Asus always makes people stare at its gadgets, PC devices, and hardware components. Its latest external sound card, entitled Xonar U3 Plus, is no exception. It boasts a small-sized flash-like design, receiving power via a standard USB port. According to Asus designers, the card is intended for those customers who look for a comprehensive solution for high-quality audio playback and recording.



Asus Xonar U3 Plus is furnished with an in-build amplifier for headphones with a variable gain level, compatible with different audio fittings of less than 150 ohm impedance. Therefore, this amplifier dramatically improves the playback of high and low frequencies, adding dynamics to high-frequency and low-frequency sounds (to reproduce multiple effects: steps, blasts, etc.).


To continue, this model supports microphone recording in real time by means of an integrated digital signal processor; the latter ensures minimal latencies on audio programming. It also boasts the availability of …

The Swiftech company, which produces liquid cooling system components, announced the full cover water block for the NVIDIA TITAN X video card market release. This new product was called Komodo NV-ECO GTX TITAN X, though, the “GTX” part is misplaced, as far as the actual card (unlike the old GM200 core TITAN X) on the GP102 chip doesn’t contain in its name the prefix GeForce GTX.



This cooler is produced out of C110 class chromed copper and acryl. The water unit dimensions are: 268(L) × 122(W) × 19(H) mm, weight — 1.247 kg.

There is a little protrusion in a contact plate according to the NVIDIA GP102 core shape, 0,5 mm thick thermal pads for heat rejection from power system transistors and GDDR5X memory chips. Note: Swiftech professionals have already inserted material lines, so users don’t have to do it themselves.


This cooler’s layout is rather simple, though the microplates array presence in the GPU area should be admitted.


The construction is …

While planning to build a productive system in a compact framework, one should look closely at the new GIGABYTE Z370N WIFI motherboard. This card is of Mini-ITX size and has the following dimensions: 170 x 170 mm. The novelty is based on the Intel Z370 chipset for the 8th generation (Socket LGA1151) Intel Core processors.



Owners of this card will benefit from two DIMM slots supporting the DDR4-4400 mem, a pair of M.2 Socket 3 interfaces, four SATA 6 gb/s ports for drives arranging, and one full-rate PCI Express 3.0 x16 slot for a graphics accelerator connection. Besides, they will get a 7.1-channel Realtek ALC1220 audio codec, a couple of gigabit Intel LAN controllers and a module of 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.2. wireless interfaces. Among external connectivity options we may distinguish two HDMI, one DisplayPort, six USB 3.1 Gen 1, one USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C and two RJ45 ports. Three audio jacks are also present.


The product’s advantages include the Smart Fan 5 …