Following our in-depth first-look coverage of the EVGA GTX 1080 Ti Kingpin card, we now turn to the company’s upcoming motherboard releases in the X299 family. This coincides with Intel’s Kaby Lake X (KBL-X) & Skylake-X (SKY-X) CPU announcement from today, and marks the announcement of EVGA’s continued embattlement in the motherboard market. All the boards are X299 (LGA 2066) to support Intel’s refreshed KBL and new SKY-X CPUs, consolidating the platforms into a single socket type and with greater DIMM support. That doesn’t mean, however, that the motherboard makers will fully exploit the option of additional DIMMs for HEDT CPUs; EVGA has elected to forfeit half the DIMMs on the new EVGA X299 DARK board in favor of greater overclocking potential. We’ll talk through the specs on the new EVGA X299 DARK, X299 Micro, and X299 FTW K, along with VRM design and power components used.

The motherboard lineup does not yet include pricing or hard release dates, but we do know that the tiering will go: Dark > FTW K > Micro, with regard to price.

EVGA’s GTX 1080 Ti Kingpin made its first debut to a group of press before Computex 2017, and we were given the privilege of being the first media to tear-down the card. The Kingpin edition 1080 Ti is EVGA’s highest-end video card – price TBD – and is built for extreme overclockers and enthusiasts.

The GTX 1080 Ti Kingpin uses an oversized PCB that’s similar to the FTW3, though with different components, and a two-slot cooler that partners with NTC thermistors on the VRM + VRAM components. This means that, like the FTW3, the cooling solution slaves to independent component temperatures, with a hard target of keeping all ICs under 60C (even when unnecessary or functionally useless, like for the MCUs). The Kingpin model card uses a copper-plated heatsink, six heatpipes, and the usual assortment of protrusions on the baseplate for additional surface area, but also makes accommodations for LN2 overclocking. We’ll start with detailing the air cooler, then get into LN2 and power coverage.

Kingston has announced their first NVMe SSD, and it will debut under the KC series as the KC1000. In recent years, Kingston has seemingly directed power users and gamers towards the HyperX brand, but the KC1000 could help guide the KC series in a different direction.

Kingston seems to be targeting a very wide audience with the new KC1000, as Kingston lists the video editing, virtual reality, CAD, streaming, and gaming applications for the KC1000. Here's a list of the targeted use cases of the KC1000:

• High-resolution video editing
• Virtual and augmented reality applications
• CAD software applications
• Streaming media
• Graphically intensive video games
• Data visualization
• Real-time analytics

Another day, another GPU driver update. This one comes from AMD, with Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition update version 17.5.2. The new version fixes several bugs and also improves Prey’s performance on the RX 580.

Bugfixes include a NieR: Automata crash, long Forza: Horizon 3 load times, an issue with CrossFire systems where the main display adapter could appear disabled in Radeon settings, and a system hang when entering sleep or hibernate with the RX 550.

Corsair has jumped headlong into the ever-crowded gaming chair market. Initially announced at CES 2017, the prototype wasn’t quite ready as Corsair was still selecting what kind of casters to use. As of now, Corsair’s T1 Race is available.

“Inspired by racing, built to game” is the chosen mantra for the T1 Race, and hence its namesake, the T1 Race draws inspiration from bucket-seat, racing style chairs. The T1 Race is comprised of a streel frame, dressed in dense foam cushions and PU leather. PU (polyurethane) leather, also known as bicast leather, offers an affordable alternative to authentic leather and is generally considered easier to clean and maintain. Also included with the chair are PU pillows for neck and lumbar support, in clone-like fashion to the many other gaming chairs on the market (see: Vertagear, Dx Racer, HyperX chairs). Carbon fiber-esque adornments can be found upon the flanks of the seat and armrests.