Several new ASRock products have passed through the KCC, which is the Korean equivalent of the FCC and normally this would be a new motherboard or maybe some small form factor system, but surprisingly enough, we're looking at gaming monitors. The leak comes courtesy of @momomo_us who's dug up a lot of juicy details on two of the models, whereas we only know the basic specs for the other models. First up, we have the PG34WQ15R, which is a 34-inch curved VA display with a 3440x1440 resolution. It supports FreeSync Premium and has a refresh rate range of 48 to 165 Hz over DisplayPort and 48-100 Hz over HDMI, which seems to be an HDMI 1.4 limitation. The next model is the PG27FF, which is a regular 1080p IPS display that also supports FreeSync Premium, here with a refresh rate range of 48 to 165 Hz over both DP and HDMI. There appears to be multiple sub SKUs of this model, but all start with PG27F.



Then we have the PG32QF, which should be a flat 32-inch display, with unknown specs, but the Q in the model name suggests that it's a 1440p monitor. Finally we have the PG42U, where the U in the model name suggests it's a 4K 42-inch display. The stand looks nearly identical to the one ASUS uses for its ROG Strix XG43UQ 4K screen and the specs are likely to be quite similar too, which means we might see support for 144 Hz or higher refresh rates. All four displays are manufactured by TPV Technology, which produces its own monitors under the AOC, Envision and Philips brands. It's unknown when these new monitors from ASRock will launch, but considering they've passed through certification, it's highly likely that they'll turn up sometime later this year.

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SilverStone Launches M.2 Riser Card for Two SSDs
For those with older systems, or for those just in need of additional M.2 slots in their system, SilverStone has launched the SST-ECM28 riser card. The SST-ECM28 is a low-profile solution that can house one M-key NVMe drive and one B-key SATA drive, as it allows a drive to be mounted on each side of the riser card. The SATA drive requires a SATA cable to be connected to the rear of the riser card and then to a SATA slot on the motherboard to function.



This isn't the first time we've seen a product that can handle two drives, but it's the first time we've seen one that is as compact as this. The downside is that there's no retention bracket and it appears that the only way to hold the SST-ECM28 is by fitting it into a physical x16 slot that has a locking mechanism for graphics cards, as the PCB has a retention hook, just as you get on most x16 cards. The SST-ECM28 uses a standard x4 PCIe interface, so it will fit in x4 slots as well, with the risk of it popping out of the slot if the system is moved around. Drives of all sizes from 2230 up to 2280 are supported for both SATA and NVMe drives.

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Intel Raptor Lake Launch and Availability Dates Revealed
A post on Chinese forum Bilibili has revealed more exact details with regards to when Intel's Raptor Lake series of processors will launch and if nothing changes between now and then, the K and KF SKU's should be announced as previously thought, at the Intel Innovation '22 event that kicks off on the 27th of September. Retail availability, alongside Z790 motherboards should be about a month later, starting the week of the 17th of October. We've confirmed these dates with our own sources, but as always with early information, these things can change.



The rest of the Raptor Lake family of CPUs, as well as the H770 and B760 chipsets are expected to launch at CES 2023 in January and the poster on Bilibili claims that retail sales should be sometime in the second half of January. We've not been able to confirm the latter information here. As per older rumours, Intel is expected to change the PCIe lane allocation for the Z790 chipset compared to Z690 and based on the information posted, Z790 will have 20 PCIe 4.0 and eight PCIe 3.0 lanes, vs. 12 PCIe 4.0 and 16 PCIe 3.0 for the Z690 chipset. Raptor Lake is also said to get native support for faster DDR5 5600 memory, rather than just 4800 MHz DDR5 for Alder Lake. There are apparently no changes to the CPU PCIe lanes and DDR4 support is still here, but once again, no changes have been made to the DDR4 memory controller.

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Intel Core i7-13700K Raptor Lake-S CPU Runs Geekbench
With Intel Raptor Lake-S desktop processors around the corner, we see an ever-increasing number of entries to the popular synthetic benchmark databases. Yesterday we had an Intel Core i5-3600K CPU, while today, we are presented with Core i7-13700K SKU. The new 13th generation Core i7-13700K CPU features eight P-cores and eight E-cores. Compared to the 12th generation Core i7-12700K, this is a step up with eight P-cores and four E-cores. According to Geekbench 5 benchmark, the new Qualification Sample (QS) of Core i7-13700K CPU was running at the minimum clock of 5.289 GHz, maximum clock of 5.381 GHz, and average speed of 5.36 GHz. It was tested on the same configuration as yesterday's i5 SKU with ASRock Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E motherboard with 32 GB of DDR4 memory.



As far as the results are concerned, the 13th gen i7-13700K SKU scored 2090 points in the single-core test, while the multi-core score totaled 16542 points. If we compare this to the 12th gen i7-12700K CPU that it replaces, the new model leads by about 10% and 17% in single-core and multi-core tests, respectively.

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Intel Xeon W9-3495 Sapphire Rapids HEDT CPU with 56 Cores and 112 Threads Appears
Intel's upcoming Sapphire Rapids processors will not only be present in the server sector but will also span the high-end desktop (HEDT) platform. Today, according to the findings of a Twitter user, @InstLatX64, we have an appearance of Intel's upcoming Sapphire Rapids HEDT SKU in Kernel.org boot logs. Named Intel Xeon W9-3495, this model features 56 cores and 112 threads. While there is no specific information about base and boost frequencies, we know that the SKU supports AVX-512 and AMX instructions. This is a welcome addition, as we have seen Intel disable AVX-512 on consumer chips altogether.



With a high core count and additional instructions for Deep Learning, this CPU will power workstations sometimes in the future. With the late arrival of Sapphire Rapids for servers, a HEDT variant should follow.

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(PR) CommScope Launches ARRIS SURFboard Wi-Fi 6E Network Upgrade Devices
As devices and gaming consoles are increasingly connected to home networks, consumers desire to improve the quality and performance of their Wi-Fi network and they can do that by upgrading their network to Wi-Fi 6E. A global leader in home networking solutions, CommScope is entering the retail Wi-Fi 6E market by offering two new ARRIS SURFboard solutions. These enable customers to upgrade their network quickly and easily without replacing any of their existing equipment.



"Augmented reality, virtual reality, and gaming consoles are establishing baselines of latency and jitter performance that are driving consumers to upgrade their home networks and improve their overall connectivity performance," stated Evan Groat, Senior Vice President, Smart Home Solutions and Retail Products, CommScope. "One way to accomplish this is by upgrading to Wi-Fi 6E technology which is exactly what these two new ARRIS SURFboard solutions achieve. Each allows consumers to connect more devices to their home network simultaneously with consistent speed and reliability, while also improving their gaming and streaming performance," Groat continued.
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TechPowerUp and Creative Hearing is Believing Giveaway: The Winners
TechPowerUp partnered with Creative, the pioneers of PC gaming audio, to bring you the "Hearing is Believing" Giveaway. Under Creative's technological leadership, PC gaming audio evolved with the times, and is now squarely in the era of game streamers and content creators. With the company's Sound Blaster GC7, not only do you get the highest quality audio tuned by experts, but also DSPs optimized for various game genres, and audio controls for content creators. We're giving away three prizes from the Creative stable, and without further ado, here they are:
  • @truehighroller1 from the US, wins the Creative Sound Blaster GC7
  • Gabriele from Italy, wins the Creative Sound Blaster X4
  • Jeff from the US, wins the Creative Sound BlasterX G6
A huge Congratulations to you three! TechPowerUp and Creative with more such interesting giveaways!

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Unofficial NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060M Performs Within an Inch of the RTX 3060
Remember those unofficial GeForce RTX 3060 cards that sported "hackamajigged" Mobile versions of the NVIDIA RTX 3060 desktop GPU wrapped in a shiny, desktop-like shroud? Well, those cards are now surfacing again just as Ethereum's Merge approaches (for the umpteenth time, it has to be said). Miners have taken to offload their graphics cards in order to recoup their hardware investment costs. Despite the recent positive price action, which saw Ethereum in particular recovering 34% of its value in about a week, there's only so much time left to mine before all those re-purposed GPUs become "nothing more" than gaming graphics cards. And those are usually superfluous beyond one per rig - never mind the numbers used by miners.



As these cards are now surfacing in the secondary markets, some benchmarks are also leaking. According to a Korean YouTuber, It appears that the RTX 3060M is actually a pretty competent RTX 3060. The GeForce RTX 3060M makes use of the same GA106 (Ampere) silicon as the GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile, sporting 3,840 CUDA cores and 6 GB of 14 Gbps GDDR6 memory (256 more CUDA cores than the desktop version, as wider, lesser-clocked GPUs sport better power efficiency profiles). The desktop shroud does allow it to unlock an additional 300 MHz in core frequency, while reducing its TDP from 105 W down to just 80 W.
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(PR) Silicon Power Introduces Stream S05 Portable Hard Drive
The new Stream S05 from Silicon Power (SP) was designed to be the perfect portable hard drive for saving on the go. The Stream S05 will be your new favorite 2.5" portable hard drive. Intended for everyday use, its compact and lightweight design comfortably fits in your hand for ultimate portability. Bring it with you wherever you go to back-up everything from important documents to irreplaceable memories, reliably and securely. Photos, videos, songs, documents - whatever you need to back-up, the Stream S05 has space for tons of it with up to 5 TB of storage capacity. Plus, a super-speed USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A interface delivers rapid transfer rates to cut the time needed for storing your files in a safe place.
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