ASROCK B550 TAICHI RAZER EDITION

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The ASRock B550 Taichi Razer Edition is arguably right at the top of the B550 tree. Whether a B550 board costing as much as the Taichi Razer Edition is right for you may come down to how important RGB is to you and how many M.2 drives you plan to run. Many X570 boards are available at this price with three M.2 slots and feature more PCIe 4.0 general purpose lanes. There is an ASRock X570 Taichi Razer Edition, and that is some $100 more. Is it worth the extra? We’d say probably not unless your needs are specific. 

Read more @ PC Gamer

GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 3080 XTREME

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In this review, we benchmark the GeForce RTX 3080 AORUS XTREME 10G  from Gigabyte; yes AORUS is back with their super-premium model loaded with cooling, an LCD screen, and among the best factory tweaks available on the market.With their aim to perform at low acoustics combined with a beautiful design card that comes with a dual BIOS, one silent mode, and one gaming (perf) mode, let’s start this review, shall we? 

Read more @ Guru3D

MSI MEG Z490 Unify, Core i9-10900K & RTX 3080/3090 SUPRIM X

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I was quite impressed with the entire MSI Z490 Unify + Intel Core i9-10900K setup, but most of all with the all-MSI system. In what started out with just the motherboard, turned into a full MSI system that I will continue to use for articles on 8K gaming battles against AMD’s just-released Zen 3-powered Ryzen 9 5900X processor.

MSI’s entire system ran nice and cool throughout my weeks of testing, with enough (but quiet) airflow keeping the very hot components (the Core i9-10900K isn’t a cool-running chip) and neither are the GeForce RTX 3090 and GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards when they’re overclocked to the max.

Read more @ TweakTown

GIGABYTE B550M AORUS PRO

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While AMD has done a great job of maintaining motherboard compatibility with new generation processors, none of the previous-generation AM4 motherboards featured official PCIe 4.0 support, not even from the storage and PCIe controlled by PCIe 4.0 compatible CPUs. Enter B550, the more value-oriented little brother of X570. While the B550 chipset is PCIe 3.0 only, B550 motherboards support PCIe 4.0 from the CPU to the primary PCIe slot as well as the primary M.2 slot (dependent on a PCIe 4.0 ready CPU).

Read more @ TechPowerUp

KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti EX

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We review the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3060 Ti EX 8GB; it’s the value proposition from the company behind KFA2, GALAX. Armed with a duo of spinners and aimed at GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER performance levels, this product will be matching the founder edition pricing. That makes this a proposition from GALAX/KFA2. Armed with a shader core count of 4864 units, this card is paired with 8 GB of GDDR6 graphics memory running 14 Gbps. 

Read more @ Guru3D

XFX Radeon RX 6800 XT Speedster MERC 319

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The new XFX Radeon RX 6800 XT Speedster 319 is a great graphics card that its unique name aside, has some killer performance. It’s everything AMD’s own Radeon RX 6800 XT reference graphics card, and more — it’s bigger, it’s much cooler, much quieter, and packs a very nice additional punch — and as a bonus, some great OC abilities, too.

XFX is using a custom PCB here, with a huge 2.7-slot card that rocks a triple-fan cooler and (surprisingly) only 2 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors. XFX is throwing on another $50 premium for the Radeon RX 6800 XT Speedster MERC 319 at $749 (versus $699 for the reference RX 6800 XT).

Read more @ TweakTown

Weekend Hardware Review Roundup: 12/14/20

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We’ve had a number of hardware reviews roll in over the past few days. Let’s take a look at what we have for reading this morning.

Power Supplies: Cooler Master 850w SFX @ Modders Inc
Audio: Creative Pebble V3 2.0 USB-C Speakers @ [M]adShrimps, Creative Sound Blaster AE-7 @ NikKTech, Schiit Hel Gaming DAC/Amp @ TweakTown
NAS/DAS: TerraMaster TD2 Thunderbolt 3 Plus RAID DAS @ NikKTech
Cooling: Corsair iCUE Nexus @ ThinkComputers

MSI Will Offer BIOS Update for all AMD 400-Series Motherboards for Ryzen 5000

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[Taipei, Taiwan] As a world-leading motherboards brand, MSI commits to deliver gamers and creators genuine pleasure, and will keep moving. BIOS update is always an exhilarating news for most users, so MSI keeps announcing relative news for our users. From this week, MSI will release AMD AGESA COMBO PI V2 1.1.0.0 Patch D BIOS for all AMD 400-series motherboards and it is expected to be completely uploaded before the end of 2020.

All AMD 400-Series Motherboards Comprehensively Support Ryzen 5000 CPU with AMD AGESA COMBO PI V2 1.1.0.0 Patch D

The purpose to keep releasing BIOS update is not only for increasing motherboards performance but also for better compatibilities. After AMD launches Ryzen 5000 CPU, most are inquisitive about whether Ryzen 5000 CPU is compatible with AMD previous platforms. MSI realizes that users are eager to enhance their motherboards with the latest CPU; therefore, we are determined to offer AGESA 1.1.0.0 Patch D for all AMD 400-series motherboards. With AGESA 1.1.0.0 Patch D, your 400-series motherboards can support Ryzen 5000 CPU and achieve its true performance. Since there are some technical issues on AGESA 1.1.8.0, it will not be released. Thus, AGESA 1.1.0.0. Patch D is the finest choice to update your motherboards.

AMD AGESA COMBO PI V2 1.1.0.0 Patch D Supports Re-Size BAR

One of the remarkable features of BIOS update this time is Re-Size BAR support. Undoubtedly, Re-Size BAR is a popular issue at present, and this function is performed to maximize efficiency for the system. It takes advantages of the memory of both the CPU and GPU as well as reduces latency and buffering effectively, which improves gaming experience. With BIOS update, AGESA 1.1.0.0 Patch D, AMD 400-series motherboards support Re-Size BAR as well. It is recommended that users update BIOS immediately to have better advancement.

Read more @ MSI

SuperMicro X12SAE

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For every current W480 model on the market, there are at least 4-5 Z490 variants, which makes Intel’s workstation platform slim pickings for choice. One of the reasons behind this is down to necessity, with workstations platforms opting for functionality and core feature sets over bling and fancy designs. What the Supermicro X12SAE lacks in visual appeal, it makes up for in its feature set with much of what we have come to expect from its mid-level professional models. 

Read more @ AnandTech

Ryzen 5000 Comes to ASRock X370?

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The BIOS revision may simply be a modded version of an existing firmware, made by an enthusiast or otherwise. The new BIOS revision comes on the heels of numerous reports that users have simply flashed the X470 Taichi’s BIOS to older X370 Taichi motherboards and successfully enabled support for the Ryzen 5000 processors.

Read more @ Tom’s Hardware