We’re simply weeks away from the largest tech jamboree of the 12 months, the Shopper Electronics Present or CES. It is anticipated that 130,000 attendees and three,500 distributors will descend on the sprawling advanced of exhibition facilities and present flooring throughout Las Vegas for the occasion, which opens on January 9.
Amongst them will probably be our very personal Jacob, battling by way of the hordes to convey you the easiest PC gaming tech from the present. However precisely what is going to he discover at CES 2024?
All the things AI, suddenly
Yo dawg. Heard you want AI. So we took some AI and made it clever and synthetic after which ran all of it by way of a big language mannequin. In all probability. Mainly, should you’re not into AI, avoid CES 2024. It will be in all places. Really, that is Intel’s Advertising and marketing tag line that will probably be hammered to loss of life at CES, actually “AI In every single place”.
The remainder of the tech giants will nearly definitely have an AI message to promote, too. How a lot any of it interprets into tangible merchandise and real-world advantages, particularly for PC gaming, stays to be seen.
Nvidia tremendous sizes
Of the massive noises in PC tech, Nvidia will in all probability be alone in rolling out one thing genuinely new within the form of “Tremendous” branded updates for its present RTX 40-series line of gaming graphics playing cards.
We have executed the rumours to loss of life, however we’re anticipating an RTX 4070 Tremendous, and RTX 4070 Ti Tremendous, and an RTX 4080 Tremendous. Of these three, it is the RTX 4070 Ti Tremendous that guarantees to be the largest step ahead. That is as a result of it is rumoured to make the bounce away from Nvidia’s AD104 chip to the larger AD103 GPU, the latter utilized by the RTX 4080, at present.
The RTX 4070 Tremendous and RTX 4080 Tremendous are regarded as smaller upgrades utilizing the identical silicon as present non-Tremendous GPUs. Maybe simply aas necessary is the query of what’s going to occur to these present GPUs. Will they disappear? Or might they get a pricing haircut?
Both manner, what you will not see is Nvidia’s next-gen Blackwell GPUs, in all probability to be branded RTX 50-s Collection. They will not seem till at the least the top of 2024 and possibly not till early 20225.
As a ultimate outdoors, might Nvidia start speaking about its rumoured ARM CPU for PCs at CES? 2024 is the 12 months that we’re anticipating to see some severe motion on excessive efficiency ARM chips for PCs, so it is nearly potential.
Intel Meteor Lake’s deep affect
You have seen the previews, however CES ought to see a slew of Meteor Lake primarily based laptops all touting Intel’s new chip. Early previews of the brand new chip are slightly underwhelming. However possibly Intel could make an even bigger affect with Meteor Lake and the brand new Core Extremely Collection of laptop computer CPUs at CES.
Extra broadly, Intel will probably be bigging up the AI capabilities of Meteor Lake underneath its “AI In every single place” banner throughout CEO Pat Gelisgner’s CES keynote. Will we see some killer new apps to reap the benefits of the NPU in Meteor Lake? Perhaps, however extra possible are a couple of barely meh tech demos working one thing like native AI picture technology on the NPU after which a load of constructive however imprecise sentiments concerning the transformative energy of AI.
All the things AMD FSR, suddenly?
Sorry for the repeat gag, however AMD has already introduced that its FSR 3 upscaling tech goes open supply, making it simpler for anybody so as to add help, together with community-based modders. You could possibly argue what FSR actually wants is extra polish and work from AMD itself, not a lot more video games with barely tough across the edges scaling help.
Talking of extra polish, AMD has been saying extra video games with FSR 3 help and the addition of variable refresh help for its fluid movement body technology expertise inside FSR 3. So, there’s extra in- home work happening, too. Anticipate to see AMD flesh out additional enhancements to FSR 3 at CES.
AMD can even be making an AI pitch courtesy of its new Hawk Level laptop computer chip, which is admittedly simply the superb Phoenix chip already utilized in every part from laptops to gaming handhelds. That is in all probability superb, as a result of it is an ideal chip. Anyway, it is branded Ryzen 8000 collection, which is slightly deceptive, however incorporates the identical AI-accelerating NPU as present Ryzen 7000 laptop computer APUs, permitting AMD to make that all-important AI pitch at CES.
Lastly, there is a tiny likelihood AMD could wheel out a refreshed model of its N31 GPU, as seen within the Radeon RX 7900 XT and XTX graphics playing cards, to handle Nvidia’s Tremendous Collection graphics. In that case, it will be the identical silicon working slightly quicker, not one thing truly new.
Qualcomm’s new killer CPU
We’re not anticipating to have the ability to truly purchase a laptop computer with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X Elite Arm-powered CPU till June. But it surely’s odds on Qualcomm will present some units working the chip at CES.
Snapdragon X Elite seems to have aggressive processing energy in comparison with one of the best x86 CPUs from Intel and AMD, however might provide a lot better effectivity. Consider it as bringing one thing just like the stability of efficiency and effectivity of Apple’s M collection chips to the PC and you’ll have roughly the correct concept.
With Nvidia and probably AMD additionally anticipated to be bringing Arm-powered CPUs to the PC within the subsequent 12 months or so, the lengthy awaited transition of the PC from x86 to Arm may simply be upon us and CES 2024 might be a key punctuation level alongside the way in which.
Ole, ole, OLED
Anticipate to see loads of new OLED gaming displays at CES. A key new phase will probably be 32-inch 4K fashions utilizing each LG and Samsung OLED panels. Nonetheless, with information that TCL can also be mentioning manufacturing of its personal OLED panels for displays, it will be attention-grabbing to see if any new ultimate monitor merchandise within the 32-inch 4K area primarily based on TCL’s new low-cost inkjet printed OLED tech are proven off at CES.
We’re additionally hoping to see a lot of new gaming laptops with OLED display expertise from a lot of the massive manufacturers.
TeeVee tech
CES additionally debuts a mountain of recent TV tech and mannequin ranges. For us, they’re largely attention-grabbing as a result of the panel tech seen in these new TVs often finds its manner into PC displays in the end.
Hopefully, CES 2024 will see progress from OLED panels by way of full-screen brightness. We might additionally like to see some new lower-cost shows utilizing microLED expertise, however that’s in all probability nonetheless years away.
Cooler-running PCIe 5 SSDs
As we reported, Phison has a brand new fanless PCIe Gen 5 controller for SSDs. It isn’t fairly as quick by way of peak throughput as its present controller, the new and hungry E26, however critically it could actually run with out the necessity for lively cooling. CES ought to see quite a few drives with the brand new chip debut.
Silicon Movement has its personal new PCIe 5 SSD controller within the works and it is claimed to be at the least 30% extra power environment friendly than the Phison E26 whereas providing basically the identical bandwidth. It isn’t clear if the Silicon Movement controller wants lively cooling for peak efficiency, however we could discover out at CES.
Bizarre and whacky prototypes
After all, it would not be CES and not using a few bizarre and whacky prototypes. Again in 2008, Alienware wowed the world with a prototype curved PC monitor with an ultrawide 21:9 facet. May you think about such a factor?
Really, again then it used DLP rear projection, so it was genuinely bizarre, even by as we speak’s requirements. But it surely definitely offered a glimpse of the long run. As did the hand-held gaming PC that Alienware confirmed off at CES 2020. It seems similar to the latest bevy of AMD-powered handhelds together with the Asus RoG Ally.
2017 noticed a triple-screen Razer laptop computer, whereas extra prosaic ideas embody new case and motherboard type elements, and new cooling applied sciences. Final 12 months was all about foldable screens, so it will likely be attention-grabbing to see what themes emerge in 2024’s present. How a couple of laptop computer PC that may efficiently sleep with out draining its battery or hanging? Now that will be a technical marvel!
Oh and when you’re ready for this 12 months’s present, why not peruse our preview from final 12 months see how a lot we bought proper…
