-melting computing power in this build starts with Intel’s Core i9-9980XE. Underneath this chip’s heatspreader, there are 18 Skylake-X Refresh cores and 36 threads ticking away at up to 4.4 GHz. It’s a fitting centerpiece for this build. Whereas before we would probably stop short of using the highest-end processor in the lineup, we’re fairly comfortable with that choice this time around because the Core i9-9980XE actually presents a decent value proposition, provided you can make use of its potential. And if you can’t, well, this really isn’t the build for you.

For GPU computing workloads like deep-learning training, there simply isn’t a more powerful platform than Nvidia’s Titan RTX and its fully-enabled Turing TU102 GPU. This beast of a compute accelerator offers 576 tensor cores and has a nifty trick up its proverbial sleeve: full-rate FP32 accumulation operations. Coupled with a gigantic 24-GB chunk GDDR6 at 14 GT/s, this card probably makes deep-learning and HPC folks drool copiously. Sure, the card goes for two grand and then some, but just like with the processor in this build, the ROI should actually be decent if you can put all that silicon to work.

Just in case you’re building a gaming PC and you’re eyeing this build, let us stop you right there. The Titan RTX is a poor value for gaming, and the No Holds Barred is not a gaming PC. If you have more money than sense, though, carry on—you’ll find that the Titan RTX is nevertheless the highest-performing gaming card on the planet.

For primary storage, the No Holds Barred turns to Intel’s cutting-edge Optane SSD 905P 960-GB SSD. This PCIe add-in board and its healthy serving of 3D Xpoint NVRAM offer the lowest (and most consistent) access latencies around, and Optane’s insane QD1 performance means that even lightly threaded storage tasks will smoke like nothing else on this SSD. Not everything can fit into the Optane SSD 905P’s capacity, though, and if you have large data sets or need to keep monster video files handy for editing, you can rely on the twin Western Digital Red 8-TB drives.

Once again, we pair these ultra-rarefied components with Asus’s Prime X299 Deluxe-II. This mobo comes bursting with the goods like Thunderbolt 3 ports, Wi-Fi radios, gigabit Ethernet ports for networking connectivity, and much, much more. A 360-mm liquid cooler, 64 GB of fast RAM, and a high-quality case and PSU round out this monster desktop.

Operating system

If you’re building a gaming PC and need an operating system for it, we think you’ll be happiest with Windows. Windows 10 comes in a wide range of versions, but most builders reading this should choose the retail version of Windows 10 Home, which comes on a USB drive with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions for $120. It’s no longer kosher to purchase an OEM copy of Windows for your own PC to save a few bucks, and the retail version of Windows comes with a couple of perks like license transfer rights that the OEM version doesn’t. If you suspect that you might need some of the features in Windows 10 Pro, you should check out Microsoft’s comparison page for confirmation and purchase accordingly.

If you’re wondering about previous versions of Windows, they’re really long in the tooth now. The ill-informed might ascribe some sort of technical superiority to Windows 7 at this stage, but it’s hard to even install that aging OS on modern hardware. Furthermore, many manufacturers are dropping, or have dropped, driver support for older operating systems altogether. Last but perhaps most importantly, Windows 7 is a security dead end anyway because it has less than one year of support left.

What’s next

If you’ve been following the CES news, then you’re probably already aware that AMD’s prepping its third-generation Ryzen and Epyc processors. The Ryzen offerings in particular are likely to find their way into mass-market systems and therefore into our builds. Those with existing Ryzen systems can look forward for an upgrade, too, as the company says the new chips will fit right into existing Socket AM4 boards. The problem is, although rumors about AMD’s latest consumer CPUs have been floating for weeks now, the company says it expects them out in stores this summer. That could mean June as well as it could mean September, and the chips aren’t likely to arrive in time for the next System Guide. We wager they’ll fit right into some of our builds when they do, though.

Things aren’t quite so rosy for the Radeon Technologies Group. While the RX 500-series cards present a strong value proposition in the $100-$200 price bracket, gamers looking for performance beyond that of the RX 580 will be checking out Nvidia’s offerings instead. Radeon RX Vega cards have historically been a pretty hard sell versus the similarly priced competition, and the recent release of Nvidia’s RTX line coupled with the green team’s recently enabled support of FreeSync (also known as VESA Adaptive Sync) further complicate matters for AMD, seeing as suddenly there’s one less reason to grab a Radeon over a GeForce.

The red team recently fired a salvo in the form of the Radeon VII, but that card is coming in February. Its purported performance level, at least at a first glance, doesn’t set our hearts aflutter considering the $699 asking price. As always, though, we’ll reserve judgment once the reviews come in and store prices settle, and nothing would please us more than seeing refreshed competition in the high-end graphics arena.

Intel isn’t sitting idly by, though. Although there’s no shortage of internet doomsayers predicting the downfall of the blue team thanks to its troubles surrounding smaller fabrication processes, the reality is that Intel seems to be selling most every desktop chip it can produce, as evidenced by their stubbornly high prices. The company just announced another six 9th-gen processors, too, and Sunny Cove chips are set to arrive late this year, potentially packing an IPC boost and souped-up integrated graphics. All things considered, and as far as System Guides are concerned, Intel seems to be a fine enough position, even if we did pick Ryzen processors across our low-end and mid-range builds thanks to their aggressive pricing.

And on that note, it’s a wrap, folks. If one of our parts picks helped you solve a head-scratcher, or you’re cribbing one of our sample builds for your own use, please become a TR subscriber if you haven’t already. Be sure to purchase any of our picks using the links peppered throughout this guide, too. Your support helps us to continue the in-depth research and reviews that make guides like this one possible. Have fun building your new system—we’re sure it’ll turn out great.

The post The Tech Report System Guide: January 2019 edition appeared first on The Tech Report.

• We're leading today with a pixel pusher: the Asrock RX 570 Phantom Gaming X 8 GB. This unit packs a beefy heatsink sitting underneath a two-fan cooler. The whole contraption is about as long as the card's name, and the Radeon chip onboard should be able to hit 1331 MHz in OC mode, while the memory ought to go up to 7280 MT/s. There's no onboard RGB lighting or other frivolities, but we figure that's fine since the price tag is just $149.99 at Newegg Flash. Get one while stock lasts.

• You're doing yourself a disservice if you're still typing on an awful $10 membrane keyboard. Take a look at the Corsair K70 RGB MK.2 Low Profile Rapidfire keyboard instead. Although the retailer page says this clacker uses Cherry's MX Speed switches, our resident keyboard nerd Seth Colaner points out they're actually MX Low Profile Speed switches exclusive to Corsair, and that they have a high actuation point and short travel. The keyboard makes great use of per-key RGB LED lighting. There are dedicated media control keys and a volume roller, along with a USB pass-through port. You can read our full review here. Best Buy will hand you one of these for just $89.99.

• While we're on the topic of "things you shouldn't skimp on," let's turn our attention to power supplies. Remove your no-name unit that'll cause you grief, and instead put in something like the EVGA Supernova 650 G1+ PSU. This pack o' juice has fully modular cabling, semi-passive cooling with a 135-mm fan, and an 80 Plus Gold efficiency rating. Inside, you'll find Japanese capacitors, while outside there's a 10-year warranty. You can have this unit for a mere $64.99 from Newegg if you input the cart code EMCTUUA33.

• Gonna build up a Ryzen system? You'll want to take a look at the Gigabyte X470 Aorus Ultra Gaming motherboard. This circuit slab has metal-clad main PCIe slots, two M.2 sockets, a Realtek ALC1220-VB audio codec, and Intel-powered Ethernet connectivity. It's as fine a home as any for contemporary Ryzen CPUs, and at $119.99 at Newegg, it's definitely worth a look.

• We have a lot of components in this deals post, and it's time for RAM. The G.Skill Aegis 16-GB dual-channel kit with 3000 MT/s DIMMs is compact, speedy, and will run you only $92.99 at Newegg. 'Nuff said.

• The final piece today is a mighty one. If you're bored with underpowered laptops that will cough, hack, and sputter the moment they need to run anything heavier than Minesweeper, then check out the Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501. For starters, this 15.6" machine uses a 1920×1080 AHVA display with a whopping 144-Hz refresh rate and G-Sync support. That's only the start, though. Inside, there's an Intel Core i7-8750H processor fed by 16 GB of RAM and dancing along with a GeForce GTX 1080 Max-Q graphics card. Dang, son. A roomy 512-GB PCIe SSD rounds out the main specs. Additional niceties include a keyboard with RGB LED lighting, as well as 2×2 802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi. All you'll need to take this machine home from Newegg is $1899.99, and you get a code for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 for your trouble.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: Not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Tuesday deals: a Radeon RX 570 8 GB for $150 and much more appeared first on The Tech Report.

Yep, that's a little bitty desktop system with an A300-chipset Socket AM4 motherboard inside. The chassis is 6.1" square and 3.1" thick (155 x 155 x 80 mm). Obviously, there's no room in this case for a discrete graphics card, so you'll want to install a processor with graphics built in. Any graphics-equipped Socket AM4 processor rated for up to 65W TDP should work, whether it's a Bristol Ridge APU or a Zen-based Athlon or Ryzen chip. The board's two SO-DIMM slots will accept DDR4 memory running at up to 2933 MT/s.

You might expect such a miniature machine to have minimal storage capacity, but you actually get two M.2 sockets and two 2.5" drive bays in the A300. Both M.2 sockets support drives up to 80mm in length and offer four lanes of PCIe 3.0 connectivity. Meanwhile, the two 2.5" drive bays hook up to SATA 6 Gbps and support RAID 0 and 1 modes. ASRock notes that this little box could make for a killer home server or NAS with a low-power CPU, but we'd rather shove in a Ryzen 5 2400G and make a real console killer.

Display connections on the DeskMini A300 comprise an HDMI 2.0 port, a DisplayPort connection, and an old-school VGA port. Data connections consist of two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, a USB 2.0 Type-A port, a USB 3.0 Type-C port, and an Ethernet jack that connects to a Realtek controller. Analog plugs include 3.5mm microphone and headset connections, as well as the 12-V barrel plug to connect the (included) external power brick.

100×100 VESA mount for scale.

The standard package simply includes the chassis, the motherboard, and the power brick. There's actually a third M.2 socket specifically for a Wi-Fi card, and there are pop-outs in the case that you can remove to install two Wi-Fi antennas—all part of a Wi-Fi kit that ASRock sells. You can also add two more USB 2.0 ports and a rear-facing 3.5mm audio connection. If you'd prefer to get everything in one place, ASRock offers a low-profile CPU cooler for the chassis, as well as a VESA mounting kit so that you can attach it to the back of a display.

Unfortunately, the one thing ASRock didn't tell us is when you'll be able to buy the DeskMini A300—or for how much. We can at least guess at the latter, though. Similar Intel-based DeskMini systems go for around $170, so we'd expect the A300 to land somewhere around there when it hits store shelves.

The post ASRock’s DeskMini A300 brings Raven Ridge to STX appeared first on The Tech Report.

• We usually kick off deals posts with system components, but today there's a fantastic deal on a Dell G3 laptop. The variant on hand today is a doozy. You get a potent concoction of a Core i7-8750H processor, 8 GB of RAM (in a dual-channel setup, a rarity in laptops), and a bona fide GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB graphics card. For storage purposes, there's a combo setup with a 128-GB SSD and a 1-TB hard drive, and the display is an IPS unit with a resolution of 1920×1080. The price is (drumroll) a stupid-low $719.99 at Rakuten with the checkout code SAVE20.

• And now, back to our regular scheduled programming. The Gigabyte X470 Aorus Ultra Gaming is a dang fine home for a Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7 CPU. It's got metal-reinforced PCIE slots, generously sized heatsinks, two M.2 slots, and USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C and Type-A ports. Additionally, there's Intel-powered gigabit Ethernet and a Realtek ALC1220-VB audio codec. The asking price for this mobo is $119.99 at Newegg.

• Next up is the XFX Radeon RX 580 8 GB GTS Black Edition. This card has a long name and a dual-fan cooler, as well as a 1405-MHz boost clock in its OC+ mode. It's priced at only $189.99 at Newegg with the cart code EMCERRV34, and you get an AMD voucher for two games. You'll have to decide which is your least favorite game between The Division 2, Resident Evil 2, and Devil May Cry 5.

• If your usage pattern is in any way similar to mine, you can probably make use of the massive I/O throughput of a nice NVMe drive like the Samsung 970 Pro 512 GB. This super-speedy SSD has few equals in the consumer space, thanks to its 3500 MB/s sequential read and 2300 MB/s write speeds. Random I/O is a doubletake-inducing 500 K read IOPS and 300 K write IOPS, too. Grab the 512-GB 970 Pro for $151.96 from Rakuten, and be sure to input the checkout code SAVE20.

• The Dell laptop we posted above is fine and dandy, but you may be looking for a machine with a fast display, a little more oomph, and a massive battery. Enter the Gigabyte Aero 15W (v8-BK4). The star of the show is the 1920×1080 display with a 144-Hz refresh rate powered by a GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB card. The brains of the operation is the Core i7-8750H processor helped by 16 GB of RAM and a 512-GB SSD. The keyboard has RGB LED backlighting, and there's a Thunderbolt 3 connector on hand. The 94-Wh battery should be good for 10 hours of usage, and the price is currently set at $1549 at Newegg with the cart code EMCERRW28.

• The final item today is a simple one: a latest-gen Apple iPad with Wi-Fi connectivity and 32 GB of storage. The color is space gray, and the price is just $234.80 at Rakuten, once again with the checkout code SAVE20. That's one heck of a deal.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: Not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Thursday deals: a Dell G3 laptop with a GTX 1060 6 GB for $720 and more appeared first on The Tech Report.

Project Mu is based on the open-source TianoCore EDK II UEFI development environment. To simplify, it's a carefully structured set of tools and code for developers to roll their own UEFI implementations. The team originally tried to use TianoCore for its products, but found it was difficult to do so across multiple lineups. Microsoft says that Mu's development and build process is tuned for quick iteration, reusability, and ease of updates.

The company uses the term "FaaS" (Firmware as a Service) when discussing Mu, but what it boils down to is that anyone using it should be able to quickly create and update firmware thanks to a common core and a modern development process. Additionaly, Microsoft says that Mu's code organization should make it technically and legally easier to integrate with closed-source binaries or code with restrictive licenses. The company further notes that although Mu was originally targeted at Windows PCs, it should scale nicely up to servers or down to embedded devices.

Microsoft's Device Team says it uses Project Mu across several of its products, including the Surface lineup and Hyper-V. Mu's features include an on-screen keyboard, a lack of legacy code (that the team says reduces potential security issues), fast booting, and code tests and tools. The Surface Pro 4 I own is the fastest-booting Windows machine I've ever seen, so Microsoft may be onto something with regards to speed alone.

The project page offers a gloved-hand slap to manufacturers by noting that "for too long the industry has built products using a 'forking' model combined with copy/paste/rename" and remarking that such a poor process makes updates nearly impossible. The gerbil population at large has witnessed many a mobo firmware snafu over the years, and the ghost of Spectre past still haunts many an unpatched machine to this day, so that point is right on the money.

The curious and the daring developers can check out Project Mu's project page. Those eager to get thir hands dirty can check out the documentation or dive right into the code.

The post Microsoft’s Project Mu aims to ease UEFI creation and updates appeared first on The Tech Report.

Part of that is because Intel’s original vision for X299—an expandable, upgradeable platform that could host anything from four-core to 18-core chips—resulted in complex PCIe lane-routing choices and overburdened, undercooled power-delivery designs that didn’t seem able to stretch across that entire range without making compromises.

In the intervening year and change, AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper onslaught has made the notion of four cores on a high-end desktop platform quaint. The war is on to pack as many cores and PCIe lanes as possible into high-end motherboards, and the idea of putting mainstream desktop CPUs in high-end sockets is blessedly dead and gone. Asus has taken advantage of this opportunity to update its highest-end prosumer X299 board in the form of the Prime X299-Deluxe II.

In keeping with its Prime nameplate, the X299-Deluxe II starts out with broad swaths of white plastic shrouds, mirrored RGB LED diffusers, and brushed-aluminum accents scattered across its surface. This board has two features that immediately grab the eye, however: the real fin stack atop its primary VRM heatsink, and the sizable monochrome OLED screen mid-board that Asus calls a LiveDash.

Let’s start with that VRM first. The company calls this design a “12+2” phase setup. Compared to the eight-phase design of the original Prime X299-Deluxe, more phases sounds like a welcome improvement. The story isn’t quite that simple, though.

At the component level, Asus’ choices for the Deluxe II look solid. The company uses a proprietary Digi+ ASP1405 PWM controller (probably a relabeled International Rectifier 35201) hooked up to 12 International Rectifier 3555 integrated PowIRstages, each capable of handling up to 60 A of output current. The thing is, if the ASP1405 is in fact a rebranded IR35201, that controller would only support up to eight native phases, as we usually saw on past Asus X299 and X399 motherboards. So how does the company get to 12 phases in its marketing materials for the Prime X299-Deluxe II?

As far as I can tell, the board doesn’t actually have 12 phases. From looking at the PCB, the company has elected to double the number of power stages and inductors per phase on the Prime X299-Deluxe II without the use of PWM doublers—the components that allow motherboard makers to split out asynchronous signals from controllers that don’t actually have that many native phases. While this power-delivery subsystem might look like 12 separate phases on the motherboard, it actually seems to spread the work of getting power to the CPU across fewer phases than the wizened eight-phase design employed on many of the company’s past X99, X299, and X399 mobos, including the older Prime X299-Deluxe. It’s difficult to understand why Asus seems to be passing off this design as a 12+2-phase system in its marketing materials.

I asked Asus about some of the reasoning behind this board’s VRM design and received a wealth of commentary in return. The company notes that when designing VRMs for high-current-draw CPUs like the Core i9-9980XE, it believes the use of PWM doublers isn’t ideal, as those chips add propagation delay to the PWM signal from the controller and thereby make the VRM less responsive to large transient loads—something that’s no doubt worth worrying about in the case of chips with as many as 18 power-hungry, AVX-512-capable cores. The company acknowledges that creating more asynchronous phases by way of doublers improves the ripple-current characteristics of a VRM, but the company also notes that’s just one parameter in a broader set of design considerations.

Source: Asus

By doubling the number of power stages per phase rather than using doubler ICs to achieve more effective phases, Asus says it has improved the amount of current each individual phase can deliver and has made a board that’s better prepared for the transient loads of CPUs like the i9-9980XE. What’s more, Asus says it sees an industry trend of increasing CPU current draw as the primary force behind its VRM designs, and that approach apparently didn’t stop with X299 boards. The company is using this basic doubling-up-per-phase approach on some of its high-end Z390 boards, as well, and it’s led to controversy among members of the extreme-overclocking community and the wider PC enthusiast world.

Source: Asus

At the end of the day, what we care about most is that a given VRM remains cool enough to allow a system to run flat-out without throttling due to the temperatures of its power-delivery circuitry. Asus says that the vast majority of the heat from the VRM is generated by switching losses in the power stages, and so long as the PWM switching frequency is the same and the number of power-delivery components used in the VRM is the same, the temperature of the system should be the same regardless of whether the number of phases is expanded by doublers or whether two power stages are used per phase.

Source: Asus

In conclusion, the company says that it is “absolutely not the case” that it omitted phase doublers from its VRM design to cut costs, as some sources have proposed.

Despite what otherwise seems like a well-reasoned response, Asus told me it isn’t interested in talking about phase count on the Prime X299-Deluxe when it is, in fact, talking about phase count on its product page for the motherboard. If nothing else, buyers of $500 motherboards deserve consistency and honesty in communication. Overall, it seems to me the company would be better-served by making this “phase count isn’t the only thing that matters about a VRM” argument firsthand rather than pumping up numbers for the sake of keeping up with the Joneses.

Asus has lined up a good supporting cast for its VRM, in any case. Beyond the high-surface-area heatsink, the company uses a PCB with hefty two-ounce copper layers for better heat dissipation through the circuit board itself, as well as two eight-pin EPS connectors with solid pins to help handle more current and move more heat into that PCB—not an idle concern when an overclocked X299 system can pull 600 W or thereabouts from the wall for real-world CPU loads alone.

For builders who want to test the X299-Deluxe II outside of a system, Asus includes dedicated power and reset buttons, a POST code display, a clear-CMOS button, and a dedicated button for activating the handy USB BIOS Flashback feature. USB BIOS Flashback lets a user upgrade the board’s firmware with nothing more than a power supply and a thumb drive for new CPUs, and it can also be used to recover the BIOS in the event that one messes things up beyond repair—something I’ve had to do with the outgoing Prime X299-Deluxe a few times.

The Deluxe II also has a number of status LEDs in its top-right corner for at-a-glance troubleshooting without the decoder ring required to understand the POST code display. Hardcore overclockers or system-monitoring types won’t find any voltage read points, though. Those monitoring points will likely have to wait for Asus’ X299 refresh mojo to come to its ROG boards.

Since the Prime X299-Deluxe II is a standard ATX board, it’s no shock to see eight memory slots supporting two DIMMs per channel from LGA 2066 CPUs. The company says that the Deluxe II has the multipliers needed to run dizzying DDR4-4266 RAM, but whether refreshed X299 CPUs are up to the task of running RAM at those speeds remains to be seen. Still, all but the most demanding overclockers should find that the Prime’s memory overclocking options are up to the task.

Expansion, I/O, and audio

As a prosumer motherboard, the X299-Deluxe II bristles with connectivity options.

The fun starts on the back panel. From left, we get two USB 2.0 ports and a Gigabit Ethernet jack (in black), plus two USB 3.0 ports and a 5-Gbps Ethernet jack (in blue). That high-speed port is powered with an Aquantia NIC. Our pre-production X299-Deluxe II sample marks those USB 2.0 ports as 3.0-compliant, but don’t be misled by that minor printing error. Shipping X299-Deluxe IIs should carry the proper markings.

Unlike the original Prime X299-Deluxe and its discrete Thunderbolt 3 card, version two of this board integrates a dual-port Alpine Ridge controller directly onto the PCB. As a result, the Deluxe II has two Thunderbolt 3-capable USB Type-C ports on its back panel. To deliver the hook-up to single-cable Thunderbolt 3 monitors, the Deluxe II has a pair of DisplayPort inputs on its back panel, as well. Owners can use the included DisplayPort cables to hook up their graphics cards to the Deluxe II’s back panel and transfer those signals over Thunderbolt 3.

To the right of the Thunderbolt 3 ports, we get connectors for the integrated Intel Wireless-AC 9260 radio. This wireless card uses Intel’s latest tech to deliver 2×2 MIMO support, and it can use 160-MHz channel widths to pull down as much as 1.73 Gbps from compatible Wi-Fi access points.

To pump out the jams, Asus turns to the evergreen combo of a Realtek S1220 codec paired with premium components in the analog audio path. I don’t usually expect anything less than competence from motherboard audio these days, but the Prime X299-Deluxe II immediately concerned me with its absurdly bassy voicing. Modifying the EQ settings in Asus’ control panel didn’t do much to help this situation, either.

It turns out that Asus bundles and enables the DTS Headphone X surround-sound simulator by default with the X299-Deluxe II, and I’m really not impressed by it for traditional music listening. Once I disabled Headphone X, however, the Prime X299-Deluxe II provided a rich, balanced listening experience. I would happily use its onboard sound for day-to-day listening.

My one beef is that even without Headphone X enabled, the EQ settings in Asus’ control panel are quite weak, so users who want to do some fine-tuning won’t find much range to adjust their sound to taste. Still, the flat EQ voicing on this board is pleasant enough that I doubt many will take issue with it.

For those that do want to expand their systems with PCIe peripherals, the X299-Deluxe II has an assortment of slots to play with. The first physical PCIe x16 slot will always get 16 lanes of Gen 3 connectivity from an LGA 2066 CPU. The second physical x16 slot will also offer 16 lanes with 44-lane chips installed (read: all refreshed X299 parts. Hallelujah!). If you do install an older 28-lane part in this board, though, the second slot will only offer eight lanes of connectivity.

Install a 44-lane chip, and the third physical slot can deliver eight lanes of Gen 3 bandwidth at all times. Use a gelded 28-lane part, though, and the third slot will pull two chipset lanes away from SATA ports 5 and 6 on the board to run any expansion cards installed there.

The first PCIe 3.0 x1 slot shares its lanes with the controller for the front-panel USB 3.1 Gen 2 port, and Asus says it’s disabled by default for that reason. Given that this slot will likely be covered by any dual-slot graphics card one chooses to install on this board, I’m not going to cry over this loss. The second PCIe x1 slot shares its lanes with the SATA6G_7 port, so installing any PCIe device here will knock off that storage connector.

Even with that minor lane-sharing limitation, the X299-Deluxe II has plenty of ports and slots to feed the storage-hungry builder. The first M.2 22110 slot gets four lanes from 44-lane and 28-lane CPUs alike, and it can only accommodate NVMe devices. The second M.2 22110 slot, beneath the chipset heatsink, gets its four PCIe lanes from the X299 chipset, so it can run both NVMe and SATA gumsticks. Both of these slots have full-length heatsinks with thermal pads pre-applied. Asus deserves praise for keeping these slots largely out of the way of the jet blast from a builder’s primary graphics card, too.

The third M.2 slot on the X299-Deluxe II isn’t really a slot at all. Instead, it’s a vertical M.2 socket that puts any connected storage device directly in the case airflow path to prevent throttling. Asus includes a support bracket to ensure that any device installed here doesn’t pop out of the motherboard. Builders can only install NVMe storage devices in this slot.

For SATA storage, the Deluxe II offers eight hook-ups from the X299 chipset, although not all of them may be active at any given time. As we just noted, the SATA6G_7 port shares its flex I/O lanes with the second PCIe 3.0 x1 slot, and using a 28-lane CPU in this board will peel off the flex I/O lanes from SATA ports 5 and 6 for the third physical x16 slot. If a builder uses a 44-lane CPU and doesn’t install any PCIe devices in the second physical x1 slot, though, all of the Deluxe II’s SATA ports should be available at all times, and that’s a welcome deal for the storage-obsessed.

Firmware

We’ve long felt that Asus motherboards boast the most polished firmware interface in the industry, and the company apparently agrees. The design of the present Asus UEFI hasn’t changed much since its last major revamp around the 2014 introduction of the Intel 9-series chipset. That’s OK, however, since the Asus UEFI is a snap to use even for the novice and is crystal-clear about just what a tweak or set of tweaks will do to the hardware it controls. For more details of the company’s firmware, check out our overview of the UEFI on the Asus Z170-A.

For the most part, Asus makes the correct decisions about default settings in the Prime X299-Deluxe II’s firmware. Most critically, multi-core enhancement blessedly comes disabled by default on this board. Even turning on XMP and dismissing the accompanying message about turning on multi-core enhancement actually leaves it off—not a given with past Asus boards, in my experience.

My one complaint about Asus’ latest firmware isn’t related to the UEFI itself. Rather, I found myself surprised and a bit concerned by what happens when one starts up a system with this motherboard inside for the first time. You see, most of Asus’ most recent boards seem to use the Windows Platform Binary Table (of Lenovo Superfish infamy) to attempt to install a driver-and-utility-download app the first time Windows boots on a new Asus-powered system.

Asus calls this feature “Q-Installer,” and its portal for the utility claims that it’s a way for users to download drivers and software without the use of an optical disc drive or even a USB thumb drive. For the most part, Q-Installer appears to grab a mostly innocuous set of drivers and Asus utilities that a user might actually want, along with a couple free apps like Google Chrome and WinRAR.

The company is upfront about the fact that installing the entire slate of apps through Q-Installer includes those “special offers,” and it gives the user full control over what ultimately gets put on a PC. What’s more, running Q-Installer is not mandatory, and it can be dismissed forever by right-clicking on the icon that appears in the system tray and selecting “Exit and never remind me again” from the options menu that will appear.

While I think Asus has good intentions with Q-Installer and appreciate the fact that it takes some of the thought out of getting drivers and software for a new system build, seasoned DIY builders will likely have a moment of shock when they see the app’s icon pop up in their Windows system tray on first boot. I know I was taken aback by what appeared to be unwanted software rearing its head on my system.

I wish Asus allowed users to opt into or opt out of Q-Installer’s presence on the first boot of a new Windows install, but for now, folks who never want this board’s Windows PBT touching their installation will need to head into the firmware and disable Q-Installer under the “Tool” tab before installing or booting into Windows. That’s an arcane and easily-overlooked step for folks who aren’t already aware of this new wrinkle in Asus boards.

Fan control

We’ve long lauded Asus motherboards’ fan-control smarts, as well, and while Gigabyte has eclipsed its competitor in a couple areas, Asus’ air-traffic-control capabilities still come in at an infinitesimally close second.

Asus puts six PWM fan headers on the X299-Deluxe II itself. Each of those headers can automatically sense whether a connected fan needs DC or PWM control, and one is a high-current header for water pumps. If the board’s complement of fan-control hardware stopped there, we’d say it was a bit paltry, but the Prime X299-Deluxe II has a unique trick up its sleeve.

The included Fan Extension Card II hub puts another six PWM headers, three temperature sensor headers, and three 5050 RGB LED strip headers on a separate card that can attach to most any 2.5″ bay or sled. This card connects to the Prime X299-Deluxe II by way of Asus’ proprietary Node header, and it also requires an included six-pin PCIe cable for power. Once it’s connected to the board, though, the Fan Extension Card II behaves just like integrated fan headers or RGB LED strips would.

The Prime X299-Deluxe II’s firmware allows the builder to run an auto-calibration routine for any connected fans or to set fan speeds manually with the usual group of multi-point fan curves. Asus also includes a trio of pre-baked curves for each header if a builder doesn’t want to mess with setting their own.

Unlike what’s possible through Gigabyte’s excellent firmware fan control utility, though, Asus still hasn’t incorporated control of the temperature source for each header into the firmware. To get that degree of control, one has to install Windows software, and that may or may not be to a builder’s taste. Gigabyte’s fan controls still can’t run an auto-calibration routine from the UEFI, though, so neither company has decisively seized the firmware-fan-control crown.

Like Asus’ firmware itself, the Fan Xpert 4 utility hasn’t gotten a major overhaul in a long time. Again, though, Asus isn’t messing with what works. This Windows fan-control utility largely replicates the auto-calibration and fan-curve options available per header in the firmware, but it adds that ever-so-critical temperature-source-selection feature. 

Another nice perk of Fan Xpert 4 is the way it lets builders integrate the graphics card into their system-temperature-management scheme. Installing an Asus graphics card like the ROG Strix RTX 2070 we’ve been playing with in the TR labs of late lets builders use the GPU as a temperature input for any connected fan. That’s a welcome option for gamers, since the CPU might not be the primary indicator of system load when one fires up a graphics-intensive workload. With the Deluxe II, gamers can rest assured that they won’t end up in a situation where their graphics card cooler is screaming away while CPU-linked fans largely rest easy.

RGB LEDs and LiveDash

As a member of Asus’ Prime product family rather than the flashier ROG Strix or ROG Rampage product lines, the X299-Deluxe II keeps its built-in RGB LED complement to a restrained minimum.

One diffused RGB LED panel resides in the board’s I/O shield, and another runs through the chipset heatsink, where it’ll likely be covered up by any graphics card the owner ends up installing.

One flashy feature of this board that won’t be obscured by the graphics card is the LiveDash screen, a 2″-diagonal monochrome OLED that can display system information, one of several pre-installed animated images, or user-created static images or animation.

I didn’t have the time to teach myself the ins and outs of Photoshop’s GIF-creation capabilities to try out our own LiveDash animations, but I did get a chance to try some of the app’s pre-baked images and effects. Having the LiveDash screen cycle through system parameters could be handy in a windowed case, and the static images and animations are just plain fun.

LiveDash doesn’t make or break the X299 Deluxe II, but it certainly makes for a nice and distinctive cherry on top of the rest of the board’s features.

Along with the three headers on the Fan Extension Card II, the Prime-X299 Deluxe II can control up to five traditional 5050 RGB LED strips and another “digital,” or individually-addressable, strip using a dedicated header. Even if its onboard lighting exercises restraint, the Deluxe II is plenty ready to serve as the nerve center of an RGB LED-heavy build.

Asus’ Aura software runs the RGB LED show on this board. Overall, Aura has a clean and intuitive interface. The lighting-obsessed can choose among 12 prebaked effects, and most of those offer control over expected parameters like color and brightness. If global control over color isn’t enough, Aura exposes per-LED control for every diode on the board if you want to set up elaborate color schemes within those effects.

Aura does have a couple head-scratching omissions. A speed control isn’t available for every effect Aura runs, and even for the effects whose pace is configurable, the fastest speed option isn’t all that swift. There’s also no way to create even the most rudimentary custom effects through the utility, as one can (or at least could, until recently) create on Gigabyte boards. Asus does provide an SDK for Aura, but that doesn’t leave much middle ground between RGB LED novices and component makers trying to make their hardware play nice with Asus’ gear. RGB LED fans content to go with the flow will be fine with the options Aura offers, but the obsessive may find themselves wanting more control from the app.

Overclocking and VRM thermal performance

The biggest challenge for any X299 motherboard is in handling the potential power draw of an overclocked Skylake-X CPU. When such a chip is pulling 600 W from the wall for CPU workloads alone, you want the most rock-solid foundation you can get.

We started our overclocking efforts with Asus’ “5-Way Optimization” routine. This tool can automatically perform something resembling the iterative overclocking we would perform manually. The utility can be configured to perform a quick overclock or a more in-depth test. It also lets the user select sensitivity to errors, whether to include AVX workloads in the mix of stress testing, and how long they’d like each stress test to run. I turned some knobs and dials to create an in-depth test that would include AVX instructions in the mix.

Despite the wide range of options I was able to tweak ahead of the auto-tuning run, the utility seemed to ignore the stress test length I specified. Even as I asked the utility to run its stress test for 5 minutes, it only ran for a couple seconds before moving on to the next iteration. Asus’ auto-tuner also disables the CPU’s thermal limits by default “to allow for a higher overclock,” a choice I find extremely questionable. I wondered why my i9-9980XE was allowed to hit 110° C on some of its cores before throttling after my first run through this tool, as opposed to the more typical 105° C limit I’ve observed for Skylake-X CPUs.

The app didn’t have many iterations to run, in any case, because after starting out with an advertised 4.6-GHz overclock, it moved on to 4.7 GHz, promptly found errors, and restarted. Although the 4.6-GHz automatic overclock that Asus’ app advertised sounded impressive, it didn’t tell the whole story. In fact, the auto-overclocking tool pushed the two most favored cores on the chip to 4.6 GHz while leaving the others at 4.4 GHz. While that setup ran perfectly fine, it’s not at all the same as a 4.6-GHz all-core overclock. The final overclocking report could also be clearer about the fact that it’s displaying each core’s final ratio rather than the “n cores active” Turbo table. That confusion arises from the “14 cores active, 15 cores active, 16 cores active…” terminology that the utility uses.

Still, the auto-tuning routine got me within 100 MHz of our manual overclocking efforts for this chip, and the result was both thermally stable and Blender-stable. Builders who would rather not think too much about tuning their $2000 CPU can certainly leave it to Asus’ auto-OC logic to find a jumping-off point for further refinement, but I wouldn’t recommend running this app with its default settings if you do attempt to use it. Pressing the “Default” button in the TPU section of the app really does return most every overclocking setting on the board to its defaults, at least—a welcome touch for those who want a fresh start for manual overclocking, as I did.

From experience, I know that our Core i9-9980XE sample is good for a roughly 4.5-GHz stable overclock on all of its cores, so I went about setting up that tune in the firmware. The main challenge I faced was finding the adaptive voltage setting that would keep our chip stable, and that work is best performed with a guess-and-check approach. Asus’ adaptive voltage controls in firmware are clearly marked and make it easy to dial in an offset, however, so arriving at the ideal -0.035 V setting for this particular i9-9980XE on the Prime X299-Deluxe II required only the barest effort. I didn’t even have to dial in load-line calibration settings or other fine-tuning knobs to get our chip stable.

Although I did try and push our chip further for fun, 4.6 GHz on 18 cores is beyond the cooling capacity of our Corsair H110i GT cooler at voltages high enough to be stable. Still, the Prime X299-Deluxe II didn’t pose any limits on the way to that thermal wall, and that’s all we can really ask of a motherboard for casual overclocking efforts.

During the course of my manual overclocking exploits, I monitored the temperature of the VRM diode using HWiNFO64 and found that even under full Blender load, the Prime X299-Deluxe II’s power circuitry didn’t exceed 71° C. What’s more, the board didn’t have any active cooling to rely on while maintaining that temperature—just the limited-airflow environment of my test bench. I couldn’t run the original Prime X299-Deluxe under such conditions without a fan pointed directly at its skimpy VRM heatsink, so Asus has handily succeeded in solving one of the biggest issues that faced its first prosumer X299 halo board.

Conclusions

AMD’s Ryzen Threadrippers have sparked a pitched battle for high-end desktop superiority, and we’re all reaping the benefits of that competition. Not only has that batle made capable high-end desktop CPUs available for less money than ever, it’s forced both Intel and motherboard makers to hone the mission of the X299 platform. The Prime X299-Deluxe II is just one result of that sharpening, and even after dropping the 18-core i9-9980XE in this board’s socket, I came away from my testing hard-pressed to identify more than a couple flaws with this board. It largely provides the hassle-free, straightforward experience one should demand from a high-end desktop platform.

Builders will be surprised to see Asus take advantage of the infamous Windows Platform Binary Table to persistently try and install a software hub for managing its own drivers and utilities. We think Asus’ intentions are good here, but we doubt many DIYers will be comfortable with their motherboards pushing utilities into Windows by way of the firmware. This feature can be disabled before first boot in the UEFI, but we’d prefer it to be an opt-in at first boot to begin with. Asus also requires users to install its Windows utilities to take full advantage of this board’s considerable fan-control smarts, a demand that Gigabyte boards don’t make.

Those wrinkles aside, the Prime X299-Deluxe II smooths out most every deficiency of its predecessor. Integrated Thunderbolt 3 ports, onboard 5-Gb Ethernet, and a cooler-running VRM capped off by an effective, high-surface-area heatsink all come together to produce hardware that’s much better suited to the job of hosting 18 Skylake Server cores than the company’s first prosumer flagship for X299.

Although Asus’ firmware hasn’t received a major update in some time, the company’s control center doesn’t really need one to begin with. The company’s UEFI remains the most polished in the business, and I found the process of overclocking our Core i9-9980XE on this board to be swift and smooth, even without the use of Asus’ handy Windows software. Even in the low-airflow environment of our test bench, the board didn’t have any trouble keeping its power-delivery circuitry well under its thermal limits, either.

Unique, well-thought-out extras like a vertical M.2 slot and the Fan Extension Card II fan-and-lighting controller set the Prime X299-Deluxe II apart from the rest of the high-end motherboard pack, and the board’s white-and-silver cladding has just enough RGB LED accents to stand out in a modern build. While it might not be the most functional touch, the LiveDash OLED display amidships on this board offers a nice cherry on top for those who want to customize every last inch of their systems.

At a cool $500, the X299-Deluxe II is one of the most expensive high-end desktop motherboards around, period. If you’re shopping for a board in this price range, you likely need every bit per second of Thunderbolt 3 bandwidth, every expansion slot and storage port you can fill, every Hertz you can squeeze out of an overclocked CPU, or control over every fan and RGB LED strip you can add to a PC—or at least you ought to need those things.

Asus’ refinements have a way of cascading through the company’s product lineup, especially in the VRM department, so builders without truckloads of cash to burn may want to wait and see whether the company chooses to update some of its lesser X299 boards with similar power-delivery and VRM-cooling improvements. For those who want to take full advantage of a more focused and less restrictive X299 platform today, though, the Prime X299-Deluxe II is about as good as it gets, and I’m happy to call it a TR Editor’s Choice.

The post Asus’ Prime X299-Deluxe II motherboard reviewed appeared first on The Tech Report.

• Well dang, today is cheap NAND day. Prices for permanent transistor bit storage have fallen through the floor, and they're on track to reach the lower layers of the Earth's crust soon. The first drive on hand is the Adata SU800 2 TB. This drive is speedy enough for any purpose short of power-user work with its 560 MB/s sequential read and 520 MB/s write speeds. The price is a stupid-low $209.99 at Rakuten with the checkout code AD40.

• Next up, one of my personal favorites, the Crucial MX500. It's one of the finer SATA drives around, and it can push 560 MB/s on reads and 510 MB/s on writes. Solid random I/O is where this drive is at, though, at 95K IOPS for reads and 90K IOPS for writes. You can get one of these in 500 GB size for $61.74 at Newegg with the cart code SSDSAVE, or pick up the bigger 1-TB drive for $113.04, also with the SSDSAVE code.

• Following along to system components, how about a pretty nice case? The Corsair Carbide Spec-06 RGB is a roomy ATX enclosure with a tempered-glass side panel and RGB LED lighting on the front in a sleek and subdued style. The chassis come with two 120-mm fans and can take in radiators as long as 360 mm. Take this case home for $59.99 from Newegg with the cart code EMCERES32.

• It would be a faux pas to put an el-cheapo board inside that nice case. For a Socket AM4 build, you'd be well-served by the Asus ROG Strix X470-F Gaming. This pack o' slots offers up to M.2 slots, an integrated I/O shield, onboard RGB LED lighting, Intel-powered Gigabit Ethernet, and Realtek S1220A audio codec. Put this mobo in your system for $169.99 from Newegg if you use the cart code EMCERES26.

• We've always thought that the Surface Laptop was one of the best of its breed thanks to its combination of a sleek form factor, a gorgeous display, and a comfortable keyboard-and-trackpad combo. The price was always its sticking point, but not today. You can grab a first-gen Surface Laptop with a seventh-generation Core i5 CPU, 8 GB of RAM, and a 128-GB SSD for only $699 at Best Buy.

• Good sound is a bliss that unfortunately far too many people deprive themselves of. We can help. The Sennheiser HD 600 is a well-known set of open-back cans with much-lauded sound quality. It has a comfortable padded headband and a detachable cable that's handy for when you inevitably trip on it. The frequency response should go from gut-shaking lows at 12 Hz to dog-whistle territory at 39 KHz. The impedance is 300 Ω, so be sure to plug these into a contemporary mobo, sound card, or headphone amp. The price is $249 at Amazon, a far cry from the $300 or more these headphones usually command.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Thursday deals: a 2-TB SSD for $210, a 1-TB SSD for $113, and more appeared first on The Tech Report.

We could probably best describe this circuit slab by what it doesn't have, but here's the skinny. As I'm sure you've noticed from the pictures, the big centerpiece is the gigantic waterblock that looks like it covers most everything that's not a slot. Most importantly, the block covers the 12-phase Inernational Rectifier digital VRM that should suffice to overclock up any Coffee Lake chip to ungodly extremes.

Juicing up a CPU that way could require a ton of power, and there are extra dual eight-pin PCIe power plugs on the board for that purpose, plus another six-pin port. Speedy storage fanatics can put the three heastink-covered M.2 PCIe x4 slots to good use.

Wired networking comes courtesy of a 10-GbE Aquantia chip alongside a plain-jane Intel Gigabit Ethernet controller. If radio waves are more your thing, there's also 2×2 802.11ac Wi-Fi courtesy of Intel CNVi. High-end peripherals can connect to the two Thunderbolt 3-enabled USB Type-C ports, and there's also fast-charging support for quickly topping up mobile devices.

No self-respecting high-end mobo these days would be caught dead without a fancy audio setup, and the Xtreme Waterforce delivers on that front with an ESS Sabre DAC coupled with WIMA capacitors and TI op-amps. Needless to say, there are metal jackets around the PCIe and memory slots, and the multi-zone RGB LEDs also take care of lighting up the integrated I/O shield.

We couldn't spot a price tag for the Gigabyte Aorus Z390 Xtreme Waterforce just. Considering that the "regular" Z390 Aorus Xtreme goes for a double-take-inducing $550, we'd expect the Waterforce variant to ring in north of that.

The post Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce mobo simply does everything appeared first on The Tech Report.

First up, the company says there's a 17-phase VRM sitting underneath all those heat sinks. The spice flows into it from a pair of eight-pin EPS connectors. There are only two DIMM slots sitting atop the CPU socket, likely to keep trace lengths as short as possible for maximum overclocking stability. We can also spot what appears to be an extra six-pin PCIe power connector on the board's lower left edge for keeping multiple graphics cards happy in extreme OC setups.

There are onboard power, reset, and clear-CMOS buttons for when you inevitably push the CPU too hard, along with two individual alphanumeric displays that can show temperature and voltage info coming in from multiple sensors scattered around the board.

For storage handling purposes, there are a total of eight SATA ports (six from the chipset and two from an ASMedia controller), as well as two M.2 sockets sitting underneath the main PCIe slot. Additionally, you'll find a U.2 connector, likely as a nod towards Optane SSDs. Network connectivity comes by way of two Intel-powered Gigabit NICs and dual-band Wi-Fi (presumably 802.11ac), once again stemming from an Intel chip. EVGA also mentions an E-key M.2 slot, though we figure that's taken up by the Wi-Fi card.

Should you be insane enough to use this board as a daily driver, EVGA puts a whopping six USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports on the back panel. Four Type-A ports come from the Z390 chipset, while another Type-A port and Type-C port run off an ASMedia controller.

The Z390 Dark will let you flash its BIOS without a CPU installed, and there are three BIOS chips because we know that somewhere, somehow, someone will manage to make two of them unbootable. A Creative Sound Core3D audio chip handles sound waves, and eight fan headers should be enough to control your entire house's cooling system.

There's yet no telling when the EVGA Z390 Dark will arrive or how much it'll cost. We figure that the dollar amount likely falls in the "if you have to ask" category.

The post EVGA Z390 Dark gets ready to rocket up the OC leaderboards appeared first on The Tech Report.

The Prime X299-Deluxe II improves on its predecessor in several ways, including a beefier, better-fed and better-cooled VRM, faster wired connectivity options, and a pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports built right into the back panel.

For those who want to have some fun with their systems, the X299-Deluxe II has a massive LiveDash monochrome OLED screen mid-board. I've included an LGA 2066 CPU in this picture for scale—this really is a massive slice of active-matrix pixels. This mini-screen can display system stats or monochrome GIFs of the user's choice.

Take a gander at that VRM heatsink and its row of actual fins. We'll be sure to explore the performance of all those features in our full review, but for the moment, the second take on Asus' highest-end X299 board for prosumers looks promising from where we sit.

Asus also sent over an example of its ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2070 for us to put through the wringer. The RTX 2070 might be the most attainable Turing card so far, but Asus didn't hold back in giving this card the ROG treatment. A massive heatsink that seems to come from the company's outgoing GTX 1080 Ti should prove more than up to the task of cooling the TU106 GPU underneath, and it's topped off with a trio of fans and a muscular shroud with RGB LED light pipes peeking through.

Asus covers the back of the Strix RTX 2070 with a brushed-aluminum backplate that's punctuated by an RGB LED-backlit ROG logo. If that's not your thing, there's a dedicated off switch for the RGB LEDs located within easy reach to drop the card into stealth mode.

The mounting bracket for the Strix RTX 2070 comes coated in a matte black finish that won't clash with most cases on the market today. The overall look for this card is muted but menacing, and I'll be putting it through its paces as soon as humanly possible during this busy November.

The post In the lab: Asus’ Prime X299-Deluxe II mobo and ROG Strix RTX 2070 appeared first on The Tech Report.

• Our headlining deal today is the Samsung 970 EVO 500-GB NVMe solid-state drive. Samsung's NVMe drives don't really need an introduction since they can be very easily be described as frickin' fast. The model on hand can push 3400 MB/s doing sequential reads and 2300 MB/s on writes. Random I/O is the reason why you'd get a PCIe drive, though, and those figures ring in at a whopping 370K IOPS on reads and 450K IOPS while writing. Take this speedy gumstick home for $112.99 from Newegg with the promo code EMCXEEES2.

• If you're looking a bigger SSD instead, the Adata SU800 2 TB fits that bill just fine instead. It's popped up time and again in our deals posts as it's darn fast for a SATA drive (560 MB/s in sequential reads and 520 MB/s when writing) and is often deeply discounted. Today's price is $221 at Rakuten with the checkout code AD39. That's just 11 cents a gigabyte, folks.

• Memory's another item with ever-sinking prices, meaning the time is ripe for that new build or upgrade. We have a selection of G.Skill offerings today, starting with the Aegis 16-GB dual-channel kit of 3000 MT/s DIMMs. This set is simple, fast, and goes for a mere $104.99 at Newegg. If that speed grade isn't enough for you, go ahead and grab the Ripjaws V 16-GB set of 3600 MT/s sticks for not much more at $119.99. Finally, should capacity matter more than speed, the Ripjaws V 32-GB dual-channel kit clocked at 2400 MT/s is currently sitting pretty at $219.99. 

• How does eight Zen cores and sixteen threads sound? That's what's in the AMD Ryzen 1700X processor. Those cores can hit speeds as high as 3.8 GHz, too. You can take one of these chips home for a mere $149.99 from Newegg.

• In the event that you're looking for a competent budget rig, you'd be hard-pressed to find better than this combo deal we have here. The Intel Core i3-8100 is an evergreen budget processor thanks to its Coffee Lake four cores ticking away at up to 3.6 GHz. That chip's accompanied by the MSI B360M Gaming Plus, a few-frills board that has everything you need and even a couple bonuses like Intel-powered Ethernet, a USB Type-C port, and a metal jacket around the main PCIe slot. Take both items home from Newegg for just $169.98 (or $40 off the regular price), and you can use the included mail-in rebate to get another $20 back.

• The final item today is the Antec P110 Luce enclosure. This chassis got a TR Editor's Choice award when we reviewed it thanks to a fantastic combination of well-though internals coupled with noise-cancelling features, plus a nice loadout of front-panel ports including an HDMI output. The enclosure is selling for $84.99 at Newegg. That's a nice price on its own, but there's a $25 mail-in rebate on offer. Altogether, it's a heck of a deal.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Tuesday deals: a Samsung 970 EVO 500 GB for $113, cheap RAM, and more appeared first on The Tech Report.

To power eighth- and ninth-gen Core CPUs in the LGA 1151 socket, Gigabyte taps 12 Vishay SiC634 integrated power stages driven by an Intersil ISL69138 PWM controller. Gigabyte turns six phases from that PWM chip into 12 using Intersil's ISL6617A doublers. To keep this VRM cool in operation, Gigabyte uses a chunky metal heatsink with a direct-contact heat pipe running over all 12 of those power stages. Power input comes courtesy of an eight-pin-plus-four-pin EPS duo. A 2-oz copper PCB helps draw heat away from the exposed pads on the bottom of those power stages, too.

High-quality VRM aside, the real action on the Z390 Designare plays out on its rear I/O panel. This board has two Thunderbolt 3 ports with all the trimmings, including support for DisplayPort input to drive single-cable displays. Gigabyte also provides two USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, four USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports (two of which feature its DAC-Up adjustable voltage tech), two USB 2.0 ports, and a hybrid PS/2 keyboard-and-mouse port. Twin Gigabit Ethernet jacks and an integrated Intel Wireless-AC 9560 wireless radio round out those impressive connectivity options.

To support demanding storage configurations or multiple graphics cards, the Designare can split its CPU-driven PCIe lanes into a x8/x4/x4 config, allowing a high-performance graphics card and two PCIe 3.0 x4 SSDs to communicate directly with the CPU from three physical PCIe x16 slots. That connectivity comes on top of two M.2 slots with heatsinks, two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots, and six SATA ports. Demanding NVMe storage users will be pleased to find that at least one M.2 slot and its heatsink stand well clear of the primary PCIe slot to prevent throttling due to waste heat from a system's graphics card on this board.

We see little to take issue with from the Z390 Designare's loadout and layout on visual inspection, and that's a good thing given this board's $270 suggested price tag. Keep an eye out for the Z390 Designare on your favorite e-tailer's pages soon.

The post Gigabyte Z390 Designare offers pros a bevy of connectivity options appeared first on The Tech Report.

• Not everyone is in the market for a many-cored processor. And yet, here we are. The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X is a mighty beast with its 16 cores and 32 threads clocked at up to 4 GHz. This humongous chip got a TR Editor's Choice award back when we reviewed it, and with good reason. If you can make use of all the silicon in it, it's one heck of a deal today at $629.99 at Newegg with the cart code EMCEPSP56. 

• A Threadripper CPU requires a hefty cooling apparatus, and we're partial to using a quality closed-loop liquid cooler for that purpose. One such item is the Cooler Master MasterLiquid RGB 240-mm unit. This unit should be quiet, effective, and it's got individually-addressable LEDs on the fans and pump assembly for that ever-important bling. Amazon will sell you one for $88.99 when you apply the on-page coupon.

• If you're more into building a general purpose machine, we have a fine combo deal for that. The Intel Core i5-9600K is one heck of a speedy chip with its six Coffee Lake cores and 4.6-GHz turbo clocks. You can build a fine gaming machine with that chip and the ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI/ac motherboard. This mobo has Type-A and Type-C USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, Intel-powered 802.11ac Wi-Fi, 10-phase power delivery, and 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet. You can get a combo pack from Newegg that includes the Core i5-9600K, that ASRock mobo, an Intel 545s 256-GB SSD, and a game code for the latest Call of Duty game featuring Gimli holding a gun on the box, for the amount of $409.99 all told at Newegg. That's $148 off the regular price, and you even get a $10 rebate card to use.

• These days, nobody wants to be caught dead with a horrible, spudgy membrane keyboard. Instead, you want something like the HyperX Alloy FPS Pro clicker. This input device has Cherry MX Blue clicky switches, red backlighting, and the usual accoutrements of any contemporary keyboard like N-key rollover and anti-ghosting. As an added bonus, the cable is detachable, making it easy to replace if your pet chinchilla ever finds it more edible than usual. Take this keyboard home for $49.99 from Amazon.

• I'm pretty darn sure that you've been asked to troubleshoot spotty Wi-Fi coverage more than once, only to find that whatever crappy router the ISP installed would find a better purpose as a doorstop. To aid that ailment, you can use the Google Wi-Fi mesh networking kit that should ease the pain of covering an abode in juicy wireless signal. You can get a three-piece kit from Rakuten for just $209.99 with the checkout code HOME20. That price already beats that of many routers, but Rakuten will get you 15% of your total amount back as points towards a subsequent purchase.

• The final piece today is for a seriously tasty budget laptop. The Lenovo IdeaPad 330 (81DE00L0US) packs an Intel Core i5-8250U processor, 8 GB of memory, a 256-GB solid-state drive, and a 1920×1080 display. Those specs mostly scream "mid-range," but the price is decidedly low-end: only $519.99 at Newegg. 

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Thursday deals: a Ryzen Threadripper 1950X for $630 and more appeared first on The Tech Report.

To provide extra power to whatever expansion cards ultimately occupy those slots, Gigabyte includes a six-pin PCIe connector southwest of the CPU socket. To keep those switches (and the VRM) cool, Gigabyte uses a blend of heat pipes and finned heatsinks that worm their way through the top half of the board. Eight-phase International Rectifier power circuitry provides juice to whatever chip ends up in the LGA 2066 socket.

Cramming every inch of board space full of PCIe slots and heatsinks does involve some tradeoffs. The WU8 only has a single M.2 2280 slot for next-gen storage gumsticks, although it does offer eight SATA ports. We're sure you can find some extra PCIe lanes to plug in an M.2 riser card if you really need more NVMe storage devices. The WU8's back panel offers two USB 2.0 ports, six USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, and two USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports: one Type-A, the other a Type-C. Dual Intel Gigabit Ethernet ports handle wired networking, and Realtek ALC1220VB audio should provide serviceable sound quality for the discerning listener.

Gigabyte didn't provide pricing or availability info for this board, but two PEX switches don't come cheap. For those who need its unique capabilities, however, the X299-WU8 will likely be worth every penny.

The post Gigabyte X299-WU8 uses dual PEX switches to light up every slot appeared first on The Tech Report.

• We usually kick deals off with a system component of some sort, but we're doing things a little differently today. The Corsair Void Pro RGB is as nice a headset as they come, thanks to its 50-mm neodymium drivers and Dolby Headphone 7.1 surround sound virtualization. As the name implies, there's also RGB LED lighting included for good measure. Gerbil overlord Jeff Kampman has the wireless version of this headset and he has nothing but good things to say about it. Grab the Void Pro RGB for $54.99 from Newegg with the cart code EMCEPSP39.

• You didn't think we'd run deals without chips of some sort, right? The Ryzen 1700X might not be the latest model, but it still has eight Zen cores and sixteen threads clocked at up to 3.8 GHz. In this particular instance, that processor is accompanied by a Gigabyte GA-AX370 Gaming motherboard with metal-jacketed main PCIe slots, USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, and an ALC1220 audio codec. Newegg will box up both items for a total of $229.98, or $50 off the regular total.

• 4K monitors may bee the be the bee's knees, but not everyone can afford the necessary graphics cards to drive them properly. The Dell S2417DG is a 24" display with a resolution of 2560×1440, a whopping 165-Hz refresh rate, and support for G-Sync adaptive refresh rate technology. Although it uses a TN panel, it's one of the better-quality units and the 24" size should ease concerns about viewing angles. You can grab this display at Newegg for $309.99 with the cart code EMCEPSP22.

• Getting back to peripherals, how about a nice gaming mouse for just a handful of bucks? The HyperX Pulsefire FPS mouse is pretty light at 95g and comes with a Pixart 3310 sensor. Omron switches sit under six buttons, and the side grips should keep hands in place. The asking price is a mere $24.99 at Amazon. I'd grab one right away if I were you.

• We support clean power, as provided by a unit like the EVGA Supernova 1000 G1+. This kilowatt juice box has an 80 Plus Gold certification, semi-passive cooling, and so many PCIe and SATA cable outlets that I'm not even bothering to count. It should be good for powering any system short of triple-GPU madness, and it's going for just $89.99 at Newegg.

• Finally, some affordable speedy storage for your phone, tablet, or camera. We have a pair of tiny, fast, and capacious Sandisk SDXC microSD cards. The maker says they should be able to push data at up to 100 MB/s and are A1-rated for mobile application performance. They also come with SD adapters included. You can get a 200-GB Sandisk Ultra for $40.99 from Amazon, while the 256-GB model will run you $54.99.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Tuesday deals: a Corsair Void Pro RGB headset for $55 and more appeared first on The Tech Report.

• Today we're leading with a hefty pack of nice RAM, for a change. The G.Skill Ripjaws V 32-GB dual-channel kit clocked at 3600 MT/s should be capacious enough for most any task, and it's currently selling for $254.99 at Newegg. That's one pretty good deal, seeing as memory this fast would set you back north of $300 just shortly ago.

• The keyword for today is "big," and we're continuing our proceedings with the Micron 1100 2-TB solid-state drive. This unit is a familiar sight in our deals posts, with good reason. It can do 530 MB/s of sequential reads and 500 MB/s when writing, and the entirety of its two terabytes can be obtained for just $249.99 at Newegg Flash while stocks last. That's just 12.5 cents a gigabyte, folks.

• How about a quality monitor that checks pretty much all the spec boxes? The Dell Alienware AW3418DW is a massive 34" IPS display with a resolution of 3440×1440 and a 4-ms response time. There's G-Sync variable refresh rate support, and the included stand has height, tilt, and swivel adjustments. Additional niceties include RGB LED lighting, a USB hub, and thin bezels on three sides. Take this massive grid of pixels home for just $849.99 from Newegg.

• If you lust for a bigger-than-usual display but your wallet isn't that fat, check out the LG 29UB55-B. This 29" 2560×1080 display uses an IPS panel and has FreeSync support and a height-adjustable stand. At only $179.99 with the cart code EMCEPRU24 at Newegg, there's no reason not to get this over ye olde standard 24" or 25" monitor.

• You may be eyeing a new high-end Coffee Lake build, and one of the best mobos for that purpose is the Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 7-OP. You get proper massive heatsinks to keep the VRM cool, metal jackets around the DIMM and main PCIe slots, USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, Intel-powered Gigabit Ethernet, and enough RGB LED lighting to get a rave party going. The "OP" in the model means you get a bundled 32-GB Intel Optane Memory module that can offer a boost to your machine's responsiveness. Newegg will sell you the entire package for just $209.99 with the cart code EMCEPRU39.

• Up next, we have a quality rodent. The Razer Deathadder Chroma is one of the most well-known mice out there thanks to its no-nonsense shape, 10,000-DPI optical sensor and rubber side grips. You can get your hand on one of these for just $36.99 from Newegg Flash. Get'em while they're in stock.

• Lastly, we'd like to point out that Newegg's doing a 10%-off sale on a number of monitors. The cart code for this EMCEPRU58, and the selection of displays in question can be checked out here. Happy hunting!

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Thursday deals: a 32-GB kit of RAM at 3600 MT/s for $255 and more appeared first on The Tech Report.

We'll start right off with the overclocker-friendly features. Gigabyte says this board uses a 16-phase digital VRM with a "fins-array" heatsink. It's a bit ironic that having an actual heatsink with fins on your VRM is a feature, but a lot of modern mobos unadvisedly do without one. Like quite a few high-end boards these days, the Z390 Aorus Extreme feeds its CPU through a pair of eight-pin EPS connectors. Additionally, there's a six-pin PCIe power socket directly on the motherboard to drive heavily-overclocked graphics cards. Onboard power and reset buttons as well as diagnostic LEDs round out the overclocking hardware.

Even if you're not much of an overclocker, there's plenty else to like about the Z390 Aorus Extreme. It includes 10-Gigabit Ethernet courtesy of an Aquantia chip, along with a regular old Gigabit connection powered by an Intel controller. Intel silicon also drives the CNVi 2×2 802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi adapter. The board has three full-sized M-key M.2 sockets for NVMe SSDs, and two of them support 110-mm drives. If that doesn't satisfy you, how about dual Thunderbolt 3 connections and four USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports on the back panel? You can still hook up two additional USB 3.1 ports to the front panel, too, one Gen 2 Type-C and another a regular USB 3.1 Gen 1 port.

Gigabyte makes much of its audio setup on this board. Sound output is delivered by way of a Realtek ALC1220-VB codec and run through TI OPA1622 op-amps and ESS ES9018K2M DACs. As usual, there's support for 7.1 audio, and thankfully the TOSlink optical S/PDIF connector has hung around. You can still send audio over HDMI or regular old analog connectors too, of course. Finally, this board supports all of Gigabyte's signature features like DualBIOS and Q-Flash Plus.

The latest-and-greatest Aorus motherboard hasn't hit e-tail yet, but if you can't get enough of that glorious falcon logo, keep an eye on your favorite shops. We suspect it'll be around soon.

The post Gigabyte’s Z390 Aorus Extreme has everything and two sinks appeared first on The Tech Report.

• Today is SSD day, and we're going to sort the ones we have by speed. The Western Digital Blue 3D NAND 1-TB drive is the first in line. It's a SATA affair, to be sure, but it's one of the better examples of the breed thanks to its 560 MB/s sequential read and 530 MB/s write speed. The company offers five-year warranty coverage, and the drive will set you back $137.99 at Newegg with the cart code EMCEPEX27.

• Next up, the Adata XPG SX8200 960-GB NVMe drive. This unit is a fine specimen in its category and should be able to push 3200 MB/s in sequential reads and 1700 MB/s when writing. The random I/O figures of 310K IOPS for reads and 280K IOPS for writes are quite respectable, as well. You can have this SSD from Rakuten for $188.99 with the checkout code AD13.

• The third solid-state drive is the speediest—the Samsung 970 EVO 500 GB. There's very little introduction required here. This drive got a TR Recommended award, and the 500-GB version on hand is good for 3400 MB/s sequential reads and 2300 MB/s writes. This 970 EVO eats random I/O for breakfast at the rate of 370K read IOPS and a whopping 450K write IOPS. Newegg will let you have one of these high-end puppies for $132.99 with the cart code EMCEPEX25.

• Any contemporary desktop CPU can make good use of speedy RAM, like the G.Skill Ripjaws 16-GB set of 3200 MT/s DIMMs. The manufacturer's gear has been a long-time favorite of ours, and you can grab this kit today for a scant $124.99 from Newegg.

• Did you hear the news that the graphics card crisis is pretty much over? Here's the MSI Radeon RX 570 Armor OC 8 GB graphics card. You get wwo generously-sized fans sitting atop a meaty heatsink, a 1268-MHz boost clock, and a three-game AMD game pack that includes Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. The card's asking price is $189.99 at Newegg, and you get a rebate card that can get you $30 back. What's not to like?

• The final item today is a rather-spiffy Asus ROG Strix B450-F Gaming motherboard. This slab should prove a good home for any Ryzen CPU, and it comes with two M.2 sockets, USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, and metal reinforcement around the main PCIe slots. There's also Intel-powered Gigabit Ethernet, RGB LED lighting, souped-up audio with an S1220A codec, and a built-in I/O shield. This board usually costs significant cash, but today you can have it for $99.99 from Newegg with the cart code EMCEPEX48.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Thursday deals: a Samsung 970 EVO 500-GB SSD for $133 and more appeared first on The Tech Report.

Our first Z390 motherboard in the TR labs is Gigabyte's Z390 Aorus Master. This is the second-highest-end board in Gigabyte's Z390 lineup so far, and it's among the first boards to use Gigabyte's new naming scheme.

Unlike past Aorus boards that used a straightforward Gaming 3, Gaming 5, Gaming 7, or Gaming 9 nameplate (from lowest- to highest-end), the new naming hierarchy runs from "Elite" to "Pro" to "Ultra" and onward to the highest-end "Master" and "Xtreme" boards. Good luck remembering all that without the handy naming pyramid above.

The Aorus Master itself presents an RGB LED-friendly black-and-gray visage. Brushed-aluminum heatsinks for the VRM and M.2 slots contrast with mirrored elements on the chipset heatsink and audio-path cover.

While the VRM heatsinks of the Aorus Master may appear to have regressed to the form-over-function design we despise on first glance, it's worth looking again. Gigabyte has devised an inventive method for keeping the party going around the CPU socket while delivering function where the VRM heatsink needs it.

The company uses blocky brushed-aluminum bases with deep cut-outs to allow air to flow to real fin stacks bonded to the back edge of those bases. A single direct-contact heat pipe and high-conductivity thermal pads should prove effective in wicking heat away from the board's 12-phase International Rectifier PowIRStage power circuitry (achieved with six doubled phases) and into the fin stacks.

We've already seen how effective these heatsinks can be on recent Gigabyte boards, and I'm eager to see whether the company's new blend of style and surface area carries that torch forward.

The Aorus Master's back panel has integrated power and clear-CMOS buttons for quick shutdowns or restarts during overclocking. The antenna connectors for Intel's Wireless-AC 9560 companion RF module poke through the integrated I/O shield alongside four USB 2.0 ports from the Z390 chipset. Two USB 3.0 ports with Gigabyte's DAC-UP power control, three USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports, and a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C port offer higher-speed connectivity options. An Intel-powered Gigabit Ethernet jack sits next to analog audio connections for the Realtek ALC1220 codec, the signals of which get massaged by a premium ESS DAC.

Flipping the Z390 Aorus Master over reveals a protective backplate that's thermally coupled to the PCB with more pads behind the board's VRM circuitry. On top of that functional touch, the back plate makes the board easier to handle without touching sensitive pins or traces.

We'll be using the Z390 Aorus Master as we test out our Core i9-9900K over the coming days. If you're looking for one of the highest-end Z390 motherboards we've yet seen, you can order one of your own at Newegg for $289.99 right now.

The post In the lab: Gigabyte’s Z390 Aorus Master motherboard appeared first on The Tech Report.

The Prime X299-Deluxe II's improvements start at its VRM. This board now has a 12-phase getup for the CPU itself, and Asus caps it off with a heatsink that's just as much about function as it is about clean looks. The primary power-delivery heatsink has a strip of actual fins (!) bonded to its surface for better heat dissipation, and it appears to use a heat pipe and secondary heatsink to further increase the system's heat-removal capabilities.

The X299-Deluxe II also incorporates a pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports right into its back panel. Those ports sit next to a pair of DisplayPort 1.4 inputs so that builders with Thunderbolt 3 displays can send pixels over a single cable. On top of those do-it-all connectors, Asus includes six USB 3.0 ports and two Ethernet jacks—one an Aquantia-powered 5-GbE unit, the other an Intel-powered GbE jack. An Intel 802.11ac card with 2×2 MIMO support serves folks like me who don't have Ethernet runs in their offices.

Since refreshed Skylake-X CPUs no longer suffer from Intel's past practice of turning off PCIe lanes, the X299-Deluxe II's CPU-connected PCIe slots can provide x16/x16/x8 connections to as many as three graphics cards, storage expansion cards, or other accelerators. Three M.2 slots (two M.2 22110, one vertical) provide plenty of room for NVMe gumsticks, while eight SATA ports stand ready to connect 2.5" SSDs or plain old spinning media.

Asus bedecks the Prime X299-Deluxe II in plenty of blinkenlighting, including a massive "LiveDash" monochrome OLED amidships with a 2" diagonal. Builders can use this screen to monitor key temperatures, voltages, and clock rates, or they can show off animated GIFs of their choosing. RGB LEDs under the chipset heatsink and I/O shroud complete the package. Asus didn't provide pricing or availability info, but we'd expect this high-end board to demand a pretty penny when it hits e-tail shelves.

The post Asus Prime X299-Deluxe II gets ready to make the most of Core X appeared first on The Tech Report.

• Contrary to popular belief, you don't need the latest-and-greatest hardware to make a competent build. The Ryzen 5 1600 may be over a year old now, but its six Zen cores ticking away at up to 3.6 GHz still give any comparable modern CPU a run for its money. There's a quite-competent Wraith Spire cooler in the box, too. Grab this chip for $144.99 from Newegg with the promo code EMCEPEE22.

• Around the same amount, you can get your hands on the Western Digital Blue 3D NAND 1-TB solid-state drive. This builder-approved M.2 SATA stick can push 560 MB/s for sequential reads and 530 MB/s for writes, and WD says it can have around 500 terabytes written to it before it'll even think of bothering you. The asking price is $139.99 with the promo code EMCEPEE56 at Newegg.

• Need a good home for the CPU above? Try the Asus ROG Strix B350F. This board has metal-reinforced PCIe slots, onboard RGB LED lighting, and an Intel-powered Ethernet controller, and it'll set you back $89.99 at Newegg with the promo code EMCEPEE57.

• Cheap spinning storage is making a comeback, and the model on the catwalk today is the Western Digital MyBook 6-TB hard drive. This spinner comes with hardware encryption and backup software. Pick it up for $119.99 from Newegg with the promo code EMCEPEE77.

• All the talk is usually about fast processors and speedy graphics cards, but what about monitors? The AOpen 27HC1R is a 27" curved VA display with a resolution of 1920×1080. This monitor should be right at home when gaming thanks to its 144-Hz refresh rate and FreeSync support. Grab it from Newegg for just $219.99 with the promo code EMCEPEE39.

• If 27" isn't quite enough for you, how about 30"? That's the size of the Acer Predator Z1 (Z301C Tbmiphzx) display. This ultra-wide, curvy unit has a VA panel with a resolution of 2560×1080 and a 144-Hz refresh rate that Acer claims can go as fast as 200 Hz with some overclocking. There's G-Sync support on tap as well as built-in eye-tracking tech courtesy of Tobii. Put this monitor on your desk for $399.99 with the promo code EMCEPEE42.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Thursday deals: a Ryzen 5 1600 for $145 and more appeared first on The Tech Report.

This most immodest of motherboards has one of the busiest back panels I've ever seen. It comes with dual Intel-powered Gigabit Ethernet connections, as well as an Aquantia-driven 10-Gigabit Ethernet jack. If that's not enough networking for you, the board also includes 2×2 802.11ac Wi-Fi with MU-MIMO support. As you would expect from a high-end motherboard of this generation, the Z390 Taichi Ultimate has an extra CPU power connector, and it carries ASRock's "Hyper BCLK Engine II" to potentially assist in achieving the maximum possible CPU overclock.

The regular Z390 Taichi board is almost identical to its fancier sibling. It loses the Aquantia 10-Gigabit Ethernet connection, but it keeps both of the Intel-powered ports. It also loses the onboard power and reset buttons, though again, it retains the rear-panel CMOS-reset button. Other features that are shared by both boards include triple M.2 sockets, five USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, a total of six USB 3.0 ports, and both HDMI and DisplayPort video connections. These boards even have a PS/2 port for mice or keyboards.

ASRock has fully moved over to "Phantom Gaming" as its premium gaming brand after debuting the label with its family of Radeon graphics cards.  As the top-end board in the family, the Z390 Phantom Gaming 9 shares most of its design and features with the Z390 Taichi Ultimate. It has the triple LAN connections, although the Aquantia-powered jack in this model only goes to 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet. The Phantom Gaming 9 keeps the fancy MU-MIMO Wi-Fi, as well as the onboard diagnostic LEDs and buttons for power and reset.

The Z390 Phantom Gaming 6 drops down to dual Ethernet (like the Z390 Taichi), but it keeps the Aquantia 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet connection and instead drops one of the Intel NICs. In exchange, it picks up an old-school VGA port. It also drops the Wi-Fi connection, although the back panel has spots for antennae should you choose to add a radio later. This board has three M.2 sockets, one is an E-key connector for Wi-Fi cards. Since this mobo keeps the 8+4-pin CPU power accommodations and onboard diagnostic functions of its higher-end brothers, it could be a solid choice for a serious overclocker.

The Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI/ac and Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI are—as you probably expect—exactly the same motherboard with and without 802.11ac Wi-Fi. However, unlike the Z390 Phantom Gaming 6, there's no bracket for antennae on the standard "SLI" model's back panel. Aside from that difference, these boards are identical. They fall back to a single EPS CPU power connector and lose both the diagnostic LEDs and on-board buttons. They also drop down to a single Ethernet connection, but it remains a 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet jack powered by Aquantia.

ASRock is launching two Mini-ITX Z390 motherboards, and one of them is a Phantom Gaming model. The Z390 Phantom Gaming ITX/ac is probably exactly what you expect upon hearing the name. It has a single steel-reinforced PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, Intel-powered Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and a pair of M.2 sockets. Unusually, it also gets a Thunderbolt 3 port built-in. While there's not room onboard for diagnostic hardware, it does have a rear-panel CMOS reset button. There's a PS/2 port, too.

Finally, the most affordable member in the new Phantom Gaming family is the Z390 Phantom Gaming 4. This is a pretty basic ATX motherboard as far as it goes. The single network connection is an Intel-powered Gigabit Ethernet jack, and this board doesn't enjoy the luxurious ALC1220 audio codec that its cousins use. Instead, this board steps down to an ALC892 chip. It still has three M.2 sockets, though, one of which is an E-key for a Wi-Fi card.

We're not done yet. Outside of the Taichi and Phantom Gaming series, ASRock is launching four other motherboards. The Z390 Extreme4 focuses on functionality rather than flash and as a result it has eight SATA ports, three M.2 sockets, two USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, and four USB 3.0 ports. It only has a single Intel-powered Gigabit Ethernet connection, but we reckon that'll suffice for most users. Video outputs include VGA and HDMI alongside a DisplayPort connection, and there's a bracket for Wi-Fi antennae in the rear.

The Z390 Pro4 is a small step down from the Extreme4. It swaps the DisplayPort output for a DVI connection and loses some of the USB ports of its sibling. There's an ALC892 audio codec, though there's no optical audio output. Storage connectivity is still plentiful, though, with three M.2 sockets and six SATA ports.

The single microATX motherboard that ASRock is releasing is the Z390M Pro4. There aren't many surprises to be found here. Despite its smaller size, it keeps the same "triple-M.2 with one E-keyed slot for Wi-Fi cards" configuration as most of the rest of these boards. It also has four USB 3.0 ports and a pair of USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports.

Last but not least, ASRock is releasing the Z390M-ITX/ac. As you've already guessed, this is a Mini-ITX motherboard, but it's actually a bit more full-featured than the Phantom Gaming ITX model. The Z390M-ITX/ac has dual Gigabit Ethernet connections, six USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, built-in 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and a DisplayPort connection. It also has a pair of HDMI 1.4 ports. However, this board only has one M.2 socket.

Almost all of these boards are already available at Newegg and Amazon. The Z390 Taichi Ultimate tops the range at $300, although there's a $15 rebate right now. The Z390 Phantom Gaming 9 goes for $269 with the same rebate. The Z390 Taichi will run you $240 before the $15 rebate.

Moving down the range, the Z390 Phantom Gaming 6 goes for $196, the Z390 Phantom Gaming SLI/ac goes for $168, the Z390 Phantom Gaming 4 for $140, and the Z390 Phantom Gaming ITX/ac runs $190.

Outside of Phantom Gaming, the Z390 Extreme4 goes for $180, the Z390M-ITX/ac is $150, and the Z390 Pro4 and Z390M Pro4 both cost $135.

The post ASRock doles out twelve Z390 motherboards appeared first on The Tech Report.

The fanciest board on display today is of course the Maximus XI Extreme. The latest in the Maximus Extreme line is no less opulent than its forebears. This board offers dual eight-pin EPS connectors to fuel the CPU socket. Asus doesn't talk numbers when it comes to the phases in its CPU VRM, but given that this board has ProbeIt points (to let builders test voltage using a meter) and a special LN2 mode for extreme overclockers, we'd expect that its power-delivery circuitry is more than sufficient.

Even if you're not going for broke in benchmarks, the Maximus XI Extreme has a lot to offer. It'll take four M.2 drives and can talk to five USB 3.1 Gen 2 devices. It has an Intel-powered Gigabit Ethernet jack and an Aquantia chip providing 5-Gigabit Ethernet, as well as 2×2 802.11ac Wi-Fi onboard. You get a grand total of 16 headers for powering cooling hardware, plus three extra headers for thermal sensors. Some of those headers are naturally meant for liquid-cooling hardware. Finally, there's copious RGB LED lighting to go around in addition to a LiveDash OLED for displaying system status.

If you're really serious about cooling performance and less concerned about the extras, you could pick up the Maximus XI Formula. The main thing this board misses over the Extreme is the DIMM.2 module, which means it ends up with two fewer M.2 sockets. In exchange, it gains a coating of thermal armor and a built-in CrossChill III waterblock (designed by EK) on top of its power delivery hardware.

The Formula also misses out on the Aquantia 5G Ethernet controller, compared to the Extreme. However, the Maximus XI Code keeps it. The Code also comes with a regular old air-cooled heatsink on its VRM. Besides those two changes, this is more or less the same motherboard as the Maximus XI Formula, which is by no means a knock. Both of these boards have two RGB LED strip headers and two addressable RGB headers.

Don't be confused by the picture; that's a microATX motherboard, not a Mini-ITX model. As Asus points out, enthusiasts aren't really building multi-GPU machines any more. To that end, the Maximus XI Gene makes better use of its limited space by retaining more of the extra features its larger siblings have. That includes all four M.2 sockets and all five USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports of the Extreme, as well as ProbeIt points, onboard power and reset buttons, and more things that you don't see much on micro-ATX motherboards. It even has the dual EPS12V plugs and LN2 mode of its larger siblings.

The entry-level Maximus board is once again called the Hero. The Maximus XI Hero is very close in capability to the Maximus XI Code. The Wi-Fi adapter, standard on the other Maximus XI boards, is optional here. It also loses some of the visual finesse of its stablemates. Besides that, though, this board is pretty full-featured. You still get two CPU power connectors—though one's been downgraded to a four-pin deal—plus all of the on-board overclocker hardware like diagnostic LEDs, power, and reset buttons.

Asus ROG Strix Z390-E Gaming

Stepping out of the Maximus range, we of course have the RGB LED-heavy ROG Strix family. There are four boards here. The ROG Strix Z390-E, Z390-F, and Z390-H are all pretty similar ATX motherboards. The primary differences among these three boards are that the Strix Z390-E has Wi-Fi, while the other two don't. The Strix Z390-H also misses out on USB Type-C connectors. There are some visual differences, too, but those are the important changes.

Meanwhile, the Strix Z390-I Gaming is the sole Mini-ITX board Asus is delivering today. Given its nature, it can't help but shed some spiffy bits compared to its larger siblings, but it's got more than you might expect. It still has two M.2 sockets, and it includes 802.11ac Wi-Fi. It even has a USB 3.1 Gen 2 front-panel connector. Like the rest of the boards we've talked about so far, the Strix Z390-I uses Asus' SupremeFX S1220 for audio duties. There's even a pair of RGB LED headers: one for a light strip, and one for addressable RGB devices.

Asus TUF Z390-Plus Gaming

Three boards from the TUF Gaming line make up the next segment of Asus' lineup. The TUF Z390-Pro Gaming and TUF Z390-Plus Gaming boards are again pretty similar. The biggest functional difference in the two is that there is no Wi-Fi on the TUF Z390-Pro, while the TUF Z390-Plus can have it as an option. There's also the TUF Z390M-Pro Gaming, which is microATX-sized. It also can have Wi-Fi as an option, and unlike the Maximus XI Gene, it keeps the full allotment of four DIMM slots.

Selecting a consumer chipset like Z390 for a workstation board is a curious one, to be sure, but this isn't the first time we've seen Asus do this. The latest example, the WS Z390 Pro, is explicitly designed for folks who really need to use a whole bunch of graphics cards. It has four full-sized PCIe 3.0 x16 slots connected to a PLX switch that multiplexes their signals to the CPU. Asus says that the switch can pass communications between the cards directly, reducing overhead on the CPU itself. While there are "only" two M.2 sockets on the board, it also has a pair of U.2 ports for 2.5" NVMe drives.

Asus Prime Z390-A

Finally, there are three boards from the Prime family at the bottom of Asus' product stack. Don't take that to mean that they're low-quality, though. The Prime Z390-A is a close descendant of my own Prime Z370-A board. Like the last generation of Prime boards, the Z390-A has all the essentials: two M.2 sockets, Intel-powered Gigabit Ethernet, and four USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports—one a Type-C connector.

Asus Prime Z390M-Plus

The Prime Z390-P and microATX Prime Z390M-Plus are the boards in this set least likely to induce sticker shock. They're pretty basic motherboards compared to the rest of the new models, but then, that's the point. Neither board is going to set hearts alight, but we reckon they should suffice for most builds. Despite the entry-level nature of these boards, you still get a pair of M.2 sockets on both.

A few boards (like the Maximus XI Extreme) haven't shown up at e-tail yet, but the majority of Asus' new models are already available at Newegg and Amazon. The Maximus XI Formula goes for $450, the Maximus XI Code for $350, and the Maximus XI Hero for $290. The ROG Strix Z390-E Gaming will set you back $245, the Strix Z390-I Gaming will cost you $210, and the Strix Z390-H Gaming is $190. The TUF boards run $170 for the Z390-Pro or the Z390-Plus, or $180 for the Z390M-Pro. Finally, the Prime Z390-A is $190, and the Prime Z390-P is the most affordable at $150.

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Dedicated MSI fans are probably the only ones who will recall that MSI segments its gaming boards into "Enthusiast," "Performance," and "Arsenal" families. That's still true, but using full words is apparently way too old-school for MSI. Instead, the company has moved on to MEG, MPG, and MAG designations. In case it isn't obvious, I'll spell it out: those stand for MSI Enthusiast Gaming, MSI Performance Gaming, and MSI Arsenal Gaming.

MSI MEG Z390 Godlike

The pick of the litter this time around is the MEG Z390 Godlike. As you would expect from a board with such a grandiose name, this board has every conceivable feature MSI could have possibly stuck on it. A purported 18-phase VRM feeds the CPU socket, fed by dual EPS connectors. In fact, "Dual" might be the theme for this board. There's a pair each of USB 3.1 Gen 2 and USB 3.0 front-panel headers. A pair of Killer Gigabit Ethernet controllers can be teamed with the Killer 1550 Wi-Fi AC adapter. Likewise, audio duties are handled by dual Realtek ALC1220 chips. Those feed into an ESS DAC-plus-amplifier combo and out to a 1/4" headphone jack. 

In case three M.2 sockets isn't enough, the MEG Z390 Godlike includes an adapter to plug two more NVMe gumsticks into one of the board's four PCIe 3.0 x16 slots. An on-board OLED allows users to display custom graphics or view system settings in real time. Of course, the MEG Z390 Godlike has RGB LED lighting, but it also has an "infinity mirror" set up to give the illusion of a chasm lined with RGB LEDs over the power-delivery and I/O hardware. Finally, the MEG Z390 Godlike even includes an MSI Streaming Boost capture card.

MSI MEG Z390 Ace

If you want top performance but don't feel the need for divinity, you can step down to the MEG Z390 Ace. This is in large part a version of the MEG Z390 Godlike without all the extras. MSI shaved off most of the extra connectivity (like the 1/4" headphone jack and the second Ethernet connection), leaving us with a more typical high-end Intel motherboard. You still get three M.2 sockets, onboard 802.11ac Wi-Fi, a trio of metal-reinforced PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, and that fancy infinity mirror.

MSI's Performance Gaming series emphasizes visual style along with high performance, much like the supercars the company says it was inspired by. The MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon will come in AC and non-AC flavors. The primary difference is the presence or absence of Wi-Fi. They actually come with more RGB LED accents than the MEG boards do, but don't have quite as much high-end connectivity. Of course, these being Z390 motherboards, you're still going to have native USB 3.1 Gen 2 and a couple of M.2 sockets.

The MPG Z390 Gaming Edge series takes a hit in the flashiness department (compared to the Carbon series), but makes up for it in versatility. These boards come in ATX, Micro-ATX, and Mini-ITX forms. Whichever you choose, you get Intel-powered Ethernet and Wi-Fi, as well as dual M.2 sockets and onboard USB Type-C ports. That's to say nothing of the RGB LED accents on the edges of the boards.

Folks who favor durability over glitz are no doubt familiar with MSI's Arsenal series. Now dubbed "MAG," the family is gaining two new boards: the MAG Z390 Tomahawk and MAG Z390M Mortar. MSI didn't have much to say just yet about the Micro-ATX Mortar board, but the Z390 Tomahawk has an industrial- or military-inspired visual design along with an unusually-fancy feature set. That board includes dual Gigabit Ethernet connections, three M.2 sockets, and an integrated I/O shield.

MSI Z390-A Pro

Finally, MSI announced that at least one Z390-based motherboard is joining its Pro family: the Z390-A Pro. The Pro family of boards usually has no-nonsense models focused on utilitarian design. If you just absolutely loathe RGB LEDs, this will probably be the board you'll want to look at. It has an Intel-powered Gigabit Ethernet controller, a Realtek ALC892 audio codec, and a single M.2 slot.

MSI says all of these boards are available now, so keep an eye out for them at your favorite retailer.

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The company says its goal for the boards in its falcon-themed series was to let ninth-gen CPUs with unlocked multipliers achieve 5-GHz clock speeds "without any VRM concerns." Gigabyte goes on to say that the VRM setups in the lineup run 5-10° C cooler than those of its competitors, both with and without heatsinks. The higher-end Aorus boards have fin-stack heatsinks with heatpipes underneath and 1.5-mm-thick, high-conductivity thermal pads atop their VRMs. They also sport integrated I/O shields, and Intel I219V Ethernet controllers. Thanks to Intel's latest silicon, these boards get chipset-provided USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports around the back. Front-panel connectivity is comprehensive, as well, with a connector for a Type-C port and fast-charging support on the Type-A port headers.

Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master

We'll kick off with the Z390 Aorus Master. This board has a 12-phase International Rectifier PowIRstage VRM, three M.2 PCIe x4 sockets with heatsinks, RGB LED accents pretty much everywhere, and metal reinforcement around the DIMM and PCIe slots. An Intel CNVI 820.11ac 2×2 Wave 2 Wi-Fi adapter makes it way onto the circuit slab, too.

That's not all, though. The audio setup in this model is a particularly souped-up affair with an ALC1220 codec, an ESS Sabre DAC, and WIMA capacitors. Gigabyte says the combination is good for delivering a SNR of 125 dB. A near-full-coverage metal backplate rounds out the specs list. This model should set buyers back $290.

Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Ultra

Drilling down the Aorus series, we find the Z390 Aorus Ultra. This model is mostly similar to the Master. The main differences are the 12+1 VRM with "DrMOS" components, an ALC1220-VB codec with WIMA caps, and fewer RGB LED accents. Thanks in part to those changes, the Ultra comes in at $250.

Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro WiFi

Next up, we have the Z390 Aorus Pro WiFi and Pro models. These models come with two M.2 PCIe x4 slots with heatsinks, and only two of their three PCIe x16 slots are clad in metal. There are no USB DAC-UP 2 ports, either. The VRM cooler has screw-mounted heatsinks and heatpipes. The Pro WiFi model should go for $200 and comes with the aforementioned Intel CNVI 802.11ac adapter. The regular Pro does away with wireless connectivity and has a $190 price tag.

Gigabyte Z390 I Aorus Pro WiFi

The Z390-I Aorus Pro WiFi is a close relative to the models above, except it comes in Mini-ITX size. The itty-bitty board includes the Intel CNVI Wi-Fi adapter, but uses a 6-phase IR VRM with PowIRstage components. There are still dual M.2 PCIe x4 slots, and one of them has a heatsink on top. The two DIMM slots and single PCIe slot are metal-reinforced, too. Builders of lean, mean gaming machines can get this board for $165.

Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Elite

Last but by no means least, the Z390 Aorus Elite comes with a single M.2 PCIe x4 slot and a handful of LED accents. There's metal around the main PCIe x16 slot and DIMM slots, too. The amount of $180 will let you take this mobo home.

Although we don't yet have detailed specs for the rest of Gigabyte's Z390 family, we do know that the Z390 Gaming SLI will go for $160, while the Gaming X has a $150 price tag. The microATX Z390 M Gaming costs $145, and the most-affordable Z390 UD goes for just $130. Keep an eye on your favorite e-tailer for these boards' arrival soon.

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As a result of that strategy, Swan concedes that supply of Intel products is "tight," especially in its entry-level PC chips. To take the edge off this supply pressure, Swan says that Intel plans to increase its capital expenditures by $1 billion compared to its projections at the beginning of the year, to $15 billion, in order to boost production capacity at its 14-nm fabs in Oregon, Arizona, Ireland, and Israel.

Swan also notes that Intel continues to make progress on its 10-nm process. He claims that 10-nm yields are improving, and that the company still expects it can begin "volume production" on its troubled next-generation node in 2019. Increased 10-nm production would presumably lessen pressure on the company's 14-nm production capacity, as well.

In closing, Swan says the company will "stay close, listen, partner and keep [customers] informed" about its ability to meet demand for its products. He notes that of the companies he's addressing in his letter, "many of you have been longtime Intel customers and partners, and you have seen us at our best when we are solving problems." He says that "the actions we are taking have put us on a path of continuous improvement." We'll be watching to see how those efforts bear fruit in the months and years to come.

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One X299 motherboard in the TR labs has stood out from the pack for its unflappable demeanor, though. Much like AMD’s motherboard partners have had to do in preparation for second-generation Ryzen Threadripper WX chips, a number of Intel motherboard partners released refreshed X299 boards earlier this year to better handle VRM cooling and the demands of 12- to 18-core Skylake-X CPUs. Gigabyte’s X299 Designare EX is one of those boards, and it has been pleasantly problem-free with any Skylake-X CPU and memory kit I’ve dropped in its socket and slots over months of testing.

Gigabyte’s X299 refresh mojo starts under the Designare EX’s VRM heatsink. This board dispenses with the eight-phase International Rectifier power-delivery subsystem of many first-generation X299 boards in favor of an all-Intersil 12-phase design, achieved with a six-phase PWM controller run through six doublers. Gigabyte taps the company’s ISL99227B integrated power stages for the dirty work and an ISL69138 PWM controller to give those phases their marching orders. Each ISL99227 is rated for 60 A of current and has an exposed thermal pad on both the top and bottom of its package. That exposed metal allows for better cooling through both the heatsink above and the PCB below.

 Unlike the somewhat ornamental VRM cooling systems that appeared on many first-generation X299 boards, the Designare EX puts some real heavy metal atop its power-delivery subsystem. The massive heatsink on those Intersil power stages has a beefy metal base capped with chunky fin-like structures. These cut-outs and ridges don’t have quite as much surface area as the true fin-stack heatsinks that Gigabyte has begun using on its latest high-end AMD motherboards, but they’re a far sight better than the abstract sculptures  that tended to cool quite poorly on early X299 products.

The X299 Designare EX gets another lift in VRM cooling from a 30-mm fan attached to the back of the secondary VRM heatsink. This fan draws air through a mesh cutout on the board’s integrated I/O shield and exhausts it toward the first memory slot. We’re not usually fans of putting such tiny fans in PCs, but Gigabyte has proven judicious in its selection of VRM-cooling spinners every time we’ve seen one, and the X299 Designare EX is no exception. This fan has proven barely audible in the course of our testing with this board.

Flip the board around, and you’ll find a Designare-branded full-coverage backplate. These plates make it less likely that you’ll zap sensitive components while handling the board and add some extra backbone against heavy graphics cards and CPU coolers. Unlike the implementation we recently saw on the X399 Aorus Xtreme, the Designare EX’s backplate isn’t coupled to its VRM-cooling solution by way of thermal pads.

The X299 Designare EX taps Skylake-X CPUs’ quad-channel memory controllers with the expected eight memory slots, capable of handling up to 128 GB of RAM. Thanks to Intel’s segmentation decisions, however, the board doesn’t come with ECC memory support, and its 128-GB capacity is a hard cap, not a suggestion.

Expansion, I/O, and audio

In contrast to AMD’s X399 motherboards, whose ports and slots are generally what-you-see-is-what-you-get, X299 boards suffer from Intel’s segmentation of its high-end desktop CPUs. That practice makes trouble for the X299 Designare EX by forcing it to support and route PCIe lanes from out-of production 16-lane parts, as well as 28-lane and 44-lane Socket 2066 chips.

The biggest draw from this board for many high-end builders will be the pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports in its I/O panel. These connectors run off a dual-port Intel JHL6540 controller from the Alpine Ridge family, and they’re both ready to do anything the average Thunderbolt 3 port can do, including the transmission of DisplayPort 1.2 signals to compatible Thunderbolt 3 displays. There’s just one catch, though: Skylake-X CPUs have no integrated graphics processors, and thus no way to pipe pixels directly to a Thunderbolt 3 controller. To make the most of the X299 Designare EX’s TB3 ports, Gigabyte includes a pair of DisplayPort inputs on the board’s back panel so that owners can run a pair of included DisplayPort patch cables from their discrete graphics card to the board’s inputs for bundling into the Thunderbolt 3 data stream.

Because of the intake for the VRM fan and the aforementioned DisplayPort inputs, there’s less room than usual on the I/O panel of the Designare EX for more typical peripheral I/O options. The left-hand side of this board’s port block starts with two USB 2.0 ports from the X299 chipset and a hybrid PS/2 keyboard-and-mouse port, both of which seem out of place on a board destined for high-end workstation builds.

One of the X299 Designare EX’s two Intel-powered Gigabit Ethernet ports comes by way of an I219-V PHY chip connected to the X299 chipset, while the other comes from a standalone I211AT controller. Gigabyte also taps Intel’s Wireless-AC 8265 radio for cable-cutters. While we would ask for a Wireless-AC 9260 radio on more recent boards, the Wireless-AC 8265 was hot stuff around the time the X299 Designare EX was introduced.

The four USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports on the back panel come courtesy of a Realtek USB 3.1 Gen 1 hub. Gigabyte routes four USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports from the X299 chipset through the Designare EX’s internal headers, but we really would have preferred that routing be reversed. The white USB 3.1 Gen 1 port supports Gigabyte’s Q-Flash Plus feature. Q-Flash Plus lets builders update the board’s firmware with nothing more than a power supply and a USB flash drive.

The X299 Designare EX has five PCIe 3.0 x16 physical slots, but just what lanes will be available from those metal-jacketed connectors will vary depending on what Core X CPU a builder has installed. With 44-lane CPUs (the Core i9-7900X on up), the first (from left) PCIe slot gets 16 lanes, the third PCIe slot gets 16 lanes, and the final PCIe slot gets eight lanes that are shared with the first slot. The second physical x16 slot gets four more CPU lanes, and those are shared with the topmost M.2 slot on the board. If a user installs a storage device in that topmost slot, the second PCIe slot will go dark. The fourth slot always gets four lanes from the X299 chipset, no matter what CPU is installed in the socket.

Install two graphics cards with a 44-lane CPU installed, and the first and third slots will each get 16 lanes from the CPU. Put a third card in the last slot, and the lane configuration becomes an x8/x16/x8 setup. Now that Nvidia Turing cards are here and three- and four-way SLI setups are dead for the moment among high-end GPUs, that limitation doesn’t matter nearly as much as it might have in the past, but it could still pose issues for builders trying to populate all three of the board’s best-spaced-out PCIe slots. Gigabyte says the strange lane routing is a consequence of having to accommodate Kaby Lake-X CPUs, so those chips’ spectres haunt the X299 Designare EX even as they’ve gone out of production.

With 28-lane CPUs like the Core i7-7800X and i7-7820X, the first slot gets 16 lanes. Install another graphics card in the board’s third slot, and the first and third slots each get eight PCIe lanes. Install an expansion card in the fifth slot, and the board splits the lanes from the first slot into an x8/x8 configuration, just as it does with 44-lane CPUs. The second PCIe slot keeps its four shared CPU lanes at all times.

On the off chance you can find a Core i5-7640X or Core i7-7740X to install in this board, the first slot will get 16 lanes from those chips with one graphics card installed, while two-way SLI or CrossFire will split those lanes into a pair of x8 connections across the first and third slots. With these CPUs, the topmost M.2 slot shares its lanes with the third PCIe slot. Install an M.2 device in that slot, and the third slot drops into an x4/x4 shared arrangement. The final PCIe x16 slot will remain nonfunctional no matter what.

If only the PCIe lane sharing ended there. The board’s third M.2 slot, M2Q_32G, sits just below the chipset heatsink, and it draws its lanes from the X299 chipset. That slot shares lanes with four of the six chipset-driven SATA ports. Put an M.2 device in the M2Q_32G slot, and SATA ports 4, 5, 6, and 7 (the leftmost four ports in the image above) are disabled. That leaves a pair of X299-powered SATA ports and a pair of ASMedia ASM1061-powered SATA ports to storage-hungry builders who want to fill as many ports and slots as possible.

The middle M.2 slot on the board, M2M_32G, draws four lanes from the chipset at all times, but its positioning potentially puts any M.2 device installed there in the direct path of the jet blast from any open-cooler graphics card in the board’s primary PCIe slot. While lane-routing decisions likely led to this setup, it’s not ideal for builders concerned about their PCIe gumsticks running hot. Gigabyte does put heatsinks on all three of the board’s M.2 slots, but we’d have preferred that the company dedicate its always-on PCIe lanes to a slot that wouldn’t normally be blanketed by the heat of a graphics card to begin with.

To make the X299 Designare EX sing, Gigabyte taps a fairly standard Realtek ALC1220 audio subsection without any fancy op-amps or DACs in the analog audio path. The company does use a few WIMA and Nichicon caps to spruce up this otherwise bare-bones setup, but that’s not a knock—the ALC1220 sounds perfectly fine, and Gigabyte wisely doesn’t mess with what works.

RGB LEDs

Gigabyte’s Designare series of motherboards offer some RGB LED accents, but they’re not the stars of the show like they might be on the X470 Aorus Gaming 7, for just one example. The X299 Designare EX takes a lighting tack that’s the total opposite of Aorus boards, in fact: it has just one zone that controls diffused blinkenlights in the I/O shroud, the chipset heatsink, and the onboard audio path.

The board still has a pair of strip headers for RGBW lighting ribbons and a single header for addressable RGB LED strips, but folks without ambitious lighting plans will never see what those headers are capable of. Professional users who want a bit of excitement from the appearance of their builds will find it in the Designare EX, but folks looking for something that might stand out more in the lighting department are going to want to look at Gigabyte’s Aorus offerings instead.

This review does mark our first encounter with Gigabyte’s recently-revised version of RGB Fusion, its lighting-synchronization and settings app. While it’s clear to me that RGB Fusion is headed in a slicker direction, its present implementation of those ideas is wanting for both functionality and polish.

The basic divisions into “Basic Mode,” “Advanced Mode,” and “Intelligent” effects that past versions of RGB Fusion offered are gone. On first launch, the app now displays a selection of all the components it can synchronize—and perhaps even some that it can’t, given that our system didn’t have an Aorus SLI bridge (or even any SLI bridge) installed. The app does keep most of its basic lighting modes from past iterations, at least. Pulse gently illuminates and darkens the board in one color at one of three available speeds. Music blinks out a one-color light show in sync with any audio that’s playing through the board’s audio outputs.

Color Cycle takes the whole board through the standard rainbow sweep that defines RGB LED lighting for many. Flash blinks every LED on and off, and Double Flash unsurprisingly doubles the blink rate of Flash. Random, well, randomly illuminates each of the board’s zones with different colors in an unpredictable swirl. A new mode, Game, appears to respond to in-game events, although we weren’t able to try it with two apps it appears to work with so far (Project Cars and CS:GO).

Clicking any component from the main screen lets you see what effects RGB Fusion can assign to that part. In the case of the Designare EX itself, the component view reveals the board’s single lighting zone and its strip headers. The single onboard lighting zone and RGBW strip headers can be configured to use the Static, Pulse, Flash, Double Flash, and Color Cycle modes, while the single addressable header unlocks a wide range of modes specific to those special lighting strips. We won’t run through all of those modes here, but you can view them on the Designare EX’s product page.

In the move to overhaul RGB Fusion, the app did lose some functions builders might have become familiar with. The Advanced Mode view has disappeared from the app entirely, and while some of its functions have been absorbed into the component-level views that now dominate customization of the board’s lighting, its build-your-own-effect Custom mode has not survived the move. While the custom effect wasn’t the easiest or most comprehensive way to tune the board’s lighting, I’m surprised that the options it offered are gone entirely.

While I can understand why Gigabyte might want to streamline RGB Fusion, I think the company will probably want to give the revised version of the app a little more time in the oven of refinement. The default serif font that the app uses looks like a generic placeholder compared to the clean and consistent identity of RGB Fusion on past Gigabyte motherboards, and while the functionality of the company’s custom effects editor might have gone over the heads of some users, I can’t imagine that the folks who did use it will be happy that it’s gone entirely. RGB Fusion continues to have basic issues with its mission to sync various RGB LED components, as well—our G.Skill Trident Z RGB RAM never really synced up with the rest of the board’s lighting in any of the dynamic modes we chose.

Overall, this new iteration of RGB Fusion is a step backward from past versions of the app we’ve used.I don’t think the issues it faces are unsolvable, but I wouldn’t advise Gigabyte motherboard owners who are happy with the present functionality of RGB Fusion to upgrade to the new app until it’s gone through a couple more point releases or until they can confirm that the new version doesn’t remove functionality they rely on.

Overclocking

Deservedly or otherwise, Intel’s Skylake-X CPUs have developed reputations as intractable power hogs when they’re overclocked. Those reputations might have come from the fact that some early X299 boards proved to have more style over substance in the VRM heatsink department, even if the power-delivery hardware on those boards was up to the task of powering the 18-core i9-7980XE.

As an aside, If you’re concerned about high-end desktop power draw at the wall on a brand-against-brand basis, the stakes were recently raised by AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX. That chip pulled 800 W through our Watts Up in overclocked trim, far more than even an overclocked i9-7980XE. The fact is that as long as the core wars continue, motherboards are going to be stressed harder and harder, and supporting infrastructure like VRM heatsinks are going to have to get beefier to match.

Enter the X299 Designare EX. We’ve already seen that this board has a massive array of high-quality, easier-to-cool-than-average VRMs at the ready, and it has an actively-cooled heatsink to match. We have a Core i9-7980XE ready to test any X299 motherboard that thinks it’s up to the task of powering an overclocked 18 cores and 36 threads, too. Let’s hop to it.

First off, I tried the auto-overclocking routine available to Gigabyte motherboard owners through the company’s EasyTune utility. This routine is a one-click iterative overclocking tool that attempts to find a stable combination of voltage and frequency through a loop of stress-test . After one such loop, the program turned in a 4.6-GHz all-core overclock.  A quick all-core stress test showed that Gigabyte’s automatic internal Vcore for this combination was about 1.232 V in software.

After Gigabyte’s auto-OC routine did its thing, I fired up the Blender “Classroom” demo, my favored overclocking-stability test of late. While our i9-7980XE didn’t prove unstable under Gigabyte’s combination of voltage and frequency, the chip quickly throttled back to 4.3 GHz on all of its cores as a result of thermal protections kicking in. That fact does go to show that Intel’s continued use of paste rather than solder under its integrated heat spreaders could be choking off the overclocking potential of its CPUs, but it’s also a sign that the auto-tuning utility isn’t taking thermal considerations into account during its stress-testing phase.

Within those constraints, at least, Gigabyte’s auto-OC utility didn’t kick in unreasonable amounts of voltage, although I believe its 4.6 GHz target speed was overly ambitious. The i9-7980XE has a 4.4-GHz Turbo Boost Max 2.0 clock speed, to be sure, but its all-core Turbo Boost speed is just 3.4 GHz. Had the program started out at a more reasonable all-core overclock and worked up, I believe it could have arrived at a more useful overclock without inducing thermal throttling.

I ran into another hitch after running that auto-overclocking routine, too. Instead of returning our i9-7980XE to its stock settings, using Easy Tune’s “Default” button on either of its overclocking profiles instead seemed to leave Gigabyte’s equivalent of the dreaded multi-core enhancement enabled. That fact caused our i9-7980XE to continue running at a 4.4-GHz all-core speed. Once I rebooted the system and reset the firmware to its defaults for insurance, the board returned our chip to its stock clock speeds. Whatever the cause of this apparent mismatch between intent and effect, I wish Easy Tune would follow the accepted understanding of “default” or “reset” and really put a previously overclocked CPU back to stock settings.

With our auto-tuning options exhausted, I turned to manual overclocking. From experience, I know that our i9-7980XE can hit about 4.4 GHz on about 1.33-1.44 V without running into a persistent thermal wall. Once I dialed those settings in manually via the X299 Designare EX’s firmware, I was able to quickly verify that the system was stable using the Blender Classroom benchmark.

Throughout all my overclocking attempts, I was impressed by the performance of the X299 Designare EX’s VRM heatsink. Even in a minimal-airflow environment on our test bench, the active fan on that heatsink was able to hold the board’s power-delivery circuitry to 95° C or less, well under the 125° C throttling temperature Intersil specifies for its ISL99227B power stages. In a typical case with several fans, then, the X299 Designare EX should have no trouble holding VRM operating temperatures well within safe ranges, even with an overclocked i9-7980XE in the socket. Thanks to that performance, the Designare EX had no issues taking our Extreme Edition chip to its limits, and it proved an able overclocking companion despite its serious-business workstation demeanor.

Conclusions

Although Intel’s X299 platform has one foot on the gaming and enthusiast side and the other on on the prosumer-workstation side of the high-end desktop fence, Gigabyte’s X299 Designare EX dispenses with the gamer bling. Instead, this board makes the most of what X299 has to offer for folks who are serious about performance and want to hook up a ton of high-speed external peripherals, as well.

For all its virtues, the Designare EX has a couple of rough spots. Thanks to the wide range of CPUs it has to support, this board can’t provide two fully-fledged PCIe 3.0 x16 slots and a PCIe 3.0 x8 slot for triple-GPU or dual-GPU-and-other-PCIe-expansion-card setups, even with 44-lane Skylake-X CPUs installed. USB 2.0 ports and a PS/2 connector have no place on the back panel of what’s supposed to be a cutting-edge motherboard, either. Attempting to overclock a CPU through Gigabyte’s Windows utilities can be way balkier than it needs to be. Finally, Gigabyte’s RGB Fusion app is in transition to a new version, and that work could leave RGB LED-hungry builders coughing on some construction dust.

Happily, the rough spots stop there. Thunderbolt 3 support on X299 motherboards is a rare sight, but the Designare EX provides two such ports off an Alpine Ridge controller. What’s more, users who want to use single-cable Thunderbolt 3 displays can do so with the Designare EX thanks to its duo of DisplayPort inputs on its back panel. A massive array of VRM hardware and a massive heatsink to match makes overclocking even a Core i9-7980XE worry-free on this board, even without supplemental cooling for the power-delivery subsystem.

On top of all that, the X299 Designare EX is just a nice motherboard to build around. This board’s silvery color scheme stands out in a world of black-and-red gamer gear, and its subdued RGB LEDs make for soothing accent lighting rather than retina-searing rave diodes. An integrated back plate and I/O shield make the board easy to handle and install, too.

In all honesty, Intel’s X299 platform hasn’t aged gracefully next to the bounty of PCIe lanes and consistent lane-routing arrangements AMD offers from its Threadripper CPUs and X399 boards. Motherboard makers can only do so much about that fact. With that caveat, among the selection of Skylake-X-supporting hardware I’ve played with in the TR labs, the X299 Designare EX has proven itself time and time again as the most stable and reliable X299 board I’ve used over the course of several critical reviews. If you need a trustworthy platform to let Skylake-X CPUs do what they’re good at, the X299 Designare EX should be at the top of your list even with its $426 price tag at e-tail, and I’m happy to call it TR Recommended.

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• Our leading deal today should make any mobile gamer on the go happy. The Dell G5 gaming laptop (G5587-5542BLK) we have on display today packs an Intel Core i5-8300H processor paired with a GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB Max-Q graphics card and 16 GB of RAM. The storage allotment comprises a 256-GB solid-state drive and a 1-TB spinner. Last but not least, the display is a 15.6" 1920×1080 unit with an IPS panel. Folks, if there ever was a perfectly-balanced machine, this is it right here, and Walmart will let you have it for the measly amount of $879.99. Hurry up and grab it.

• Next up, a pack for PC builders-to-be. The Ryzen 2600 CPU and its six cores and twelve threads need absolutely no introduction. The Asus ROG Strix B450-F Gaming motherboard is a fine home for that chip, thanks to its USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, metal-clad main PCIe slots, Intel-powered Ethernet, and two M.2 sockets. There's also a Realtek S1220A audio codec, onboard RGB LED lighting, and a built-in I/O shield. Newegg will hand you both items for $258.65, or $30 off the regular total.

• We're ever so happy to see RAM prices dropping further, and we think you'll be too. The Adata XPG Gaming D10 16-GB kit of two 3200 MT/s DIMMs is as solid as they come, and it's selling for $149.99 at Rakuten with the checkout code ELDORADO. That price is already pretty good, but Rakuten will give you 20% back in shop points, or $31.80 that you can apply on a further purchase. That, may friends, can make the final tally just $118.19—one heck of a deal.

• If you're like me and have a distinct need for gobs of RAM, you'd do well to look at this G.Skill Trident Z 32-GB kit with two 16-GB DIMMs clocked at 3200 MT/s. The sticks are speedy and stylish, and you'll still have two DIMM slots empty for further expansion on most motherboards. Take them home for $279.99 from Newegg.

• There's no person on this earth who's not fond of big, high-resolution displays, and we happen to have a pair of those. The first is the LG 27BK85U-W. This 27" monitor uses a 3840×2160 IPS panel that's capable of hitting 410 cd/m² and has FreeSync support. LG says this unit can properly interpret HDR10 content, and there's USB Type-C connectivity on tap along with a rather fetching stand that includes height, tilt, and swivel adjustments. Take this pixel pack home for just $499.99 from Newegg with the cart code EMCPYES43.

• If you prefer an even bigger monitor, check out the Acer ET322QK. At a whopping 32 inches across, it should be an imposing sight upon every desk. The 3840×2160 VA panel has a healthy contrast ratio of 3000:1, and Acer claims it's good for 10-bit output. Maximum brightness is 300 cd/m², a good figure for a display this big. Accoutrements include built-in speakers and FreeSync support. Take this big box home for a stupid-low $319.99 from Newegg with the cart code EMCPYES42.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Thursday deals: a Dell G5 laptop with a GTX 1060 for $879.99 and more appeared first on The Tech Report.

• There are some sweet solid-state storage sales today, and the first one is the Adata XPG SX8200 960-GB drive. This NVMe gumstick can push up to 3200 MB/s when doing sequential reads, and up to 1700 MB/s when writing. We very much liked this drive's smaller sibling when we reviewed it. You can have the 960-GB unit for just $203.99 from Rakuten with the checkout code SAVE15.

• Our second deal of the day also happens to come from the same company. The Adata SU650 960-GB solid-state drive is more than roomy enough for your games library. The SSD can go as fast as 520 MB/s for reads and 440 MB/s when writing. Those specs and the fact that the drive lacks a DRAM cache won't set the world on fire, but the price very well might: only $114.75 at Rakuten with the checkout code SAVE15.

• Next up, a pair of fine motherboards. The first is the Asus Prime X470-Pro. This Ryzen-ready board has a pair of USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports on its back panel, Intel-powered Ethernet, and two M.2 sockets. Like any self-respecting mobo these days, it also has metal wrappings around the main PCIe slots, a Realtek S1220A audio codec, and a splash of RGB LED lighting. Grab it for just $139.99 from Newegg with the cart code EMCPYEE59.

• Slab of circuits #2: the Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 7. This is a high-end Coffee Lake affair with all the bells and enough whistles for a soccer match. There's metal pretty much everywhere: on the big PCIe slots, around the RAM slots, and on the copious heatsinks, namely the one atop the VRM. You get three M.2 sockets, one of the best-sounding audio soultions around with a Realtek ALC1220 codec coupled with an ESS Sabre 9018 DAC, Intel- and Killer-made Ethernet controllers, and enough RGB LEDs to make for a vaporwave-neon city if you photo the board up close. A mobo like this usually runs you a tidy sum, but Newegg's currently selling it for $199.99 with the cart code EMCPYEE62.

• Intel's Coffee Lake chips are speedy and cool, but not always affordable. Thankfully that's not the case today with the Core i7-8700 processor and its six cores, twelve threads, and mighty 4.6-GHz turbo clock. Whereas this chip would usually cost you well above $300, you can pick it up from Amazon for just $279.99.

• It's been a while since we've had a deal for speedy spinning storage, but that particular drought ends today. Newegg's selling a two-pack of mega-fast HGST Deskstar NAS 6-TB drives, for a grand total of 12 TB of room—enough for about 1/5 of your cheese picture library. You can grab the matched set for $299.99 from Newegg, or $50 off the regular price. 

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Tuesday deals: an Adata SX8200 960-GB NVMe drive for $204 and more appeared first on The Tech Report.

AMD is confident that every X399 motherboard launched alongside first-generation Ryzen Threadrippers will be able to handle its latest high-end CPUs at stock speeds, but holding up to the demands of overclocking those chips is another story. To keep up with those parts, motherboard makers are supporting the second-generation Threadripper launch with some new boards meant to allow no-limits tweaking of WX-series chips.

Gigabyte’s X399 motherboard range previously topped out with the X399 Aorus Gaming 7 and X399 Designare EX, both of which are rock-solid boards that I’ve had the pleasure of using on the bench and in system builds. With the advent of second-generation Threadripper chips, the company has stepped up to the plate with a fresh board designed with Threadripper WX parts in mind: the X399 Aorus Extreme.

The Aorus Extreme earns its name by starting with an E-ATX foundation. Gigabyte kept all of its past X399 boards within an ATX footprint, but the Aorus Extreme needed to loosen a belt loop to let the company’s designers cram everything they needed onto its surface.

To get power to second-generation Threadripper CPUs, Gigabyte uses an unusual International Rectifier PowIRStage, the IR3578, as the main building block for the Aorus Extreme’s 10-phase main VRM. For the unfamiliar, PowIRStages integrate the high-side, low-side, and driver circuitry of a buck converter into a single package for better efficiency and thermal characteristics. The PWM controller for this array of PowIRStages is the common IR35201, and it gets signals to all of those phases with IR3599 doublers.

In this particular PowIRStage’s case, IR tops off the package with an exposed metal cap to enhance cooling. We’ve seen this design used to great effect with Intersil power stages in the past, and it’s the first sign that Gigabyte is serious about keeping the Aorus Extreme’s power-delivery circuitry cool.

 
Gigabyte’s engineers put that exposed metal cap to good use by running a heat pipe directly over the CPU VRM. That heatpipe transfers thermal energy into an honest-to-goodness fin stack similar to the one we saw on the X470 Aorus Gaming 7 Wifi. The fin stack runs over the board’s SoC VRM phases, as well. This time around, Gigabyte has plated the heatsink’s fins in a dark nickel or similar material that results in a beautiful luster. Gigabyte also notes that it uses premium thermal pads rated for 5 W/mK of conductance between the board’s power circuitry and the heatsink above.

As another layer of insurance against a 250-W TDP CPU and the stress it could place on power-delivery circuitry, Gigabyte nestles not one, but two 30-mm fans underneath the Aorus Extreme’s I/O shroud. These spinners kick on only when the board’s VRM gets hot enough to demand it. We’re usually wary of putting fans this tiny in any system, but the fans the company has chosen for the Aorus Extreme only add a minor whir to a system’s noise signature—certainly nothing a user will notice in a Threadripper build under full load.

Flipping the Aorus Extreme over reveals a full-coverage back plate. This plate isn’t just for looks and structural reinforcement, although it certainly achieves both of those goals. It’s finished with what Gigabyte calls a “nano-carbon” coating that’s purported to improve the thermal radiation from its surface. Gigabyte uses another thermal pad between the plate and power-delivery components on the back of the board to turn it into part of the VRM cooling arrangement.

The X399 Aorus Extreme comes with Gigabyte’s DualBIOS pair of firmware chips for insurance against overclocking or firmware update failures, and its main EEPROM chip is socketed. Should you mangle your board’s firmware beyond repair (and even beyond the help of the backup BIOS chip), Gigabyte can simply send out a pre-programmed EEPROM chip rather than arranging the return of the entire board for repair.

That socketed chip could be handy should one ever have to update the board for use with future Threadrippers, too, since Gigabyte curiously omits its Q-Flash Plus feature from the Aorus Extreme. Q-Flash Plus allows a system builder to update firmware without anything more than a USB flash drive and a power supply, and it recently saved my bacon when I attempted to boot the Ryzen Threadripper 2950X with a stale BIOS on the X399 Aorus Gaming 7.

Like most Threadripper motherboards, the Aorus Extreme has eight DIMM slots to allow for two DIMMs in each of a Threadripper CPU’s four memory channels. While Gigabyte says the Aorus Extreme can handle as much as 128 GB of RAM, tops, AMD informally suggests that Threadripper memory capacity is limited only by the density and number of DIMMs one can cram into an X399 board’s DIMM slots.

In another point of interest to workstation builders, Gigabyte says the Aorus Extreme supports unbuffered ECC DIMMs for those whose concern lies more with data integrity than with flat-out speed. Whatever approach you want to take in providing your Threadripper CPU with RAM, the Aorus Extreme seems to stand ready for it.

Expansion, I/O, and audio

The X399 platform’s primary appeal beyond the raw performance of the chips it plays host to is AMD’s no-compromises approach to CPU PCIe lanes and peripheral expansion. The Aorus Extreme does a good job of tapping most of the X399 platform’s potential.

Let’s start our examination with this board’s port cluster. First up, we get dedicated, LED-illuminated clear-CMOS and power buttons on the back panel for use on a test bench. The power button can double as a reset button with the proper setup in the board’s firmware, too.

The Aorus Extreme also has a whopping eight USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports in its I/O block, all from the Ryzen Threadripper SoC itself. USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A and Type-C ports in red come from the X399 chipset. Nice and simple.

Gigabyte taps two Intel Gigabit Ethernet NICs for the leftmost and middle 8P8C connectors in the port block. The third 8P8C connector, molded in red, is wired to an Aquantia AQC107 10-Gigabit Ethernet controller. Support for that high-speed, next-gen networking standard is a welcome sight on a board that’s meant to serve the highest-end desktop systems.

The Aquantia 10 GbE NIC, under its heatsink

We’ve seen other manufacturers ship 10 GbE NICs with X399 boards before, but those NICs are usually discrete daughter boards that will occupy PCIe slots of their own (not that you’re hurting for PCIe lanes or slots with X399 boards, of course). Still, Gigabyte’s move to integrate the Aorus Extreme’s 10-GbE NIC with the rest of its ports is both elegant and appreciated.

For those without cable runs to their office, Gigabyte includes an Intel Wireless-AC 8265 radio in the Aorus Extreme’s back panel. This wireless module is the only minor letdown in the Aorus Extreme’s port cluster. While it does support 2×2 MIMO streams, the 8265 tops out at transfer rates of 867 Mbps. That’s a bit of a shame given that 802.11ac Wave 2 compatible routers can push theoretical transfer rates of well over 1 Gbps. The company integrates newer and faster Intel radios capable of talking 802.11ac Wave 2 on some of its other high-end AMD boards, so we’re not sure why the forward-looking Aorus Xtreme comes saddled with the past-its-sell-by-date Wireless-AC 8265. That said, high-end builders are probably more interested in that Aquantia 10-GbE NIC for high-speed networking, anyway.

All four of the X399 Aorus Extreme’s physical PCIe x16 slots draw their connectivity from the Ryzen Threadripper SoC. From left to right, the first and third slots on the board get a full 16 lanes to go with their physical form factors. The second and fourth slots offer eight lanes of connectivity. A single PCIe 2.0 x1 slot hangs off the X399 chipset.

The Aorus Extreme’s slots are metal-reinforced but not RGB LED-illuminated, as some of the slots on Gigabyte’s past X399 boards have been. Given that those lights are usually covered up by expansion cards anyway, we’re not mourning the omission here.

For spinning rust and 2.5″ SSDs, Gigabyte includes six SATA ports from the X399 chipset. While we might have preferred to see eight SATA ports on a high-end desktop board until recently, the increasing density of hard disk drives and the already-copious M.2 options on the Aorus Extreme lessen the sting of that design choice somewhat.

Gigabyte uses the space where those extra SATA ports could have gone to include a six-pin PCIe auxiliary power connector. That plug is there to provide extra juice if a builder chooses to populate every one of the board’s PCIe slots with power-hungry graphics cards, whether for a deep-learning workstation or for 3DMark record-breaking.

Gigabyte wires the remaining 12 PCIe 3.0 lanes from the CPU to three PCIe x4 M.2 slots on the Aorus Extreme. All three of the board’s M.2 slots support both SATA and NVMe drives, and they come covered with metal heatsinks backed by thermal pads to effect at least some heat transfer away from the drives underneath. The first and third M.2 slots support devices as long as 110 mm, while the middle slot supports popular 80-mm-long gumsticks only.

The Aorus Extreme’s storage heatsinks aren’t much more than smooth metal affairs, though, so their actual effectiveness in keeping M.2 gumsticks cool could be questionable, especially if they’re in the path of the jet blast from a graphics card. If you’d rather not test their worth, the heatsinks are easy enough to leave off.

No AMD X399 motherboard has come equipped with Intel’s Thunderbolt 3 interface on board, whether through an onboard controller or an add-in card. That said, the Aorus Xtreme at least suggests that a Thunderbolt expansion card could one day occupy one of its expansion slots. A discreet THB_C header on the board’s front edge tips off this possibility.

For audio, Gigabyte taps Realtek’s highest-end ALC1220-VB audio codec, the output of which it runs through an ESS Sabre 9118EQ DAC. I found the output of this onboard audio subsystem pleasant, clean, and well-balanced, and it even revealed details in some tracks that I hadn’t previously noticed. I was never tempted to reach for the equalizer as I have been with some lower-end motherboard audio setups, either. Overall, even demanding listeners shouldn’t be tempted to install a discrete sound card in their high-end Threadripper systems when using an X399 Aorus Xtreme as the foundation of their builds.

Firmware, fan control, and Windows software

Gigabyte has been using the same basic firmware interface across its entire motherboard lineup since mid-2016, and the X399 Aorus Xtreme soldiers on with that interface. For more perspective on Gigabyte’s most recent firmware, see our X99-Designare EX and Z270X-Gaming 5 reviews. The short take is that Gigabyte’s firmware is clean and straightforward-looking, but it can take some poking and prodding to really get a grip on the range of settings it exposes to builders, and it’s not always clear how the various settings in the firmware interact.

The fact that AMD Ryzen CPUs just don’t have that many parameters to tweak for voltage and CPU frequency helps overcome some of Gigabyte’s somewhat balky user-interface design choices, and the text-field-heavy interface helps make navigating the wide menu of memory settings available from Ryzen chips simple, too.

The key things builders will want to do in the firmware for Ryzen CPUs are enabling XMP, tweaking CPU multipliers, and adjusting voltage settings for the CPU. Those tasks are simple and straightforward in the X399 Aorus Xtreme’s firmware, and I found it easy to get in and out of the firmware while tweaking settings for overclocking.

Folks interested in system tweaking in Windows will want to fire up Gigabyte’s Easy Tune software. Easy Tune exposes all of the voltage and frequency settings available from the board’s firmware in graphical form. Easy Tune also provides monitoring for important parameters like CPU Vcore and the various temperature sensors across the motherboard.

At least, that’s the theory. While Easy Tune opened up just fine on the X399 Aorus Xtreme, attempting to access the Advanced CPU OC tab on our test system caused the application to crash. That’s OK, because (no offense to Gigabyte here) AMD’s Ryzen Master software exposes pretty much every system-tuning parameter you’d want to use with a Threadripper CPU anyway. More on that later.

Gigabyte has made universal fan compatibility a headlining feature of its Aorus motherboards. The Smart Fan 5 branding on the X399 Aorus Xtreme means that each of its five (or six, if you count CPU_OPT) fan headers can automatically sense the type of fan that’s plugged in and control them. Two of the board’s headers can automatically detect liquid-cooling pumps, as well. The only necessary user intervention is if a builder wants to configure fan curves of their own, and that requires diving into the Smart Fan 5 interface in the system’s firmware.

Builders can set up custom fan control settings on Aorus boards through the firmware or the System Information Viewer utility in Windows. The firmware fan control interface gives builders access to practically every tweaking parameter available from the Aorus Xtreme. Each of the board’s fans has a five-point speed curve to tweak, and Gigabyte offers three prebaked curves (normal, silent, and full speed) per fan header. The Aorus Xtreme still can’t calibrate minimum and maximum fan speeds in firmware, but if Gigabyte ever implements that change, Smart Fan 5 will be nearly perfect.

The firmware also lets owners choose the input one of several temperature sensors to control fan speed. Instead of relying on just one motherboard temperature sensor in an indeterminate location, the Gaming 7’s headers can respond to changes in CPU temperatures, chipset temperature, and VRM temperatures, or the signal from the included thermocouple, among other inputs. Overall, Gigabyte’s latest firmware fan control interface is excellent, and it almost negates the need for Windows software entirely.

System Information Viewer remains the way to control fans on Gigabyte motherboards in Windows, but its Smart Fan 5 Advanced mode still doesn’t let users choose the temperature source that controls each fan. For that reason alone (and because of the fact that manually finding the lowest speed each fan can run at isn’t that big a deal), I’d forgo SIV and just tweak fans in the Aorus Xtreme’s incredibly-capable firmware. I’ve long felt that Gigabyte’s Windows software needs a unified redesign similar to that of Asus’, and the Aorus Xtreme does little to change that view.

RGB LEDs

Back at CES, Gigabyte talked to us about its future plans for RGB LEDs on its motherboards. The company plans to include fewer RGB LEDs on its products overall, favoring arrays of individually-addressable blinkenlights in places where they’ll have lots of punch. The company also planned to move away from the harsh, naked lighting typical of its early Aorus boards in favor of more sophisticated-looking diffusion. The X399 Aorus Extreme is probably the best example of that RGB LED approach so far.

The board itself includes four separate lighting zones. A backlit Aorus logo and diffuser on the I/O shroud make up one zone. A small diffused strip of LEDs over the audio circuitry comprises zone two. Zone three illuminates the Aorus logo and the surrounding swoosh on the chipset heatsink.

A full-length RGB LED strip on the right edge of the board makes up zone four. All of these zones use individually-addressable RGB LEDs for fancy lighting effects controllable through Gigabyte’s RGB Fusion software.

For the unfamiliar, RGB Fusion has three paths to rave-lighting bliss. First up is Basic Mode. This setup lets lighting designers control every LED on the board at once using seven distinct animation effects. Static allows the user to set one color and brightness level for the entire board. Pulse gently illuminates and darkens the board in one color at one of three available speeds. Music blinks out a one-color light show in sync with any audio that’s playing through the Aorus Xtreme’s outputs. Color Cycle takes the whole board through the standard rainbow sweep that defines RGB LED lighting for many. Flash blinks every LED on and off at one of three speeds. Double Flash unsurprisingly doubles the blink rate of Flash. Random, well, randomly illuminates each of the board’s zones with different colors in an unpredictable swirl. Finally, Wave engages a complex rainbow carousel that swirls clockwise around all four of the board’s lighting zones.

Builders who don’t feel content with Basic Mode’s prebaked profiles or who want to set up each of the Aorus Xtreme’s zones individually can click over to Advanced Mode. Any of the board’s zones can be assigned the Pulse, Static, Flash, Double Flash, or Color Cycle effects, or users can go hog-wild with a custom animation sequence of their own.

The Custom interface brings up an array of up to seven color stops. Users can define the transition speed between stops (anywhere from five to 30 seconds) and the duration the sequence spends on each stop (anywhere from one to 60 seconds). Each stop can have a color assigned to it, as well as a choice of Pulse, Static, or Flash animation settings. As we noted, the minimum duration of each stop is just one second, but transitions remain at a five-second minimum. Unlike past versions of RGB Fusion, the transition between stops is at least a smooth shift from color to color rather than a jump cut to black and a fade back up to the next stop. I still want Gigabyte to make it such that lighting freaks can crank the speeds of these transitions way up, as the Wave mode makes it clear that the hardware is plenty capable of rapid shifts between colors. Five-second transitions are relaxing, but the option for more speed would be nice.

On top of those custom zones, the Aorus Xtreme boasts two sets of RGB LED strip headers: a pair of good old RGBW pins and another pair ready to power “digital LED strips,” or strips with individually-addressable LEDs. The Aorus Xtreme can control standard RGB or RGBW strips using the same array of Custom settings I described for each lighting zone above. Individually-addressable strips can use those same custom settings, or builders can assign any of up to 11 distinct animation modes that Gigabyte bakes into RGB Fusion. I won’t go into those modes here, but Gigabyte provides vivid demos of each one on this board’s product page.

Even though the four main lighting zones on the Aorus Xtreme look a lot like the individually-addressable RGB LED strip built into the X470 Aorus Gaming 7 Wifi’s I/O shroud, and even though the Aorus Xtreme’s Wave color mode looks suspiciously similar to one of the company’s effects for individually-addressable LED strips on that Socket AM4 board, switching over to the Advanced Mode interface doesn’t expose any of the Digital Light modes available to the individually-addressable RGB LED strip headers on the Aorus Xtreme. That omission seems strange to me, given that Gigabyte seemed content to let lighting fans let their freak flags fly with the X470 Aorus Gaming 7 Wifi’s digital LED region.

If my complaints with the X399 Aorus Xtreme’s lighting zones ended there, I would be OK with the board’s overall RGB LED execution. Unfortunately, I found more speed bumps during my travels on Rainbow Road. This board doesn’t seem to play along with the primary mission of Gigabyte’s RGB Fusion software: keeping different RGB LED-illuminated peripherals in sync. With two different RGB LED RAM kits, RGB Fusion couldn’t keep the prebaked Color Cycle mode in sync across the LEDs of the motherboard and RAM. The motherboard’s LEDs and RAM LEDs started on different colors and never got back in time. Trying to engage the Wave preset caused the LEDs on board both RAM kits to shut off entirely, a behavior that I wasn’t expecting.

Overall, the X399 Aorus Xtreme has plenty of high-quality lighting hardware on board and a wealth of places to hook up more, but the RGB Fusion software clearly needs some work yet so that it can properly sync lighting effects across the various peripherals it might be asked to command. Other Gigabyte motherboards I’ve used don’t have these issues, so I expect that a little work on the Aorus Xtreme’s software will iron out the wrinkles I found. At the very least, I think Gigabyte ought to be clearer about what effects will and won’t work across different RGB LED-lit peripherals, as with this board’s Wave effect and RGB LED RAM.

Overclocking and VRM stress-testing

With its massive, high-surface-area VRM heatsink and many-phased VRM, the X399 Aorus Xtreme is practically begging its owner to turn up the clocks on the CPU in its socket. We gladly obliged with our Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX to put the maximum possible stress on this board’s components.

One feature we haven’t extensively covered on second-generation Ryzen Threadrippers is that they’re the first Ryzen CPUs to support Precision Boost Overdrive, an operating mode that takes the stock shackles off those chips’ Precision Boost 2 and XFR 2 intelligence. With Precision Boost Overdrive enabled, a second-generation Ryzen Threadripper can use all of the power, current, and thermal headroom available to it when it’s determining clock speeds under sustained workloads while also maintaining Precision Boost’s light-workload intelligence. That means builders no longer have to trade off single-core performance from their Threadrippers when dialing in an all-core overclock.

AMD says PBO will automatically result in increased performance without any further intervention from the user past switching it on, but I didn’t really notice any increase in all-core clock speeds with our Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX until I manually started increasing power and current limits. Perhaps that’s a consequence of using our Threadripper 2990WX to begin with, since that chip might not leave much operating margin from its host motherboard.

Once I gave the chip some extra room to run with those limiters, Precision Boost Overdrive topped out at 3.6 GHz no matter how much I cranked power and current limits, suggesting a thermal limit of some kind was in play. Still, overclocking with Precision Boost Overdrive proved painless and stable, and a 20% all-core boost that allows our chip to maintain its stock dynamic-voltage-and-frequency-scaling intelligence is a worthy payoff for clicking on a couple of up arrows a few times.

Gigabyte doesn’t include any pre-baked overclocking profiles in the Aorus Xtreme’s firmware, but its Easy Tune Windows software does have a one-click auto-tuner built in. I gave that utility a click and let it do its thing, and it eventually arrived at a 3.4-GHz all-core overclock after some iterative stress testing. That overclock proved stable in Blender’s Classroom benchmark, my stress test of choice for AVX workloads these days.

While that figure isn’t far off what Precision Boost Overdrive achieved, the problem with Gigabyte’s auto-overclocking approach is that it’s as restrictive as manual tuning on any Ryzen CPU. That’s thanks to the fact that these chips enter an OC Mode that disables all dynamic-voltage-and-frequency-scaling intelligence when the user forces them to run outside of stock parameters. Unlike Precision Boost Overdrive, then, Gigabyte’s own auto-tuning approach doesn’t keep Precision Boost 2 enabled, meaning that whatever ceiling it finds will also be the peak single-core boost speed the processor on board can run at.

In the case of our Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX, then, the 3.4-GHz all-core overclock that Gigabyte’s utility found is some 800 MHz short of what the 2990WX’s stock configuration can boost to. Some users might be OK with that tradeoff, but I generally think giving up so much single-core clock speed is going to severely limit the appeal of Gigabyte’s auto-tuning approach compared to PBO. That’s not a knock on Gigabyte, to be clear—the company is doing the best it can with what it’s been given. Ultimately, though, features like Precision Boost Overdrive are probably going to supersede motherboard makers’ own auto-overclocking logic with future AMD CPUs.

Next, I turned to manual overclocking. After checking out some of Gigabyte’s own overclocking results on the X399 Aorus Xtreme as a guide to what was possible, I reached a 4-GHz stable OC with a 1.29 V Vcore set in the board’s BIOS. Even though Blender was happy running the Classroom benchmark file at those settings, our Enermax Liqtech TR4 240-mm liquid cooler was not. Given that our system was drawing over 800 W from the wall with those settings and our AVX-heavy Blender workload, it’s perhaps not a surprise that our CPU cooler was being overwhelmed.

During my manual overclocking efforts, I monitored the X399 Aorus Xtreme’s VRM temperatures and the behavior of its cooling system for that circuitry. Unlike some other active VRM cooling implementations we’ve seen, the X399 Aorus Extreme directs the jet blast from its power-delivery subsystem directly onto the first DIMM slot and the memory stick that occupies it. Documentation suggests DDR4 memory chips shouldn’t get any hotter than 85° C, and directing the considerable waste heat of the Aorus Xtreme’s VRM onto a DIMM could push that memory module closer to that limit than one might like.

Most other motherboards with active VRM cooling draw air over any heatsinks and exhaust it through a grate on the I/O shield. We think if Gigabyte wanted, it could have used a perforated I/O shield so that those fans could either draw in fresh air or exhaust waste heat through the rear of the case. The Aorus Xtreme’s I/O cluster is dense with port blocks, sure, but there’s still plenty of space above them where one could punch holes and direct exhaust, perhaps even with the help of a duct to prevent too much heat from reaching those ports.

For all that, the Aorus Xtreme’s VRM heatsink is undoubtedly effective. Even with no other airflow on the socket, the VRM temperature sensor reported 103° C while the 2990WX was running our Blender workload—a good sign that the heatsink and fans on top of the board’s power stages were doing their jobs. Even a single 120-mm fan directed at the socket and running at modest RPMs would bring the temperature of the power-delivery circuitry far away from Gigabyte’s specified 115° C throttling limit.

Gigabyte isn’t blowing hot air when it says the Aorus Xtreme’s backplate has a role to play in drawing heat away from the VRM, either, as the thermal pad that couples the backplate to the back side of the motherboard seemed to move quite a bit of heat into that massive sheet of metal, at least going by feel. The company clearly doesn’t want the operating conditions of the board’s power-delivery subsystem to be a limit to overclocking prowess, and it’s taken great care to ensure that the VRM remains relatively cool even under the most punishing conditions.

Whether we used Precision Boost Overdrive or turned to manual tweaking, the X399 Aorus Xtreme had no issues helping us take our Threadripper 2990WX to the limits of the best CPU heatsink we had at hand. While we strongly warn against a low-airflow or zero-airflow environment around the CPU socket of a chip that’s capable of pulling over 800 W from the wall, the Aorus Xtreme’s fine actively-cooled VRM heatsink held its power-delivery subsystem well within specified thermal limits even under those grueling conditions. All told, this is a fine board for the enthusiast looking to push their second-generation Ryzen Threadripper to the limit.

Conclusions

AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX is a bona-fide halo product, and the X399 Aorus Extreme has proven itself a worthy foundation for that demanding chip over the course of our recent testing.

While I applaud Gigabyte’s return to fin stacks and heat pipes for its highest-end VRM heatsinks, I feel like the company could have picked a better place to exhaust waste heat from the Aorus Xtreme’s actively-cooled VRM  than directly onto the board’s first memory module. As someone who lives in an entirely wireless household, I think the company could have picked a higher-end wireless radio for the Aorus Xtreme than Intel’s aged Wireless-AC 8265, as well. This is a $450 motherboard, after all.

Those minor nitpicks aside, I found precious little to fault with the Aorus Xtreme. Threadripper CPUs and the X399 platform give Gigabyte’s engineers plenty of USB ports and PCIe 3.0 lanes to play with, and the Aorus Xtreme taps almost every one of them. An integrated 10-Gigabit-Ethernet NIC, a high-end onboard audio suite, and a socketed BIOS chip really set this board apart.

Gigabyte’s straightforward UEFI and excellent firmware fan controls will satisfy experienced builders, and the company’s Windows software remains capable enough, even if its functionality is scattered across multiple applications. If you’d rather install the bare minimum of vendor-specific software, AMD’s Ryzen Master utility deftly handles most system-monitoring and overclocking tasks in Windows without getting Gigabyte’s utilities involved.

All of the Aorus Xtreme’s RGB LEDs are elegantly diffused rather than retina-searing, and they’re all individually-addressable for slick-looking lighting effects from Gigabyte’s RGB Fusion utility—even if Gigabyte needs to put a bit of work in to ensure that RGB Fusion and the Aorus Xtreme are playing well together. Ample headers for RGBW and individually-addressable RGB LED strips let builders expand RGB Fusion’s reach from the Aorus Extreme, too.
 
Overall, Gigabyte has achieved the enviable feat of wiring up a motherboard as complicated as this one without designing itself into a corner. All of its ports and headers are wired as they ought to be. All of its slots work together without stealing each others’ connectivity. Last, but certainly not least, the X399 Aorus Extreme just looks and feels like a motherboard this expensive should.

If a motherboard company had asked us to design a top-shelf X399 board, the result probably wouldn’t have been far from the X399 Aorus Extreme. For folks who want a rock-solid and fully-featured Threadripper board that looks good both at work and at play, the Aorus Extreme should be at the top of their shopping lists. I’m happy to call it a TR Editor’s Choice.

The post Gigabyte’s X399 Aorus Xtreme motherboard reviewed appeared first on The Tech Report.

The site says Intel is bumping some of its low-end desktop chipset production out of its own fabs and into TSMC's to free up fab time for server CPUs and chipsets. The site reports that Intel plans to move some production of the H310 chipset and “several other 300 series desktop processors” to TSMC. DigiTimes notes that Intel already sources its SoFIA smartphone chips, some FPGA products, and modems from the Taiwanese fab.

The H370 platform controller hub. Similar silicon underpins H310

Why is Intel manufacturing low-end chipsets on a leading-edge node to begin with? In conversations with other members of the media, I've come to understand that move is the result of the California Energy Commission's 2019 regulations. Indeed, Intel itself was involved in the state's rule-making effort and the timeline for the imposition of those regulations, and the company trumpeted its support for the rules upon their ratification. CEC 2019 imposes strict limitations on the power usage of computers and monitors in idle, sleep, and off modes.

The state believes its rules will save California utility customers 2,332 gigawatt-hours of energy usage per year, or an amount of power equal to the electricity use of all homes in San Francisco or San Luis Obispo counties in 2015. In total, those rules could save California customers $3.5 billion from 2019 to 2030, as well. Intel noted that the majority of those savings would come from PCs compliant with the new standards, and making chipsets on leading-edge processes could help cut down their energy usage in low-power states.

While Intel had no comment for DigiTimes' story, other reports point to the company being capacity-constrained for 14-nm production. SemiAccurate says that Intel's server partners apparently can't get enough supply of its Xeon Scalable chips to meet demand, so it wouldn't be a shock if the company is farming out the low-cost and potentially lower-margin H310 chipset to free up 14-nm fab time for larger, more complex processors that earn much higher profits. If these reports are correct, Intel may be under more pressure than ever to get 10-nm silicon working and shipping. The second half of 2019 apparently can't come soon enough.

The post Report: Intel could move some chipset production to TSMC appeared first on The Tech Report.

• We're kicking off today with a familiar face: the Micron 1100 2-TB solid-state drive. This jug o' files can push up to 530 MB/s when doing sequential reads, and up to 500 MB/s when writing. Random I/O speeds are nothing to sneeze at either, at 92K IOPS for reads and 83K IOPS when writing. Rakuten will sell you this drive for a low, low $251.59 with the checkout code SAVE15.

• Next up, an item equally big, but of another category. The Asus ROG PG348Q is a 34″ curved display with a 3440×1440 IPS panel. This monitor is infused with G-Sync goodness, and the maximum refresh rate is 100 Hz. The included stand is height-adjustable, and you also get a USB hub and built-in speakers. Take this monitor home for $849.99 from Newegg with the cart code EMCPYPT34.

• We'd wager a good number of you are eyeballing a Coffee Lake build, and we have just the right cornerstone for that. The EVGA Z370 FTW is a meaty affair, packed with three M.2 sockets (one of them for Wi-Fi cards), metal-reinforced DIMM slots and main PCI slots, and VRM heatsinks. Additional niceties include Intel-powered Ethernet and a Realtek ALC1220 audio codec. Get this mobo for a mere $119.99 from Amazon. That's pretty darn low, to our reckoning.

• Nobody should ever compute without a UPS like the Cyberpower GX1325U. This unit has a capacity of 1325 VA and enough punch to push 810 W to its connected equipment. There are two handy USB ports up front, just below an ever-so-pretty LCD readout. Secure your gear and your data for just $119.99 at Newegg with the cart code EMCPYPT28.

• Last but by no means least, a Dell G5 laptop ready for gaming on the go. The particular model on hand packs a mighty Core i7-8570H processor next to a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card with 4 GB of its own memory. Additional specs include 8 GB of system RAM, and a combo storage setup with a 128-GB SSD coupled with a 1-TB spinner. Walmart will let you have this lappie for just $799.99. That's a darn low price for this much horsepower.

That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Tuesday deals: a Micron 1100 2-TB solid-state drive for $252 and more appeared first on The Tech Report.

• ASRock's Pro4 motherboards are popular with Intel and AMD builders alike for their reasonable quality at affordable prices, and the AB350M Pro4 is ready to handle value-packed Ryzen builds. It has a quartet of USB 3.0 ports and a USB 3.0 Type-C port on its back panel, a single PCIe x4 M.2 slot connected directly to the CPU, a budget-friendly microATX form factor, and an incredible $49.99 price tag after a $10 mail-in rebate.

• If your tastes run toward Coffee Lake, Newegg has Gigabyte's Z370 Aorus Gaming 5 motherboard on sale for $150, or $50 off, with the promo code EMCPXSP33. This is a fully-featured board ready to handle all but the most extreme Coffee Lake overclocks. It has four USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports on its back panel, USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A and Type-C ports, built-in 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and—of course—copious RGB LEDs.

• Newegg also has the M.2 version of Samsung's 860 EVO 1-TB SATA SSD on sale for $189.99 with promo code EMCPXSP53. At 19¢ a gig, this is a fine balance of capacity and performance for a big chunk of solid-state storage.

• If you value performance to go with your capacity, Newegg also has Samsung's 960 Evo 1-TB NVMe SSD on sale for $289.99, no code required. The company will throw in a free Far Cry 5 game code with your purchase, as well, a $60 value on its own. As far as we can tell, this is one of the lowest prices ever for this drive, and it's an all-around awesome performer. Amazon will sell you the 960 EVO for the same price, too, if you'd rather source it from there.

• Midrange graphics-card prices are finally approaching sanity again, and MSI's Radeon RX 580 Armor 8G is exemplary of the trend. This pixel-pusher has a dual-fan cooler, two each of DisplayPort and HDMI outputs, and a 1366-MHz boost clock range. Newegg will sell you this card for $209.99 after a $20 mail-in rebate card, or below the RX 580 8 GB's suggested price of $229.99.

• 4K monitors are another product category that has gotten more affordable of late, and LG's 27UD58P-B is a fine example. This display is a pretty standard IPS monitor with a 1000:1 static contrast ratio, a 5-ms response time, and 72% coverage of the NTSC color space (or about 100% of sRGB, give or take). It can sync up with FreeSync-capable graphics cards within a rather narrow 48-Hz-to-60-Hz range as a bonus. If you want to dive in, this monitor will run you just $259.99 with promo code EMCPXSP36.

 That's all for today, folks! There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping. Not only do we have a partnership with Newegg and Amazon, but we also work with Best Buy, Adorama, Rakuten, Walmart, and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at Das Keyboard's shop.

The post Deals of the day: an ASRock B350 motherboard for $50 and more appeared first on The Tech Report.