The past several days were marked by the Intel's announcement about the celebration of a contract with ASML company. Such step has been dictated by the company's intentions to invest into the development of 450 mm wafers and EUV technologies. In accordance with the preliminary estimates, the general investment rate will reach $4.1 billion. The major target of the cooperation is to decrease the term of lithography equipment commissioning by two years, and stimulate the development of technologies targeted at 450 mm wafers. The implementation of the predesigned plans will allow the manufacturers of semiconductor components to receive a range of benefits, among which is the cut of expenses. 
Gigabyte has expanded its line of overclocking solutions by a new motherboard, codenamed GA-Z170X-SOC Force. The greenhorn is based on Intel Z170 chipset, supporting Skylake-S CPUs for LGA 1151 socket (14-nm technological process). The PCB is distinguished by the inclusion of fiery-orange components and a sophisticated allocation of hardware. | Intel(R) Display Audio | HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_8086&DEV_2805 |
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Ever-increasing popularity of mini-ITX mainboards is accounted for the augmentation of small-sized PC systems, work- and multimedia stations, as well as gaming platforms. The latter lay down specific demands towards hardware base, requiring the combination of high performance, durability and price-efficiency. MSI is ready to satisfy those demands, by offering ‘mini, but mighty’ Z97I Gaming AC system board. Being a part of Intel Z97 chipset family, this tiny tot owns all ‘Gaming’ series facilities, despite compact dimensions. Let’s check them out. Specs Overview
MSI Z97I Gaming AC is based on Intel Z97 chipset targeting Haswell-based CPUs for Socket LGA1150 platform (Celeron, Pentium, Core i3/i5/i7 series). The implemented PCB accommodates a pair of DIMM slots for DDR3 SDRAM modules (16 GB volume) with the clock frequencies from 1333 MHz to 3300 MHz. Expansion facilities are introduced by a single PCI-e 3.0 x16 slot with no backup from PCI slots. The board comes …