Polygonals
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http://www.computershopper.com/ces-2016/computer-shopper-s-best-of-ces-2016
There has been a lot of exciting things shown at CES this year, this article covers a lot of the goodies.
On the topic of gaming related items though, some things have really caught my eye. We've seen a good few AIOs (All In One PCs- computer inside of the monitor) but none have really made me think about purchasing. But, that seems to be changing, I've seen much higher quality AIOs as of late, and even AIOs that allow the user to actually upgrade anything in them. (Usually they included non-standard parts that couldn't be swapped out). There are still restrictions, of course, due to the odd dimensions of AIO "case/monitor" designs. Two AIOs have me really interested, there's the Cyberpower Arcus 34" as seen in the article, and the Origin Omni. Prices will undoubtedly be higher than building your own PC, or even buying your particular configuration pre-built, that much is obvious as you're also getting a high-quality display. In the case of the Cyberpower Arcus, it's a 34' Curved IPS 3440 x 1440 display. Pretty nifty. The cyberpower Arcus is also surprisingly thin, and at first glance I wouldn't think that there's a desktop PC in there, not to mention it's liquid cooled and can fit custom liquid cooling as well. The Origin Omni is very similar, and can come configured with very high-end desktop components, or even workstation components (very compelling). The downside will of course be the price, if you don't need a new monitor look away, but if you want a very nice monitor upgrade, and want to build a new computer, but have little space, this may be worth a consideration. Personally, I'm running out of space and need to build a new PC as well as find a better monitor, so these AIOs are something I'll certainly be considering. Since you can configure the components you want before ordering (I don't believe you can buy it empty), I'd probably configure it with the cheapest, trashiest hardware and then rip that out and set up new hardware from scratch.
Moving on though, Razer (a company akin to Apple-gone-windows) has shown their new laptop. For once, I see something worth considering both in terms of price and quality. Razor's new Razor Blade Stealth is a very slim laptop that can plug into an external GPU. The cheapest model will start at $999 with a Core i7 Skylake and an unknown amount of RAM (likely 8GBs). The Razor Core (External GPU housing) will have to be purchased separately, and the price is currently unkown. So, the appeal of this for me is that I can have a decently fast super portable laptop when I'm out and about, but have the ability to plug it into the external GPU (any full size desktop GPU is compatible) to get great gaming performance. There are some downsides, I've heard that i7 included in the $999 (fairish price) model is only two cores. Even being a new CPU, that's going to cause a bottle neck for sure. If you're buying this for the purpose of being able to play new games, you'll probably have to look at a more expensive model. Which isn't all bad, but it's not great. We've seen external GPUs before, but nothing very polished, and it's really exciting to see a lot of development on this concept. I am starting to travel a lot, and cannot haul a PC with me. So having a laptop I could take with me that docks to a GPU housing is very appealing. I'm also getting gigs doing set photography and having a laptop that's able to do solid photo editing while remaining portable with good battery life would help, a lot. Mixed in with also being able to game with it really does make this a perfect match for a heavy laptop user.
On the topic of external GPUs, there's another big contender, and this would be my option. The Asus RoG XG2. It's another external GPU housing but has advantages over Razor. The primary advantage is the ability to also house a harddrive! This is a big deal, laptops do not have a lot of storage, so this gives you the ability to install all of your games and anything else you'd use while docked to that harddrive. Saving a ton of space on your laptop. All of it can be upgraded, replacing the hard dive with some SSDs, for example. The case can fit up to a desktop titan, so it's safe to say it will fit any card. It's connected to the laptop via two USB Typc-C ports. Asus also showed a laptop with the XG2 that was super small, had a quad core i7, and blasted through benchmarks.
Right now, we're unsure if the GPU dock will be locked to only MSI GPUs (not a HUGE deal, but not great) and if it'll be locked to the MSI compatible laptops.. Hopefully not. You also have to turn off the laptop before connecting/disconnecting the GPU. Either way, the laptop they showed off with it seems sweet, absolutely sweet. Being on the move so much, I'd be totally happy with that laptop and this dock pretty much replacing my desktop setup. If the laptop and dock combo without GPU is under $1,400 this is something I seriously might buy. Sorry, WILL buy.
Lastly, because it's interesting. BMW showed off a sweet motorcycle helmet with a built-in camera and a nifty heads-up display. I believe it has to be connected to the new BMW motorcycle they also have there, so that sucks. But it's still pretty sweet.
Thanks for reading. There are some really cool advancements in interesting tech this year, and I can't wait to see how they improve on it.
There has been a lot of exciting things shown at CES this year, this article covers a lot of the goodies.
On the topic of gaming related items though, some things have really caught my eye. We've seen a good few AIOs (All In One PCs- computer inside of the monitor) but none have really made me think about purchasing. But, that seems to be changing, I've seen much higher quality AIOs as of late, and even AIOs that allow the user to actually upgrade anything in them. (Usually they included non-standard parts that couldn't be swapped out). There are still restrictions, of course, due to the odd dimensions of AIO "case/monitor" designs. Two AIOs have me really interested, there's the Cyberpower Arcus 34" as seen in the article, and the Origin Omni. Prices will undoubtedly be higher than building your own PC, or even buying your particular configuration pre-built, that much is obvious as you're also getting a high-quality display. In the case of the Cyberpower Arcus, it's a 34' Curved IPS 3440 x 1440 display. Pretty nifty. The cyberpower Arcus is also surprisingly thin, and at first glance I wouldn't think that there's a desktop PC in there, not to mention it's liquid cooled and can fit custom liquid cooling as well. The Origin Omni is very similar, and can come configured with very high-end desktop components, or even workstation components (very compelling). The downside will of course be the price, if you don't need a new monitor look away, but if you want a very nice monitor upgrade, and want to build a new computer, but have little space, this may be worth a consideration. Personally, I'm running out of space and need to build a new PC as well as find a better monitor, so these AIOs are something I'll certainly be considering. Since you can configure the components you want before ordering (I don't believe you can buy it empty), I'd probably configure it with the cheapest, trashiest hardware and then rip that out and set up new hardware from scratch.
Moving on though, Razer (a company akin to Apple-gone-windows) has shown their new laptop. For once, I see something worth considering both in terms of price and quality. Razor's new Razor Blade Stealth is a very slim laptop that can plug into an external GPU. The cheapest model will start at $999 with a Core i7 Skylake and an unknown amount of RAM (likely 8GBs). The Razor Core (External GPU housing) will have to be purchased separately, and the price is currently unkown. So, the appeal of this for me is that I can have a decently fast super portable laptop when I'm out and about, but have the ability to plug it into the external GPU (any full size desktop GPU is compatible) to get great gaming performance. There are some downsides, I've heard that i7 included in the $999 (fairish price) model is only two cores. Even being a new CPU, that's going to cause a bottle neck for sure. If you're buying this for the purpose of being able to play new games, you'll probably have to look at a more expensive model. Which isn't all bad, but it's not great. We've seen external GPUs before, but nothing very polished, and it's really exciting to see a lot of development on this concept. I am starting to travel a lot, and cannot haul a PC with me. So having a laptop I could take with me that docks to a GPU housing is very appealing. I'm also getting gigs doing set photography and having a laptop that's able to do solid photo editing while remaining portable with good battery life would help, a lot. Mixed in with also being able to game with it really does make this a perfect match for a heavy laptop user.
On the topic of external GPUs, there's another big contender, and this would be my option. The Asus RoG XG2. It's another external GPU housing but has advantages over Razor. The primary advantage is the ability to also house a harddrive! This is a big deal, laptops do not have a lot of storage, so this gives you the ability to install all of your games and anything else you'd use while docked to that harddrive. Saving a ton of space on your laptop. All of it can be upgraded, replacing the hard dive with some SSDs, for example. The case can fit up to a desktop titan, so it's safe to say it will fit any card. It's connected to the laptop via two USB Typc-C ports. Asus also showed a laptop with the XG2 that was super small, had a quad core i7, and blasted through benchmarks.
Right now, we're unsure if the GPU dock will be locked to only MSI GPUs (not a HUGE deal, but not great) and if it'll be locked to the MSI compatible laptops.. Hopefully not. You also have to turn off the laptop before connecting/disconnecting the GPU. Either way, the laptop they showed off with it seems sweet, absolutely sweet. Being on the move so much, I'd be totally happy with that laptop and this dock pretty much replacing my desktop setup. If the laptop and dock combo without GPU is under $1,400 this is something I seriously might buy. Sorry, WILL buy.
Lastly, because it's interesting. BMW showed off a sweet motorcycle helmet with a built-in camera and a nifty heads-up display. I believe it has to be connected to the new BMW motorcycle they also have there, so that sucks. But it's still pretty sweet.
Thanks for reading. There are some really cool advancements in interesting tech this year, and I can't wait to see how they improve on it.
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