At CES 2022 in Las Vegas, ASRock has unveiled many new 600 series motherboards. This includes three Steel Legend series models, one B660, one B660M, and one H670 model. All three can support up to 128 GB of DDR4 memory, include a Realtek ALC897 HD audio codec, as well as a single 2.5 GbE port, and all follow the same Artic urban camouflage themed design, each with advertised 9-phase power delivery.

Intel announced a total of 22 new Alder Lake Desktop-S processors ranging from budget Celerons starting at $42, with higher spec and ultimately higher-priced Core i3, i5, i7, and i9 parts. Intel also launched three new chipsets to supplement the processors, including the H670, B660, and H610. Among ASRock’s dropship of new 600 series models designed for users on a tighter budget than what Z690 offers are a total of three Steel Legend branded motherboards designed for Intel’s Alder Lake platform with DDR4 memory.

The ASRock H670 Steel Legend ATX motherboard

Both the ASRock H670 Steel Legend and B660 Steel Legend are very similar in specifications as the pairing features a 6-layer ATX sized PCB. Both models with two full-length PCIe 5.0 slots that can operate at x16 and x8/x8, and three PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. Both models include four SATA ports capable of supporting RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays, as well as one front panel USB 3.2 G2x2 Type-C header.

The ASRock B660 Steel Legend ATX motherboard

The difference between the H670 and B660 Steel Legend models is that the third full-length PCIe 4.0 slot operates at x4 on H670 Steel Legend (x2 on the B660), and all three PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots can support up to x4, while the B660 Steel Legend has two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, with one operating at PCIe 3.0 x 2 M.2 slot.

Both the ASRock H670 and B660 Steel Legend models can support up to 128 GB of DDR4-5000 across four memory slots, with other features including a Realtek RTL8125BG 2.5 GbE controller, a Realtek ALC897 HD audio codec, as well as a Key-E M.2 slot for users wishing to add a wireless interface.

The rear panel on the ASRock H670 Steel Legend with USB 3.2 G2 connectivity

On the rear panel of the H670 Steel Legend is one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C, one USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and four USB 2.0 ports. The H670 Steel Legend also has a Realtek ALC897 HD audio codec that powers three 3.5 mm audio jacks. The B660 Steel Legend has a similar rear panel minus the USB 3.2 G2 connectivity, with one USB 3.2 G1 Type-C, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A and two USB 2.0 ports. The B660 version also uses a Realtek ALC897 HD audio codec but utilizes the extra space and includes five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output.

Both the B660 and H670 Steel Legends include a handy BIOS Flashback button, a PS/2 combo port, and a video output pairing consisting of one HDMI 2.1 and one DisplayPort 1.4.

The ASRock B660M Steel Legend micro-ATX motherboard

Last is the ASRock B660M Steel Legend, which has a smaller micro-ATX sized PCB but has fewer PCIe slots than the ATX sized version due to size constraints. Included is one full-length PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots, with two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots. Other storage options include six SATA ports, with four powered by the chipset with support for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays, while an ASMedia ASM1061 SATA controller powers the other two.

The ASRock B660M Steel Legend also has four memory slots supporting DDR4-5000 and up to 128 GB of capacity. The rear panel has four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A and two USB 2.0 ports, with one Realtek RTL8125BG 2.5 GbE controller and a Realtek ALC897 HD audio codec that powers five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output. Also present is a PS/2 combo port, an HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4 video output pairing, as well as a small BIOS Flashback button.

At the time of writing, ASRock hasn’t provided when the H670, B660, and B660M Steel Legend motherboards will be available in retail channels or how much they might cost.

Gallery: CES 2022: ASRock Announces B660, B660M, and H670 Steel Legend Motherboards

Source: ASRock

Source: AnandTech – CES 2022: ASRock Announces B660, B660M, and H670 Steel Legend Motherboards

With the announcement of Intel’s Alder Lake H series of laptop processors, MSI is one of the first out of the gate to announce their refreshed gaming laptop series featuring the newest Intel processors. As one of the market leaders in gaming notebooks, MSI has some new tricks up its sleeves to boost performance even further.

New this year for MSI are some key software features to boost performance across the lineup, as well as functionality. As an example, MSI will offer a new Smart Auto Power system to adjust the laptop performance levels based on what application is running, rather than relying on the end user to configure the settings manually. For users that want to tweak their own system, the manual system will of course still be around, but the automatic mode should help consumers who are not as familiar with the product get the most out of it, or those who just don’t want to have to fiddle with things to get the best out of the laptop.

Also in line with power and performance, MSI has always offered a “Silent” mode on their laptops which has targeted keeping the fans at 15 dB to prevent unwanted noise intrusions while working. Their new software update will leverage the system microphone to measure the ambient noise level in the room, which will then let the Silent mode use more system cooling without being audible. Although this may not sound like much, MSI has found up to a 30% boost in performance in their Silent mode while still not being audible.

MSI will also include background noise cancellation on incoming audio calls, rather than just the outgoing audio stream, so if your co-worker has a noisy dog in the weekly team meeting, it at least won’t bother you anymore.

All three of these features will be available across the lineup. Let’s take a look at the refreshed products.

MSI Raider GE76/66

At the top of the product stack is the 17” Raider 76 series and 15” Raider 66 series, and the first change for those familiar with MSI’s lineup is the name itself. For 2022, MSI is reversing the name from GE76 Raider to Raider GE76, with the goal of dropping the code names from their products to simplify the shopping experience for their customers, which I think makes a lot of sense.

New for this year is a Phase Change thermal pad which is solid at room temperature, but when it reaches 58°C the pad melts and fills the spaces between the CPU and thermal block for a more efficient transfer of heat. MSI is claiming up to 10% more performance over traditional thermal pastes and liquid metals, without the crystallization issues that can occur. The new phase change thermal pad will be available on both the Raider and Stealth with Intel processors.

Speaking of Intel processors, the Raider lineup offers the latest Alder Lake H lineup, with the i7-12700H and i9-12900HK overclockable processor on tap. With the shortage of DDR5, MSI is unfortunately stuck with a situation where the memory available is not uniform across the range, but the Raider comes out in the best shape with only the lowest-tier GE76 model with a Core i7-12700H and RTX 3060 offering DDR4. The rest of the lineup is all DDR5-4800 memory, including all current models of the GE66 being announced.

On the graphics side, which is always critical in a gaming notebook, MSI is turning to the latest refreshed RTX cards from NVIDIA, up to the RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU which is the new king of the hill in terms of laptop graphics. The 3080Ti Laptop will be paired with 16 GB of GDDR6.

The display options are the same as the previous generation, with 1920×1080 144/360 Hz options, 2560×1440 240 Hz with P3 gamut support, and 3840×2160 120 Hz Adobe RGB.

The Raider GE76 and its smaller GE66 cousin have not changed on the chassis side. We just reviewed the latest 17.3-inch Raider laptop so for a feel for the chassis, please check out that review. It is very good, albeit a bit flashy, and being at the top of the MSI lineup (at least until they decide to bring back the Titan) it is very fast. MSI expects their Alder Lake models with their new cooling solutions to be the most performant of the current generation of gaming notebooks on the market.

For the 17-inch GE76, prices start at $1599 for the RTX 3060 model, $2249 for the RTX 3070, $2499 for the RTX 3070 Ti, and $3599 for the RTX 3080 Ti.

For the 15-inch GE66, prices start at $2249 for the RTX 3070 model, $2599 for the RTX 3070 Ti model, and $3499 for the RTX 3080 Ti.

MSI Stealth GS77

If you want performance, but want a bit less bling, MSI has you covered with their aptly named Stealth lineup. The chassis has been reworked to make it more durable, and it packs a lot of performance into a relatively small and light design.

MSI has moved the hinge to the middle of the notebook to increase its durability, and the notebook offers a CNC milled aluminum display cover. The notebook is all black to blend in for work and play.

MSI is offering a Full HD webcam, which helps with the business side of this device, as well as a hard switch for the webcam on the side of the device. Sadly, most notebooks still offer 1366×768 webcams still, or some gaming notebooks forego the webcam altogether, which seems like a mistake in 2022. MSI also includes a fingerprint reader for quick logons.

The keyboard has been revamped, and the keys are 8% larger than the previous generation. User feedback on the previous design was that the touchpad was not tall enough to move the cursor from the top of the display to the bottom in one stroke, so MSI has also make the touchpad taller to remedy this. MSI also moved the most important ports such as power and USB to the rear of the device to allow for better cable management.

On the performance side, the Alder Lake design offers options of the Core i7-12650H, Core i7-12700H, and Core i9-12900H processors and all feature DDR5-4800 memory, up to 32 GB dual-channel. On the graphics side, customers can choose from the RTX 3060L, RTX 3070L, RTX 3070L Ti, and RTX 3080L Ti.

The display options on this 17.3-inch notebook are the same are 1920×1080 360 Hz, 2560×1440 240 Hz P3, and 3840×2160 120 Hz Adobe RGB.

The Stealth is a thinner and lighter design, but still packs in plenty of performance. The 17-inch 5.7 lb laptop is over 3 lbs lighter than the Raider series, making it much more portable, and the 15-inch model is 4.63 lbs, which is about 2.5 lbs less than the 15-inch Raider.

For the 17-inch Stealth GS77, prices start at $1799 for the RTX 3060, $2399 for the RTX 3070, $2699 for the RTX 3070 Ti, and $3699 for the RTX 3080 Ti.

For the 15-inch Stealth GS66, prices start at $2499 for the RTX 3070 Ti, $3099 for the RTX 3080, and $3499 for the RTX 3080 Ti.

MSI Vector

If you like the bigger desktop replacement style devices but don’t like the RGB, MSI offers the Vector series as a more affordable Raider. The Vector lineup will also get the latest Alder Lake processors, from the Core i7-12700H to the Core i9-12900HK. Due to supply, the Vector will forego DDR5 and stick with DDR4, with up to 32 GB from MSI via two SODIMMs. On the graphics side, options are the RTX 3060L, RTX 3070L, RTX 3070L Ti, and RTX 3080L.

Prices start at $1899 for the RTX 3060, $2249 for the RTX 3070, $2549 for the RTX 3070 Ti, and $2799 for the RTX 3080 model.

MSI Crosshair 15 Special Edition Rainbox Six Extraction

Every year, MSI does a special edition laptop which is usually from the Raider series, but for 2022, MSI is using a mid-level gaming notebook to make it more affordable for more people. Themed for Ubisoft’s Rainbox Six Extraction, the laptop features a unique paint scheme and even comes with a copy of the game. It features a map of Los Angeles under the logo, and features laser engraving throughout the design. It comes with a matching mouse and mouse pad as well. The special edition laptop will be available for $1999 USD.

MSI’s new Alder Lake laptop lineup will be available for pre-order starting January 25th at 06:00 Pacific, with products available starting February 1st.

Source: AnandTech – CES 2022: MSI Launches Alder Lake Laptop Lineup

As part of today’s CES keynote for the company, NVIDIA GeForce SVP and GM Jeff Fisher very briefly teased a new flagship NVIDIA video card. The GeForce RTX 3090 Ti as it’s called appears to be a higher clocked version of the current RTX 3090.

Living up to the idea of a teaser, details on the new card are fleeting for the moment, with NVIDIA showing it off primarily to what the public appetite ahead of a more formal reveal later in January. But for now, NVIDIA is confirming that single precision (FP32) compute performance is 40 TFLOPS, which would be 12% higher than the existing RTX 3090. The teaser also confirms that the card is getting fast memory, with a bump to 21Gbps GDDR6X. And of course, the card still comes with 24GB of the stuff.

And for now, that’s all NVIDIA is telling us! According to the company, we should expect to find out more later this month.

Source: AnandTech – NVIDIA Briefly Teases GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, More Details Later This Month

While CES may have started out as the Consumer Electronics Show, the global event has over the years expanded to include everything from enterprise technologies to automobiles. As a result, the show has not only been a regular keystone event for things like CPU and GPU announcements, but it’s also become home to major automotive technology announcements as well. And for Intel’s autonomous driving subsidiary, Mobileye, those two paths are coming directly together this year, as this morning the group is announcing their next-generation Level 4 autonomous driving SoC, the EyeQ Ultra.

Source: AnandTech – Mobileye Announces EyeQ Ultra: A Level 4 Self-Driving System In A Single SoC

As part of a jam-packed CES keynote presentation this morning, AMD has announced a slew of updates to its mobile graphics lineup. Altogether, AMD is introducing one new GPU and 8 new SKUs this morning, almost quadrupling the size of their mobile graphics parts catalog. Combined with the Ryzen 6000 Mobile series announcement, it’s clear that this year AMD is going to be heavily focusing on laptops, and that is going for both their CPU(APU) and GPU businesses.

Source: AnandTech – AMD Mobile GPU 2022 Update: Radeon 6000S Series, 6x50M Parts, and Navi 24-Based 6500M and 6300M

Alongside AMD’s smorgasbord of mobile graphics offerings that were announced during today’s CES 2022 keynote, the company also has some new desktop video cards to speak about for the low-end segment of the market. On January 19^th the company will be launching their Radeon RX 6500 XT video card, the long-awaited low-end member of the Radeon RX 6000 series desktop lineup. Based on the new Navi 24 GPU, it will be hitting retail shelves for $199. Meanwhile, joining it a bit later in the year will be the Radeon RX 6400, a second Navi 24 and OEM-only part.

Source: AnandTech – AMD Reveals Radeon RX 6500 XT: Navi 24 Lands for Low-End Desktops on January 19th

As well as delivering hardware updates for both their desktop and mobile lineups this morning, as part of AMD’s CES 2022 keynote, the company also offered a quick update on their Radeon driver plans for the first quarter of the year. The big takeaway here is that AMD is going to be expanding the accessibility of their FidelityFX Super Resolution image upscaling technology by integrating it into their drivers as a forced override option. Slated to land in a future version of AMD’s driver stack this quarter, the driver-based feature will be promoted as Radeon Super Resolution.

As a quick refresher, AMD first released their spatial image upscaling technology, FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), back in June. As part of the company’s suite of open source FidelityFX libraries, game developers were free to integrate the image upscaling algorithm into their games by including AMD’s shader program as a step in their image rendering pipeline. The net results of FSR have been mixed from an image quality standpoint, but the shader-based approach is very cheap to execute, and it can be used on a wide range of GPUs (including NVIDIA and Intel parts).

AMD has been quick to score a number of developers who have included FSR within their games, but even then, PC gamers have been interested in applying it to additional games. In the last several months this has led to the introduction of utilities like Magpie and Lossless Scaling, which can force various image upscaling techniques on games, including AMD’s FSR. And while forcing FSR in this fashion isn’t ideal from a quality or compatibility standpoint (leading to AMD originally passing on the idea), AMD has since come around on the idea. To that end, AMD will be implementing a form of FSR in their drivers as an override option, which they will be calling Radeon Super Resolution (RSR).

As with Magpie and similar utilities, this will be a forced upscaling option that is implemented at the end of the rendering pipeline, rather than the more ideal mid-point. The ramifications of which are that RSR will be upscaling not just the image from the game, but the UI as well; so it will introduce some of the same UI distortion as running a game at a sub-native resolution to begin with.

It’s Ideal To Run FSR Before Post-Processing Effects and the UI, But It’s Not Required…

All of which is fitting, since that’s essentially what you have to do to make RSR work. Since this is a driver-forced feature, games need to be set to a sub-native rendering resolution in order to provide something to upscale – as well as to provide the performance benefits of rendering at a lower resolution. So using RSR won’t quite be a set-it-and-forget-it situation as games with proper FSR support offer today, but adjusting a game’s rendering resolution is about all the real work that’s required from the user.

At this point AMD is expecting it to work with most games. But like all driver override features like this, it may not work (or at least, not work well) with all games. In particular, it will require that a game supports and is running in exclusive fullscreen modes. So although AMD fully supports RSR, there is certainly an element of Your Mileage May Vary with respect to compatibility.

In the meantime, it should be noted that FSR itself won’t be going anywhere. As RSR itself is essentially a fallback implementation of FSR to force it at the driver level, properly integrating FSR into a rendering pipeline is still the best and most ideal way to use it. So RSR is not replacing FSR; rather it’s giving Radeon owners another way to access some of FSR’s functionality.

Moving on, AMD also has a couple more features slated for their forthcoming driver update that bear mentioning. First and foremost, AMD Link 5.0 is on its way. AMD’s remote game streaming feature was most recently updated with AMD Link 4 back in the spring, and now AMD is preparing the next iteration.

Finally, AMD will also be integrating a new feature called AMD Privacy View, which in turn will be based on licensed software from Eyeware. The basis behind Privacy View is that by using eye tracking and head tracking, AMD’s drivers will be able to determine what the user is looking at – and in the process deter shoulder surfers from being able to easily see a user’s screen. According to AMD, both this and AMD Link 5.0 are expected to land in AMD’s drivers in the first quarter of this year.

Source: AnandTech – AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution To Become Driver Feature: Radeon Super Resolution

Netgear introduced their first Wi-Fi 6E routers last year with the launch of the Nighthawk RAXE500 and the Orbi RBKE960. The addition of 6 GHz support makes it necessary to include more antennae and add more RF components to the board. As a result, the pricing of these routers tend to be high – the RAXE500 retails for $581 currently (launched with a MSRP of $600), while the basic Orbi RBKE962 (a router and a single satellite) had a launch MSRP of $1100.

As part of the 2022 CES launches, Netgear is introducing an affordable Wi-Fi 6E router in the form of the Nighthawk RAXE300. Affordable is a relative term here – the new router has a $400 price point. The cost-down has been achieved by adopting a 8-stream configuration – four in the 5 GHz band, and two each in 6 GHz and 2.4 GHz.

Similar to other Nighthawk routers, the RAXE300 also includes the NETGEAR Armor service support, along with a larger number of wired ports compared to mesh systems. A 1Gbps and a 2.5Gbps port are available for WAN connection (the unused one can be repurposed for LAN usage), and link aggregation support is also built in.

The USB 3.0 Type-A ports in the previous Nighthawks has now been replaced by a Type-C port. Netgear is also claiming better antenna placement for improved performance.

In addition to the RAXE300, the company is also launching the EAX50 6-stream AX5400 extender for $180 later this quarter.

Netgear’s line of Nighthawk Pro routers has targeted gamers with their Game Booster feature. This allows gamers to restrict connections to geographically close-by servers (based on ping timings and geo-filters), while also providing fine-grained QoS settings to prioritize certain devices / applications over others. Netgear is now adding ad-blocking to the features list.

The service is also being rolled out to Orbi owners, with a 30-day free trial, and then billed annually at $50. In recent years, most hardware vendors have shifted to a service model to create a recurrent revenue stream. It is no surprise that Netgear is adding features to and trying to expand their offerings such as Game Booster and ARMOR.

Gallery: Netgear Expands Wi-Fi 6E Portfolio with Affordable Nighthawk RAXE300 Router

Source: AnandTech – Netgear Expands Wi-Fi 6E Portfolio with Affordable Nighthawk RAXE300 Router

Netgear Business – the SMB-/SME-focused arm of Netgear – has been delivering mesh Wi-Fi systems to small businesses under the Orbi Pro lineup since 2017. The 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) version was followed up by the flagship AX6000 (Wi-Fi 6) Orbi Pro SXK80 models in late 2020. Last year, a cut-down dual-band AX1800 version – the Orbi Pro SXK30 – was introduced at $300. As part of the 2022 CES announcements, the company is introducing the mid-range Orbi Pro model – the SXK50 series.

The SXK50 series consists of AX5400 models, with both routers and satellites carrying four wired ports. Netgear is segmenting the models solely based on the hardware, and is keeping business features such as multiple networks, VLAN SSIDs and network isolation / segmentation, etc. consistent across the lineup.

The SXK50 (one router and one satellite) is priced at $450 – However, a 5-year Insight Remote Management subscription is included in the price. This tilts the value proposition in its favor despite the absence of the tri-band capabilities seen in the SXK80 series.

The Orbi Pro lineup is also getting a new software feature in the form of Insight Business VPN that allows multiple units to form a multi-site VPN connection complete with a common SSID. This allows seamless roaming across both office and home locations for employee devices.

In other new hardware announcements, Netgear is also introducing a fanless 2.5Gbps PoE++ switch – the MS108EUP – at $440. This Ultra60 PoE++ Multi-Gigabit Ethernet Plus Switch accommodates a power budget of up to 60W/port (PoE++) for four ports, and 30W/port (PoE+) for the other four, with the total budget not exceeding 230W. PoE++ switches with NBASE-T support are becoming increasingly popular in business circles, thanks to the new 802.11ax access points that have both high power usage and bandwidth capabilities. The recent uptick in PoE-powered business equipment such as IP cameras, speakers, and LED lights has also contributed to this demand.

The new MS108EUP switch complements the flagship WAX630 AX6000 access point introduced in mid-2021, enabling full-speed (2.5Gbps) operation with a single uplink cable. The Plus switches come with a simple web-page for configuration, allowing per-port PoE control.

Netgear’s business arm has been on a roll lately, expanding their portfolio well beyond the switches they had been traditionally known for. Their business mesh systems, in-house access points, and complementary switch models, coupled with a unified cloud-based remote management product (Insight) are presenting SMBs with compelling choices in the market.

Gallery: Netgear Introduces Orbi Pro SXK50 AX5400 Mesh System for SMBs

Source: AnandTech – Netgear Introduces Orbi Pro SXK50 AX5400 Mesh System for SMBs

AMD this afternoon has sent out a brief update to the public and investors, offering an update on the status of the ongoing Xilinx acquisition. AMD’s purchase of the FPGA maker, which was previous expected to close by the end of this year, is now expected to close in the first quarter of 2022. Attributing the setback to delays in regulatory approval, AMD believes they’ll be able to finally secure the necessary approval for the $35 billion deal next quarter.

As a quick refresher, AMD first announced their intention to buy Xilinx back in October of 2020. The FPGA maker was a lucrative target for AMD, whose sales (and market capitalization) have been growing by leaps and bounds over the last few years. This has brought AMD to the point where they are looking at diversification, as well as covering any gaps in their product lineup that would be holding them back in the server market. As the plan goes, acquiring Xilinx, will allow AMD to offer FPGAs alongside (and potentially integrated with) their current CPU and GPU/accelerator products.

The deal was previously expected to close by the end of 2021, and AMD has remained very tight lipped on the matter outside of their initial announcement. None the less, acquiring the necessary regulatory approval is apparently taking AMD longer than planned. According to the company they are not expecting to need to change the deal or alter any of its terms, but they will need another quarter to get the last approvals required to close the deal.

Source: AnandTech – AMD-Xilinx Acquisition Now Expected to Close in Q1 of 2022

One of the key issues with purchasing a modern Alder Lake system today is the cost of the memory, especially when an enthusiast wants to use DDR5. Due to component shortages, particularly the power management controllers that each DDR5 module needs, costs of DDR5 are quickly rising, with some scalpers looking for $1000+ for basic memory kits. The solution to this has been to recommend that users look to pair Alder Lake with DDR4 memory, which although it isn’t the latest, is the more cost effective scenario. The downside to this solution is that the user has a DDR4-only motherboard, and not the next generation DDR5. That might become a solved issue soon enough, however.

In a preview video on YouTube posted today by Bing, who I believe is an ASUS ROG employee, the company has been working on a solution to allow users that buy ASUS Z690 motherboards built on DDR5, to run DDR4 in them. Because Intel limited the platform to either DDR5 or DDR4 per motherboard, there’s no way to run both, until now. In the video, Bing describes the new add-in card they’ve been prototyping.

The use case is fairly simple – have a DDR5 board like the ROG Apex, put the carrier card in a memory slot, and place the qualified DDR4 in the top.

Obviously, the situation here is more complex than simply using this carrier card. DDR5 and DDR4 are more than simply a notch difference between them – DDR4 is a single 64-bit memory channel per module, while DDR5 is dual 32-bit channel per module. The key issue is that DDR5 does power management per module, where DDR4 relies on power management on the motherboard, so that has to be taken into consideration. Also, adding in a carrier card extends memory traces, which could degrade the quality of the signal.

What ASUS does here is use a special BIOS revision to allow the ROG Apex DDR5 to run in DDR4 mode. This means that the traces to the memory slots, although laid out for DDR5 operation, are switched into DDR4 mode. Then, on the carrier card, this takes the 5V power signal and runs it through the equivalent of motherboard power management, and controls the data lines to maintain integrity for signal, latency, power, etc.

Bing explains in the video that this is still very much a prototype. It looks like they’re focusing to get it to work on one motherboard with one memory kit first, before optimizing it. Bing states that the carrier card is very tall, and there is room for optimization to make it smaller in the future before ASUS might offer it as a retail product. Also a wider range of validation is likely needed as well.

The video goes to show with a single DDR4 module in the carrier card the system running at DDR4-4400 with a Core i5-12600K. To confirm DDR5 still works, the system is shown running dual modules of DDR5-4400, at least to the BIOS screen. If these modules come to market, they are still in early prototypes, and ASUS will likely judge feasibility and demand for them for pricing.

Source: YouTube (in Mandarin)

Source: AnandTech – ASUS Demonstrates DDR5 to DDR4 Converter Card