Computex 2017: all the news from Taipei, where computers still matter – The Verge

The world’s tiniest Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti GPU is still kind of gigantic

2017-06-01T01:12:02-04:00

One of the most interesting news stories to come out of Computex Taipei, for my money, was Nvidia's Max-Q - it's a whole new design approach to gaming laptops, helping manufacturers put powerful GPUs like the GTX 1080 inside slim notebooks. It was a little amusing, then, to see Zotac use the same show to announce the world's smallest version of Nvidia's fastest gaming GPU: behold the Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Mini, which absolutely will not fit into any laptop.

It's not a fair comparison, of course: Nvidia's laptop GPUs are already clocked lower than their desktop counterparts to reduce the need for giant cooling systems like you see here, …

Read the full story at The Verge.

You’ll need a new X299 motherboard to run Intel’s latest CPUs

2017-05-31T10:33:09-04:00

The new Core X-series chips from Intel sound very powerful and good, but there's one caveat: you'll need a new motherboard. The current standard Z270 motherboard chipset is a "consumer" product, and the new X-series processors have a different pin layout, and are designed for a slightly more demanding customer with deeper pockets.

The X299 isn't a huge upgrade over the Z270, but it's a major leap past the X99 boards, which hosted the last generation of Intel's most extreme chips. X299 chipsets support up to 24 PCIe 3.0 lanes, compared to the paltry eight PCIe 2.0 lanes on X99. Paired with the new processors, you're looking at an embarrassme …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Here’s our first look at Harman Kardon’s Cortana speaker

2017-05-31T07:59:26-04:00

Microsoft showed off a bunch of hardware at its Computex Taipei presentation today, most of which we'd seen before. One thing we'd never seen in person, however, is Harman Kardon's Invoke - the audio company's take on a digital assistant speaker, powered by Microsoft's Cortana.

Unfortunately the Invoke demo unit was not turned on or plugged in, so all I can report to you is that it is indeed cylindrical and looks at least as up to the task of imprisoning an AI assistant as the Amazon Echo. It ought to sound better, too, given Harman Kardon's audio pedigree and inclusion of three times as many woofers and drivers. The main question, of cours …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Just look at this utterly out-of-control custom Donkey Kong PC

2017-05-31T07:37:58-04:00

Every year, PC gear company Thermaltake brings a bunch of custom-built gaming PCs to Computex Taipei. They can get pretty wild, but the company has seriously outdone itself this time. Witness this astonishing work of art, credited to ThermalMike:

Yes, since you ask, that is a Donkey Kong-themed PC inside a modded Tower 900 case with colored liquid coolant representing the classic arcade game's girders and ladders. Well played, ThermalMike.

Read the full story at The Verge.

Asus is still feeding the Android tablet market with its new ZenPad 3S 8.0

2017-05-30T17:10:13-04:00

No one seems to want a new tablet, but Asus is going to keep making them anyway. The company just introduced its new ZenPad 3S 8.0 at Computex this week. It follows the ZenPad 3 8.0 tablet that Asus released last year. The new tablet has some slight spec boosts, like more memory and an upgrade to Android Nougat. The company hasn't put out official details on the device, but PhoneRadar got the specs:

Snapdragon 625 processor
4GB of RAM and either 32GB or 64GB of storage
7.9-inch, 1536 x 2048 display
13-megapixel rear-facing camera, 5-megapixel front-facing camera
Android 7.1 Nougat

We don't have pricing or an exact release date. I'm not sure how …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Intel’s Compute Card, a credit card-sized PC, will ship in August

2017-05-30T13:38:53-04:00

Intel unveiled its Compute Card, a credit card-sized device that's basically an entire PC, at CES this year. At Computex this week, the company officially launched the card with a full list of partners and what we can expect to see from them product-wise. These devices will all be at the show and vary widely. Sharp, for example, is showing off digital signage while Seneca and Foxconn are making mini PCs. LG is sticking the Compute Card in its monitors to turn them into all-in-ones. The card might also show up in tablets and interactive whiteboards. Nexdock will be showing something off, too, which we can assume is its touchscreen concept tha …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Asus cranked its new 35-inch curved gaming monitor up to 200Hz

2017-05-30T12:36:02-04:00

Last week, Acer announced its new 35-inch curved flagship gaming monitor, which means, of course, that Acer's long-standing rival Asus had to bring an even better 35-inch display to Computex this week.

The new ROG Swift PG35VQ, spotted by Engadget, has a quantum dot LCD with a 3440 x 1440 resolution and HDR - in fact, it's the exact same AU Optronics panel that's in Acer's latest, although Acer doesn't list HDR as a spec for some reason. What really differentiates the PG35VQ for Asus is the addition of a 200Hz refresh rate. Acer is only advertising 100Hz, overclockable to 120Hz. Both displays have G-Sync.

While resolution and image quality …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Samsung’s new Notebook 9 Pro includes a built-in S Pen

2017-05-30T12:00:06-04:00

Samsung is bringing its S Pen technology to the company's notebook line today. At Computex, Samsung is launching its new Notebook 9 Pro. Unlike the previous Notebook 9 series, this Pro version now has a 360-degree hinge just like Lenovo's Yoga laptops and it means the Notebook 9 Pro can be used as a tablet or a laptop. Samsung is pairing that hinge with an embedded S Pen that slides into the base of the Notebook 9 Pro.

The S Pen includes 4,000 levels of pressure and the ability to detect tilt for shading (just like Microsoft's new Surface Pen). It also includes Samsung's Air Command software for drawing, notes, and editing documents. Samsun …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Corsair releases a snack-proof gaming keyboard

2017-05-30T10:46:45-04:00

It's happened to the best of us: you're in the heat of a critical moment in a boss battle, throwing back cans of Mountain Dew Game Fuel to keep you going, and tragedy strikes. The condensation-slicked can slides out of your grip, and, as if in slow motion, you watch your drink plummet toward your prized gaming keyboard. Even if the hardware somehow survives the fizzy flood, everyone knows the switches will never feel the same with all that sticky sugar on them.

Fortunately, Corsair has engineered a new ending to this tragic tale with its K68 mechanical keyboard, designed to survive dust and spills with an IP32 rating. Each key on the K68 ha …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Nvidia’s Max-Q tech is for powerful gaming laptops that don’t look like gaming laptops

2017-05-30T06:21:47-04:00

Nvidia has announced Max-Q at Computex Taipei today, a new design approach that's intended to enable thin, light, and quiet laptops with strong gaming performance. The company says that the Max-Q spec can cut the power consumption of a GTX 1080 in half, for example, allowing it to be used in an ultraportable notebook.

Nvidia is working from the principle that you get diminishing returns at some point when increasing performance capability, and Max-Q software figures out the optimal point to target. That GTX 1080 with half the power consumption is the exact same chip you'd find in a bulky gaming laptop today, but Nvidia says it should achie …

Read the full story at The Verge.