TechPowerUP NEWS

[NextPowerUP]

We're sharing the first look at our Hyperpop Collection, featuring three new striking designs for DualSense wireless controllers and PS5 console covers. With glossy blacks shifting into vivid neons, each finish introduces an all-new aesthetic into your gaming setup. With the vibrant Hyperpop Collection, players can choose their track between Techno, Remix, or Rhythm.

To share more about the Hyperpop Collection's design and creative process, here's Leo Cardoso and Sae Kobayashi from our Color, Material, and Finish design team. Leo Cardoso: "we're cranking the volume all the way up with a collection that doesn't just stand out, it takes over the room. Inspired by the glow of the RGB lights of your impressive gaming setups, these new colors go LOUD in the best possible way."
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[NextPowerUP]

Not long after AMD's alleged confirmation of the "Granite Ridge" flagship 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 CPU's existence, web sleuths noticed that the not-yet-launched SKU being included in marketing material and new product descriptions. Most tellingly, Alienware China's Weibo account inadvertently mentioned a new Area-51 desktop system powered by Team Red's Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 processor. An accompanying short video was tagged with a "CES 2026" banner. As it turns out—to some online community disappointment—AMD only presented its 8-core Ryzen 7 9850X3D model during this week's North American trade show.

Sytronix, a UK-based PC workstation and server specialist, has advertised an "all-new" NexStation product, arriving soon through pre-ordering—apparently "powered by AMD's Radeon AI PRO 9700 (GPU) and Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 (CPU)." Elaborating on the chip's vaunted dual CCD setup, Sytronix's product page states that the design: "stacks massive L3 cache directly on the CPU, boosting memory bandwidth and cutting latency. Perfect for simulation, CAD, data science, and AI inferencing; anything that needs fast access to large datasets." Slightly older leaks show preview samples of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 being benchmarked—this pre-launch activity probably signals a rollout in the near-ish future; potentially months after the release of its 8-core sibling.

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[NextPowerUP]

NVIDIA is wrapping up a big week at the CES trade show with a set of GeForce NOW announcements that are bringing more ways to play and more games to the cloud. From new native apps for Linux and Amazon Fire TV streaming sticks to hands-on throttle-and-stick (HOTAS) support for simulation fans and a new single sign-on option, GeForce NOW is expanding across devices and making it easier to jump straight into gameplay.

Topping it off, a new wave of AAA titles—including IO Interactive's 007 First Light, Capcom's Resident Evil Requiem and Pearl Abyss' Crimson Desert—is gearing up to join the GeForce NOW library for high-fidelity, low-latency streaming across the globe. Get ready with the six new games available to stream this week.
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[NextPowerUP]

Intel did not include coverage of its lesser known "Wildcat Lake" mobile processor family during a main stage presentation of new-gen Core Ultra Series products. Despite talk of various "Ultra Low Power" solutions, the main focus on day one was "Panther Lake." Following the conclusion of Team Blue's big conference, a few news outlets noticed an interesting Core Series 3 "Die Package Configuration" slide; seemingly not deemed worthy of being placed alongside nearby larger "Panther Lake" chip designs (consisting of three configs). According to the loose slide, Intel's smaller "Wildcat Lake" package makes do with six processor cores (2P+4LPE) and two Xe3 iGPU cores. This information matches leaks from last year; with a next-gen chip design destined for eventual deployment in entry-level notebooks.

Surprisingly, a physical sample was handed over to HardwareLuxx.de on the Las Vegas showroom floor. Photos show a tile layout that does not completely align with the chipmaker's official product render. According to Andreas Schilling's news article, Intel representatives have confirmed the existence of their "Wildcat Lake" family—going under "Core Series 3" guises. The Blue Team anticipates a second quarter launch, with "Wildcat Lake" heading to edge systems and embedded platforms. In a separate report, Abhishek Yadav claims that the upcoming "Core Series 3" processor series will replace "older Alder Lake-N lineup." Going into further detail, HardwareLuxx was informed about specific "Core Ultra 5 332" and "Core Ultra 5 322" SKUs being designated as the smallest of "Panther Lake" packages (4P+4LPE & 4 Xe3 cores). Very late last year, rumors of refreshed "Wildcat Lake" products turned up on the internet—finalized examples are likely some distance from release.

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[NextPowerUP]

QNAP Systems, Inc. (QNAP), a leading computing, networking and storage solution innovator, today introduced the QXG-100G2SF-BCM, a dual-port 100GbE network expansion card. Featuring PCIe Gen 4.0 x16, 200 Gbps total throughput, and advanced offload technologies including RDMA and SR-IOV, the QXG-100G2SF-BCM is engineered to overcome performance bottlenecks in virtualization, data centers, and I/O-intensive applications. When paired with QNAP all-flash NAS, it maximizes storage performance and unleashes new levels of productivity for demanding IT workloads.

"The demand for higher throughput and lower latency continues to grow in enterprise and data center environments," said Sean Teng, Product Manager at QNAP. "With the QXG-100G2SF-BCM, organizations can unlock the full performance of all-flash storage, accelerate virtualization workloads, and scale IT operations with ease."
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[NextPowerUP]

Noctua's January 2026 roadmap keeps the same product lineup, but many release windows have been moved later in the year. The Antec Flux Pro Noctua Edition case remains slated for Q1, and standalone water coolers are still listed for Q2. Beyond those entries, several launches have been delayed. Specifically, the Pulsar Feinman Noctua Edition mouse and the NF-A12x25 G2 chromax.black fan have been pushed from Q1 into Q2. A 140 mm desk fan, a USB fan controller, and the Seasonic PRIME PX Noctua Edition power supply have shifted from Q2 into Q3. The Seasonic PSU delay stands out the most because the unit was announced more than a year ago and will now arrive after Computex, effectively moving its debut into the summer months.

However, a delay with proper execution isn't necessarily negative. Noctua prioritizes quality and rigorous testing and each product must survive stress-testing for thousands of hours in the lab, where different user scenarios are made. Additionally, Shipping sensitive components like PSUs also requires time for thorough testing, as they are exposed to many environmental factors, even when the Noctua edition of the Seasonic PSU only changes the fan. Even with that, consumers can expect these prolonged delays to be worthwhile. Below you can see the latest January roadmap, and older September roadmap for comparison.

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[NextPowerUP]

With the cycle of DRAM and GPUs becoming more expensive just beginning, it seems the next step in the price increase trend is the most basic PC building parts like power supplies and CPU coolers. According to a VideoCardz report, Guangzhou Xinhongzheng Electronic Technology Co., Ltd, a leading electronics manufacturer in China, the company has informed customer that power supply prices may rise by about 6-10%, while CPU coolers are expected to see a 6-8% increase. These products depend on raw materials like copper, silver, and tin, which are critical for both PSUs and CPU coolers, leading to an anticipated cost increase of at least 6% for manufacturers with standard contract commitments.

Guangzhou Xinhongzheng Electronic Technology advises customers that if they plan to secure significant inventory, they should do so in January, before the promotional period ends in February. The note indicates that nearly 90% of products are currently offered at discounted prices from suppliers, suggesting that most items like PSUs and CPU coolers will soon be sold at full price, likely with a higher markup for consumers. If manufacturing has long relied on discounts, the price increase might not stop at the 6-10% range but could be even higher. As these companies are adjusting pricing, we could see a massive price hike unfold in the coming weeks. However, this should be taken with a grain of salt as we have no third-party verification of these claims, so we need to wait and see what is happening across the supply chain.
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[NextPowerUP]

It'll still be another week until we start seeing some bigger game releases, which means we have another fairly slow week of new games ahead of use. This week's biggest release involves you working as a TSA agent of sorts, except you'll be screening for zombies. If that's not your thing, how about a game about getting turned green and using your tongue to get around? Still not it? What about an RPG with Minecraft style graphics? Maybe being a train conductor is more your style? How about an action JRPG? Regardless, we're ending this week with a psychological horror game, for those of you that are into that kind of thing.

Quarantine Zone: The Last Check / This week's major release / Monday 12 January
Armed with advanced screening tools and your own instincts, you must decide who gets through and who stays behind. One wrong choice could let the infection slip past your post. But holding the line is only the beginning. You'll need to manage scarce resources, reinforce defenses, and keep your camp alive as chaos intensifies with each passing day. Steam link
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[NextPowerUP]

As the Consumer Electronics Show of 2026 comes to an end, our field crew has done of a lot of work to keep readers updated. However, pre-CES expectations were high for several product launches, that sadly didn't happen. In today's piece we are ranking the top five things we didn't get at CES 2026, even with hopes of a product launch occurring during the show.

1) First on our non-weighted ranking is NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50-series "Blackwell" SUPER refresh. This mid-cycle was originally planned for late Q1 to early Q2 2026, with a possible announcement at CES 2026. The "SUPER" treatment was planned with denser GDDR7 memory modules with 3 GB of capacity per chip, increasing the memory configuration of the standard GeForce RTX 5070, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5080. Initially, the RTX 5070 SUPER was planned with an upgrade to offer 18 GB, while the RTX 5070 Ti SUPER and RTX 5080 SUPER would each provide 24 GB of GDDR7 memory.
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[NextPowerUP]

Intel's "Panther Lake" chips, built on the 18A node, debuted at CES 2026, featuring Arc B390 integrated graphics. This launch shows that Intel is now commited to delivering some of the best-in-class iGPU performance. Digital Foundry has reported impressive performance claims from Intel. In Cyberpunk 2077, at 1080p resolution with the game set to "Ultra" and with ray-traced shadows and reflections enabled, Intel's top-tier Core Ultra X9 388H SKU achieves 28 FPS. While this may not seem remarkable at first glance, under the same settings, AMD's "Strix Point" Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 with Radeon 890M graphics manages only 14 FPS. This suggests that the "Panther Lake" chip performs twice as fast in early game results. In Intel's own testing, the "Panther Lake" chip is 73% faster with upscaling technologies and 82% faster at native resolution compared to AMD's "Strix Point," indicating an average across multiple titles. This also means there are instances where the Arc B390 outputs 100% more frames compared to the Radeon 890M.

Regarding desktop GPU performance, Intel is now comparable to the AMD Radeon RX 6600 discrete GPU, which scored 27 FPS in the same Cyberpunk 2077 game settings. Intel is collaborating with developers to integrate its latest XeSS3 multi-frame generation upscaling technology into numerous titles from the start. Cyberpunk 2077 is supported from day one, resulting in about a 3x increase in frame rates compared to XeSS2. In comparison to NVIDIA, Intel also claims to surpass NVIDIA's DLSS with the RTX 4050, particularly since XeSS3 supports multi-frame generation, which the RTX 4050 does not.

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[NextPowerUP]

Over the past couple of years, we've seen a lot of new entries into the NAS market and another new player is Zettlab. The company ran a successful Kickstarter campaign, raising over US$1.48 million from 1820 backers. The company brought base tier D4 and D6 models to CES and these models have started to arrive with its backers about six months late, whereas the more powerful Ultra models seem to have ended up stuck in development hell, partially due to increased DRAM prices.

The D4 and D6 are based on the Rockchip RK3588 Arm SoC with four Cortex-A76 and four Cortex-A55 CPU cores, a 6 TOPS NPU and an Arm Mali G610 MC4 GPU. Zettlab has paired the RK3588 with 16 GB of LPDDR4x memory and 32 GB eMMC for the OS. Both SKUs have a 1 Gbps and a 2.5 Gbps Ethernet port, one NVMe slot, and HDMI port, one Type-C and one Type-A USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports, one full-size SD card slot and one microSD card slot, as well as a 3.49-inch information display around the front. As the model name suggests, the D4 has four 3.5-inch drive bays and the D6 has six. Zettlab provides its own ZettOS which is said to be an AI first OS and the company was demoing its ZettAI at CES, but outside of that, it seems like ZettOS is a fairly basic NAS OS at the moment.

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[NextPowerUP]

j5create dedicated its CES 2026 booth to high-end connectivity solutions that enhance modern IT infrastructure, particularly in video streaming at high resolutions and refresh rates. All new products are based on the Thunderbolt 5 series, offering 120 Gbps bandwidth, which is three times the capacity of the previous generation. The JTP5172 Triple 8K60 Docking Station supports 8K at 144 Hz and delivers 140 W of power. For those in need of an eGPU, the JTD5175 enclosure is compatible with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5090 for gaming and AI applications. Real-time monitoring is featured in two products: the JCD3195 Dashboard Dock and JCDP3140 Powerbase Docking Station, both equipped with built-in displays for performance and power status checks.
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[NextPowerUP]

At the CES 2026 International Show, Acemagic was one of the few companies to showcase mini PCs with the newly announced AMD "Gorgon Point" and Intel "Panther Lake" chips. In a Board 3 Dual-C mini PC inspired by the old retro aesthetic, Acemagic has crammed an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 chip with 12 cores and 24 threads, featuring an embedded Radeon 890M GPU with 16 compute units. With up to 64 GB of system memory, the Board 3 supports up to two 4 TB M.2 PCIe 5.0 NVMe drives, packing quite the punch in a body smaller than an ITX motherboard. At just 140x128x40.8 mm in size, the system is 0.73 liters in volume.
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[NextPowerUP]

Iqunix is known for its Hall effect and mechanical keyboards, many of which have a unique aesthetics or some sort of neat feature like the magnetic dongle storage and custom mounting style of the Magi65 Pro. The brand appears to be bringing these design touches to a new lightweight gaming mouse soon enough. At CES 2026, the peripherals brand showed off a new gaming mouse called the Q101, which it bills as "coming soon." Not much is known about the Q101, although Iqunix has confirmed that it will be made from an aluminium alloy.

The new mouse, which has a symmetrical shape, foregoes the typical hole pattern often used to make gaming mice lighter, instead opting for an almost chaotic asymmetrical lattice structure. The shell itself will be made of a lightweight magnesium alloy, but part of the magnesium shell can be removed by the user and replaced with a translucent plastic window, giving the mouse a solid back and an interesting visual look. Not much is known about what sensor or MCU will be used, but Iqunix claims that the mouse will have 24,000 DPI and an "ultra-lightweight body," although again no weight specs were provided.
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[NextPowerUP]

When you think of Keychron, you immediately associate them with premium keyboards. But before we got to the keyboards, their CES booth this year caught our attention with a truly unique product: the Keychron Nape Pro Wireless Trackball Mouse. This compact device is designed to sit alongside keyboards or function as a standalone trackball with macro pad capabilities. The "mouse" measures 35.2 x 34.7 mm and features a 25 mm thumb trackball, six buttons, and a scroll wheel. It uses a Realtek chip with 1 kHz polling rate and a PixArt PAW3222 sensor for tracking, Bluetooth, 2.4 GHz wireless dongle, or USB-C wired connection. The device runs the ZMK open-source keyboard firmware, enabling extensive customization with multiple layers, shortcuts, and programmable macros.

However, the key innovation is Keychron OctaShift system, which detects the device orientation and automatically remaps button functions accordingly. Whether positioned horizontally next to a keyboard like a laptop pointing system or vertically as a standalone trackball, the M1 and M2 buttons at each end adapt to serve as primary clicks (or whatever functions have been assigned). This allows the Nape Pro to switch between a precision input device and a full macro pad depending on placement.
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