As coronavirus (aka Covid-19) concerns spread across the world in a very much viral fashion, IDC reports the virus will leave an impact on the W. European PC market in 2020, but not as much as the ongoing stagnation of the consumer segment.

The analyst predicts traditional PC-- desktops, notebooks and workstations-- shipments will total 72.2 million in 2020, a -1% decline. The remaining Windows 10 transitions should continue driving commercial demand, but as mentioned earlier the consumer segment remains very much stagnant, and negative supply chain ramifications will keep the PC market in negative territory. H1 2020 should be better than H2, with overall 1.6% Y-o-Y growth expected for Q1 2020 and flat performance for Q2 2020.

PC chassis manufacturer NZXT announces the H1-- a small form factor mini-ITX case complete with pre-installed SFX-L 650w 80+ Gold PSU, 140mm AIO cooler, and PCIe riser card. Also launched is the BLD H1, a pre-build PC based around the chassis.

"Creating a small form factor case is something we have always wanted to improve upon because they are often challenging to build in and can hinder the performance of high-end hardware," the company says. “That is why we simplified the building process and focused on performance when designing the NZXT H1. We set out to make this one of the easiest builds you can undertake while leaving no compromises when gaming.”

Gigabyte quietly adds four Intel Comet Lake-U powered models to the Brix ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) PC line, all ideal for a number of applications, including consumer, office and even commercial.

Brix UCFF PCs are barebones models based on Intel 10th generation Core (Comet Lake-U) processors. The four base models on offer feature the Core i7-10710U with six cores, the Core i7-10510U and Core i5-10210U with four cores, and the two-core Core i3-10110U. Customers can equip all systems with up to 64GB DDR4-2666 memory with two SO-DIMMS, an M.2-2280 SSD with a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface and a 2.5-inch SSD or HDD via SATA 6Gbps interface.

Asus announces a pair of miniature graphics cards designed for the Intel NUC 9 Extreme Kit and Pro Kit-- the Dual GeForce RTX 2060 Mini and Mini OC editions, both measuring 19.7 x 12.1 x 3.9cm.

The two graphics cards feature a 2-slot design and are 1x 8-pin powered with twin-fan coolers. Connectivity comes through three ports, namely a DVI-D, DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.0b (with HDCP 2.2). Asus says the cooler, while compact, still provides plenty of thermal performance. It consists of ROG-designed twin axial fans, 0dB technology (at least when the GPU is cooler than 55 degrees Celsius), a redesigned shroud, a new heatsink and heatpipe layout and IPX5 dust resistance.