We've been hearing rumors of AMD competing in the HEDT space with a monster 32C/64T processor, possibly based on its Naples platform, but now we're hearing more information on Intel's next-gen Xeon E5-2699 v5 processor.

Intel's new Xeon E5-2699 v5 will be based on Skylake-EP, with 32 physical CPU cores, and 64 threads thanks to SMT/Hyper-Threading. Performance wise, expect it to be an absolute monster - with some new technologies being baked into it from Intel.

Chris Roberts teased DX12 support for Star Citizen a while ago now, but after the disappointing DX12 games so far - the developer has changed gears, announcing that it will only focus on using the Vulkan API for Star Citizen.

Cloud Imperium Games' Director of Graphics Programming, Alistair Brown, announced through the official Star Citizen forums that CIG will be pushing Vulkan into Star Citizen, making it the second large AAA game to drop DX12 in favor for Vulkan, the other being DOOM from id Software. Brown explained: "Years ago we stated our intention to support DX12, but since the introduction of Vulkan which has the same feature set and performance advantages this seemed a much more logical rendering API to use as it doesn't force our users to upgrade to Windows 10 and opens the door for a single graphics API that could be used on all Windows 7, 8, 10 & Linux".

He continues: "As a result our current intention is to only support Vulkan and eventually drop support for DX11 as this shouldn't effect any of our backers. DX12 would only be considered if we found it gave us a specific and substantial advantage over Vulkan. The API's really aren't that different though, 95% of the work for these APIs is to change the paradigm of the rendering pipeline, which is the same for both APIs".

HDR monitors are the next big push for 2017, but 4K and HDR? Oh yeah. LG teased its 32-inch 4K HDR-capable 32UD99 monitor previously, but now it is confirming a March 28 release for $999.

The official website for LG's upcoming 32UD99 monitor says it's "coming soon", but a listing on B&H says it's coming on March 28. What should we expect from the 32UD99 other than 4K and HDR? I'm guessing a 60Hz refresh rate, especially for the $999 price - considering ASUS will be launching its 4K HDR-capable G-Sync monitor with its game changing 144Hz refresh tech for north of $1500. Still, 60Hz and HDR is still going to be great for productivity, HDR/4K content, and light gaming.

The official specs are tasty:

AMD has shaken up the consumer CPU market with its new Ryzen processors, led by the Ryzen 7 1800X flagship CPU - offering 8C/16T @ 4GHz for $499. This disrupts Intel's market in a big way, because AMD is offering performance similar to, or better than the Core i7-6900K, a processor that costs $999.

The latest rumor is that AMD is ready to hit Intel in the HEDT market even harder, offering a new 16C/32T processor for the $1000 mark - beating out Intel's current flagship Core i7-6950X, which costs $1600+. AMD would reportedly unveil this new Ryzen CPU behemoth at Computex, in just two months time - while Intel launches its next-gen X399 chipset and new flagship Core i7 processor. The rumor is floating over from the ChipHell forums, picked up by Overclock3D.net.

According to the rumor: "Public knowledge by now but AMD has a new HEDT platform coming out in a couple of months. You'll see more of it at Computex I believe. It's a 16 core /32 Thread, quad channel behemoth. And it is insanely quick in the tests that Ryzen is already excelling at. So Cinebench, and all other related productivity programs. The gaming issues that were causing the Ryzen AM4 CPUs to behave erratically to say the least have been ironed out. It's akin to a newer revision on a newer platform. This should be competing with the Xeon and of course 6950X Intel offers for $1700~$1800USD, but at about $1,000 USD if not less for some Skews. Coming soon".

If you've played the Mass Effect: Andromeda 10-hour trial on PC or Xbox One, then you have a pretty good idea of how it'll play when it finally ships.

via GIPHY

EVGA has revealed its powerful new 17-inch gaming laptop in the SC17 1070, which is powered by Intel's previous generation Core i7-6820HK processor, but NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card.

Inside, we are also joined with 32GB of RAM, a 256GB M.2-based NVMe SSD, and a 2.5-inch larger 1TB HDD. EVGA has also included Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, 2 x USB 2.0 ports joined by a USB 3.1 Type-C port.

EVGA also says it has tweaked the hell out of the features on its SC17 1070, with the company giving the laptop a "full BIOS" implementation of overclocking abilities. If you push your EVGA SC17 1070 too far, there's even a hardware clear CMOS button that'll return you to factory defaults. EVGA also claims the SC17 1070 is bloatware-free, which is a great thing to see.

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NVIDIA owns the high-end market right now with its new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, which is already selling out before all of the AIB partners have even started releasing their custom GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards, and now we have one of the most unique ones yet.

Colorful has started teasing its new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti iGame graphics card, which features an LCD display on the top which displays GPU clock speeds - and I'm sure more details like GPU/RAM temps, and hopefully more.

It looks like Colorful are requiring 8+8-pin PCIe power connectors on the GTX 1080 Ti iGame, and we can see that it has a huge - and what I'm sure will be a kick ass cooler.

AMD's upcoming Radeon RX Vega is my most anticipated graphics card of 2017, so the few teases we've had of the card in the last 24 hours have been beyond exciting.

The very first look at the Radeon RX Vega graphics card showed us the beautiful white backplate with red accents, and that awesome Vega branding.

Michael Bay films aren't well known for their strong female representations, most frequently casting them as little more than eye candy in need of saving - but it looks like the upcoming 'Transformers: The Last Knight' will finally change that.

'The Last Knight' features Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson and Peter Cullen reprising their roles alongside series newcomers fresh from their success in HBO's 'Westworld'; Anthony Hopkins and Santiago Cabrera, as well as 15 year old Isabela Moner. The film picks up directly from its predecessor, with Cade Yeager on the run and Optimus Prime having fled Earth to find out the origins of the Autobots.

'Transformers: The Last Knight' is set to hit 2D, 3D and IMAX theatres from June 23, 2017.

After the P10 and P10 Plus, Huawei has unveiled a more affordable P-series member - P10 Lite.

The phone comes with 5.2-inch display and is powered by Kirin 658 chipset. The P10 Lite has 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage, expandable with a microSD card.

The device features a 12MP main camera and 8MP selfie shooter. Other features include 3,000 mAh battery and rear-mounted fingerprint sensor.

Following confirmation from director James Cameron that his oft-promised and oft-delayed 'Avatar' sequel will be delayed again, Warner Bros have moved in on the now abandoned Christmas 2018 release date to slot in 'Aquaman'.

Originally announced for an October 18, 2018 release date, the takeover of the former 'Avatar 2' launch date equates to a two month delay for the project. Helmed by 'Furious 7' director James Wan, 'Aquaman' will serve as the first solo-film for the DC Comics character who was first glimpsed in 'Batman v Superman' and will also feature in 'Justice League' in November this year, with Jason Momoa to reprise the character once again.

Hollywood Scriptwriter Zak Penn has taken to Twitter confirming this week's Hollywood Reporter article which pegged him as the writer behind a new 'Matrix' project, but has denied that it's a reboot.

In a tweet issued last night Penn attempts to set the record straight and implies that the upcoming project will be either a prequel, or a sequel to the 1999 hit film. In a second tweet, Penn states and that if Neo was to appear, then his first choice would be Keanu Reeves.

Samsung will officially launch the Galaxy S8 and S8+ in just two weeks, and we have already seen numerous leaks about the specs and the design of the upcoming flagships.

Evan Blass recently revealed that the S8 duo will be released in the US on April 28th, a week later than expected.

The newest leak, Samsung's poster, confirms that the phones will hit global markets in April.

Sony's long-standing console reign shows no signs of slowing down: the PlayStation 4 continues to dominate over Xbox in terms of sales and total console market value, growth, and momentum.

According to analyst firm IHS Markit, the global console market earned a total of $34.7 billion in 2016.

Sony's PlayStation 4 raked in a staggering $17.8 billion of that total global value, representing more than half of the total global console market's earnings. Microsoft's Xbox One pulled in $9.1 billion, or a 26% share. IHS notes that the PS4 was responsible for "almost double the sales value of hardware, content and services compared to its closest competitor Microsoft's Xbox One."

HTC has announced that the company has sold its phone manufacturing facility in Shanghai to boost their investment into their Vive virtual reality business.

A Chinese company, Xingbao Information Technology bought the factory for $91.17 million.

HTC said the sale of the Shanghai plant will not affect its mobile division. This also removes the liability of owning the factory and the depreciation of its value. HTC does still occasionally manufacture devices for other companies like the Google Pixel, but most of HTC's contract manufacturing days are over.

After more than ten years, Sony's PlayStation 3 console will stop being manufactured starting this month.

Microsoft celebrated the Xbox 360's 10th birthday by officially killing its life cycle, but it appears that Sony will at least have the grace to retire its PlayStation 3 months after the system's 10th anniversary.

Word of the discontinuation spread from Japanese website Esuteru, who spotted the info on Sony's official PS3 Japanese website. "Scheduled completion coming soon," reads the PS3 listing on Sony's Japanese site. Other users have been talking about it on Twitter, too.

Nintendo has put in a supply order for 16 million Switch consoles to be manufactured and shipped throughout 2017 and beyond.

Like most new Nintendo systems, its new handheld-console Switch hybrid is in extreme demand with supply pretty much nonexistent. In order to keep up with the demand, Nintendo has doubled its Switch production for this year and next, according to reports from Wall Street Journal's Takashi Mochizuki.

As soon as Nintendo's next fiscal year (FY 2018) begins on April 1, 2017, the manufacturing of 16 million new Switch consoles will begin. This massive influx of units will be shipped across the company's full FY2018 timeline that's held from April 1, 2017 through March 31, 2018.

Elgato, the company behind some of the best and most trusted games capture and streaming tech on the market, is currently working on a mysterious project called "Project Evolve." This could be it.

Since Elgato is making Project Evolve, it's likely a unique new capture/streaming device aimed at making content creator's lives easier. The company has been teasing Evolve since March 9, and recently let a bunch of Twitch streamers go hands-on with Evolve at PAX 2017.

So what is Evolve exactly? If these pictures are accurate, it looks like a tablet-shaped device with 15 pushable, customizable buttons.

Out of all of the custom GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards on the way, one of the most exciting for me is the MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X 11G - something we've just go an exclusive look at. We secured this shot of the card from an industry source.

From the first shot, we can see that MSI hasn't done much to the physical style of the GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X 11G compared to the GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G, except that the 'GeForce GTX' branding is much more apparent here - and we have 8+8-pin PCIe power connectors.

I can see a DVI port on the card as well, so it's a nice touch that MSI is thinking of the gamers with DVI displays out there. This is all we have for now, but what do you think of MSI's upcoming GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X 11G? Is this the GTX 1080 Ti for you?