CES 2019: More Show Floor Favorites

Estimated reading time: 16 minutes

For example, do most people need a computer that uses an Intel i7, the latest i9, or an AMD thread ripper, overclocked CPUs, an RTX ray tracing, enabled GPU or two, 64 GB of RAM, and ultra-studio-quality sound? A device pushed to near its limits to the point where liquid cooling is required to keep it running at its full capability? Do most people even understand what they can do? Of course not, but there is a significant demand for these beasts, and with recent advances by Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, and others—as well as the amazing graphics being used by the next generation of XR—both industrial as well as entertaining gaming and graphics could benefit from such computers. I predict that the rate of upgrading for those that do understand will once again increase over the next year.

I saw some of the most advanced and cool-looking components such as cases, liquid cooling, power supplies, and other peripherals. And let’s face it; when you are building a rig and choosing between different liquid cooling all-in-one (AIO) liquid coolers or more memory, etc., looking cool counts.

The best-looking components that I saw this year were being shown by Thermaltake (great looking and versatile cases and cooling), Razer (keyboards and gaming laptop), ViewSonic (ultra-wide, very high-end monitors), and EVGA (one of the first RTX 2060 ray tracing mid-priced GPUs). 

There were others that I did not have a chance to see firsthand. As this is one of my favorite areas—and for those who also are passionate about DIY computer building—I promise that this is an area I will dedicate more time to next year. As I plan on building a new rig this spring, I will do a follow-up article on this topic once I choose the components and build it.

There were many factory-built computers on exhibit, units from all the well-known suppliers, and many from lesser-known but very impressive brands. There were none that I did not like, but the one that did get my attention was the Razer Blade 15 advanced edition, which is touted as the world’s smallest 15.6-inch gaming laptop. It is equipped with the new Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics 1060, which was just announced at the NVIDIA presser, but you can get even more powerful graphics all the way up to the RTX 2080, driving screen resolution all the way up to 4K. This top-of-the-line laptop is powered by an eight-generation Intel Core i7-8750H six-core processor and comes with 16 GB of RAM, and solid-state drives up to 512 GB. It obviously comes with Windows 10 and supports Windows Hello. Razor also showed an interesting gaming smartphone.

About a year ago, HTC released the Vive Pro—at that time, the next generation VR/XR headset. This year, they announced the soon-to-be-available Vive Pro Eye. This improved VR headset will come with built-in eye tracking, which enables “gaze-oriented menu navigation.” With this unit, you will be able to navigate menus, and select—and perhaps activate options—just by looking instead of using motion-based VR wand controllers. This could prove quite valuable, especially for applications such as XR-guided repairs or troubleshooting. Maybe we will see more of the Vive Pro Eye at the AWE show in late spring.

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