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ASUS offers free fix for Evangelion typo on motherboard
ASUS will be offering a free replacement part to fix the 'Evangelion' typo on the special edition motherboard.
ASUS revealed to be total anime fan poseur via costly typo on motherboard
ASUS' $700 ROG Maximus Z790 Hero EVA-02 Edition motherboard has a silly typo in the iconic 'Evangelion' brand.
Dell's Concept Luna shows how future laptops could be easier to repair and recycle
Working with Intel, Dell has created a new PC called Concept Luna with the aim of making future PCs easier to repair, reuse and recycle.
iFixit teardown takes a look inside the Note 10+ 5G
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ 5G will be available online and in stores tomorrow. Just in time, the folks at iFixit are sharing a peek inside the new device. Most notably, the phone borrows one major design queue from the iPhone, and it won't be super easy to repair.
Apple offers free repairs for faulty 2018 MacBook Air logic boards
Some owners of Apple's current-generation MacBook Air might be due for a free but important fix. Reports from 9to5Mac, AppleInsider and MacRumors indicate that Apple has found a logic board problem with a "very small number" of MacBook Air units that will warrant free repairs for up to four years after the original purchase date of a given machine. The company hasn't detailed the nature of the issue or added the Air to its official repair extension page, but the symptoms can include "power," according to 9to5Mac.
ASUS releases a 30th anniversary edition ZenFone 6 and ZenBook
ASUS turned 30 last month, so it's no surprise that the company saved some special edition products for Computex. What we have here are the ZenFone 6 Edition 30, ZenBook Edition 30 and Prime X299 Edition 30 motherboard -- a fitting trio to reflect the company's expanded portfolio over the decades (though a new Zenbo would have been nice, too). While the hardware isn't brand new, they all feature ASUS' 30th anniversary "A" logo, along with some exclusive looks and specs.
ASUS' latest crypto-mining motherboard can handle 20 GPUs
ASUS is moving further into the cryptocurrency hardware market with a motherboard that can support up to 20 graphics cards, which are typically used for mining. The H370 Mining Master uses PCIe-over-USB ports for what ASUS says is sturdier, simpler connectivity than other mining-focused motherboards.
AMD's 'Combat Crate Bundles' help gamers quickly build PCs
Thanks to the stupidity that is Bitcoin mining, graphics cards for gaming have become wildly over-expensive. AMD has come to the rescue with the Combat Crate Bundle, giving you the main components you need to build a decent PC. For $550 (at Amazon, Newegg and elsewhere), you get a Ryzen 5 1600 with cooler, MSI B350 Tomahawk motherboard and MSI Radeon RX 580 Armor OC graphics card. That's a bit cheaper than the sum of the parts at retail, especially considering the ridiculously over-inflated price of the card alone in the last few months.
Vice goes to the big screen with Motherboard science documentary
Vice-owned outlet Motherboard's documentary The Most Unknown, about "the biggest questions in science," will debut on Netflix after its theatrical run. The publication sent nine scientists around the world to get answers to big topics like the definition of consciousness, what exactly comprises dark matter and where life originated. According to Motherboard, "The film is an experiment, one in which we posited that by tossing scientists who'd never met into a petri dish of our own design, we'd learn something about what it means to dedicate one's life to questions we're not yet sure we can answer."
Overclocking to 7GHz takes more than just liquid nitrogen
Over the years, I've been fascinated by two kinds of events at Computex: esports and extreme-PC-overclocking competitions. I doubt I'd ever make it as a professional gamer (I'm more of a Counter Fight kind of guy than a Counter-Strike man these days), but I'd jump at any opportunity to pour liquid nitrogen onto a PC motherboard, because even if I screw something up, chances are I'd still look cool doing so. It just so happened that at this year's Computex, gaming-accessory maker G.SKILL invited me to its extreme-overclocking workshop behind its contest stage. As a total newbie with absolutely zero knowledge of overclocking, I quickly took up this offer.
The past, present and future of ASUS, according to its chairman
ASUS Chairman Jonney Shih talks about the early days of his company.
The DEA's using powerful spyware for surveillance too
The war on drugs has a surprising soldier amongst its ranks: Italian spying software. As Motherboard's sources tell it, the Drug Enforcement Administration's dropped $2.4 million on surveillance tools that are capable of intercepting phone calls, texts, social media messages, and can even take hold of someone's webcam and microphone. Oh, Remote Control System (as its officially called) can grab passwords, too. Almost sounds like a video game, right? The Hacking Team-developed software (the outfit behind Ethiopian cyberattacks on US journalists), can be installed on the sly and grants access to data that may very well be encrypted or otherwise inaccessible by other means. It comes hot on the heels of news that the DEA's been collecting phonecall metadata for an awfully lot longer than the NSA, too. Naturally, no one on either side of the story has been eager to open up to Motherboard, and presumably journalists in general.
Bitcoin mining motherboards promise huge profits (for your energy provider)
As Bitcoins have become more valuable, they've also become much harder to accumulate using the mathematical process known as "mining." This air of futility hasn't fazed ASRock, however, as the company has revealed two new motherboards that promise to help DIY-ers to "join the gold rush now!" The H61 Pro BTC and H81 Pro BTC are both Intel socket boards, with the latter being Haswell compatible, and their main party trick is to carry extra PCIe slots and power connectors so you can exploit the compute power of up to six graphics cards simultaneously. What ASRock doesn't specify, however, is how much profit one of its fully-loaded mining motherboards might deliver. So, although we're quite deliberately not experts at this stuff (aside from a bit of armchair interest), we plugged some numbers into the Bitcoin Profitability Calculator, based on six Radeon HD 7990 cards running in parallel, and discovered that this monster of a system might never actually break even, due to its ridiculously high energy costs. This could well explain why all the big boys use dedicated ASIC boards for mining these days, instead of consumer-grade hardware.
ASUS first to arrive with motherboard packing Intel's 20Gbps Thunderbolt 2
The ink is still fresh on Intel's formal blessing of Thunderbolt 2, and as promised, there's already a product on the market from perennial early bird ASUS. The Z87-Deluxe/Quad ATX is the first motherboard to pack the tech, which combines four of the original 10Gbps Thunderbolt channels into two bi-directional 20Gbps ports. That's four times the speed of USB 3.0 if you're keeping score at home, allowing two 4K displays to be driven at once, or faster-than-SATA-6 SSD speeds, for instance. Otherwise, it's as well-equipped as you'd expect from a bleeding edge mainboard, with 4th-gen Intel (Haswell) CPU support, 10 SATA-6 ports, 8 USB 3.0 ports, and 3 PCIe 3.0/2.0 x 16 slots. There's no pricing or availability yet, though Thunderbolt-equipped motherboards tend to be expensive. Still, if you wear the "early adopter" name-tag with pride, hit the PR after the break.
Visualized: Intel's Haswell Core i7 overclocked to 6.88GHz on an ASUS motherboard
After winning yesterday's Corsair Overclocking competition at Computex, the same folks were brought over to ASUS' ROG event earlier today, where they overclocked an Intel Haswell Core i7-4770K from its typical 3.5GHz to a staggering 6.88GHz -- just a tad less than yesterday's 6.98GHz -- on an ASUS Maximus VI Extreme motherboard. As a bonus, the DRAM frequency was also pushed to 4.1GHz, which is believed to be the fastest yet on Haswell. As usual, the overclockers poured liquid nitrogen onto the chip every now and then to keep it cool, thus giving us the above photo opportunity. %Gallery-190236%
ASUS' NFC Express accessory comes bundled with Deluxe / Dual Haswell motherboard
Most would agree that motherboards aren't particularly exciting components, so it's good to have a hook to stand out. ASUS' new Z87 mobo series for Intel's Haswell chips may not be waterproof, but the Deluxe / Dual model has plenty to offer nonetheless, including two Thunderbolt ports, on-board 802.11ac WiFi support, ASUS' "4-Way Optimization" tech and more. What really got our eyebrows lifting at this specific board, however, was the new NFC Express accessory that comes bundled with it (you'll also be able to purchase one separately). It's not just your standard USB-connected NFC reader and writer, as it has features like automatic photo and video syncing with mobile devices, one-touch Windows 8 login, and quick-launch options for loading software or sites with a tap. An NFC tag is included, but you'll need an equipped smartphone for some of the functions, like quick-pairing in ASUS' Wi-Fi GO! utility for remote desktopping. If you're not a big NFC user (and let's be honest, who is?), then at least the little box's got two USB 3.0 ports, meaning you're still getting a free, if not overqualified USB hub.
ASRock's new Haswell motherboards will be waterproof, of course (update: video)
If your current motherboard has more Mountain Dew than CPU, you might be interested in ASRock's forthcoming Haswell offerings. Among the usual features like dual-band 802.11ac-flavored WiFi, HDMI input and a Home Cloud service, Tom's Hardware spotted a mention of "Waterproof by Conformal Coating." The company's sub-site doesn't give too much else away, like how extensive the protection will be, instead simply telling us to "A-Style our lifestyle." The only feature with any amount of detail is a Pure Sound audio system (7.1 channel audio, Realtek ALC1150 audio codec and a TI 5532 pre-amp if you're interested) that we've already seen. Still, if fluid has been getting between you and your high scores, keep an eye on the source for more info. Update: And just like that, ASRock has added more info about the HDMI input, including a demo video which you can find after the break.
ASRock Purity Sound motherboards come with better audio shielding, headphone amps
Not that we were necessarily asking for it, but we now have another spec to weigh up when choosing a new Haswell motherboard. ASRock's A-Style Z87 mobos will come with a bunch of audio-related features collectively called "A-Style: Purity Sound", which the company claims will result in a better signal-to-noise ratio (115dB) compared to regular onboard 7.1-channel circuitry. The boards will also come with a dedicated headphone amp that should be able to high-impedance drive cans up to 600 Ohms, plus DTS Connect for converting PC audio to the DTS codec for optical out. There's some extra shielding around the components, which lends plausibility to the better SNR and the promise of better sound quality -- so Purity Sound probably can't be dismissed as Purity Marketing. In any case, just make sure you also pay this much attention to your next power supply.
Intel Haswell's idle states reportedly won't play well with some power supplies
One of the staples of Intel's upcoming Haswell processor architecture is its support for lower-power idle states that can rival tablet chips in power consumption, even on the desktop. However, that may come with a big caveat for budget and custom-built PCs: certain power supplies might not cut it. VR-Zone claims that those idle states require as little as 0.05 amps of current, which could be too nuanced for older or cut-rate supplies that deliver power in bigger clumps. That might not be a problem for companies building complete PCs, but Corsair's Robert Pearce tells The Tech Report that it may lead to a lot of motherboard builders playing it safe by disabling those specific modes by default. Many of us, in turn, would either have to buy a fresh supply or toggle the power-saving options ourselves. We've reached out to Intel to verify the truth, but it may be wisest to make a cleaner break from the past with any near-term upgrades.
Intel will discontinue desktop motherboards following Haswell release
The decline in desktop PC sales is beginning to ripple throughout the industry, as Intel has revealed plans to wind down its desktop motherboard division over the next three years. According to AnandTech, the company will release boards that are based on the Haswell architecture before completely suspending development. Moving forward, Intel will instead focus its efforts on creating form factor reference designs for the Ultrabook, tablet and desktop markets. Curiously, one product that's currently immune from the announcement is the Next Unit of Computing (NUC), a miniature barebones system that will see continual development from Intel. While custom PC builders will likely take a moment to reflect upon the news, it's said that the transition is unlikely to affect the company's workforce. Instead, current employees will be absorbed into other divisions within Intel. After all, there's no point in showing talented engineers to the door, even in an age of market shifts. [Image credit: huangjiahui, Flickr]
