Main “hardware” announcements of CES 2019

Consumer electronics show (CES) 2019 ran January 8 to 11 in Las Vegas. Manufacturers of various field from smartphones to cars presented a number of fascinating products. Naturally, we were mostly interested in the gaming “hardware” and we have collected the most interesting news for you in this article.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060

Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, presented GeForce RTX 2060, a lower-priced card with RTXsupport on Turing architecture. It is based on the TU106GPU like RTX 2070, and has slightly lower performance (about 15% in games). In addition, it has only 6 GB of DDR6 memory and 30 RT cores while RTX 2070 powers 8 GBand 38 cores. New mid-range graphic card will cost just $349, which is a good offer for a card that has a higher performance than GTX 1070. The card will be available in stores on January 15th.

AMD Radeon VII

Radeon VII is a Team Red’s answer to NVIDIA’s RTX 2080. At least, this is exactly how AMD presents Radeon VII.

Compared to the Radeon RX Vega 64, the power consumption of the Radeon VII will remain at the same level and its performance will increase by 25%. Such increase is archived by GPU Vega 2, 16 GB of HBM2 memory and 7-nanometer manufacturing process. Moreover, the card will also support ray tracing.

At CES 2019, Devil May Cry 5 was launched at ultra-settings in 4K resolution on PC powered by Radeon VII. The FPS was from 70 to 120 fps. Whether the Radeon VII will really compete with the RTX 2080 or not we’ll find out soon — the sales will start on February 7th. What’s interesting is that the recommended price for both cards is the same — $700.

Acer Predator Triton 900

Taiwanese company Acer brought a convertible laptop Predator Triton 900 to Las Vegas. Previously Acer showed it at IFA 2018 in Berlin.

Main feature of Predator Triton 900 is a rotating display (180 degrees), mounted on the Ezel Aero Hinges. So it can be a gaming and portable laptop at the same time. In addition, it can be used as a tablet (thickness — 2.4 cm).

Triton 900 model has a younger sibling — Triton 500. Sure, the main differences include diagonal and screen resolution — 17-inch 4K IPS display versus 15.6-inch Full HD display, refresh rate is the same — 144 Hz. When it comes to power, laptops are almost the same — 32 GB DDR4 RAM, Intel’s 8th generation Core i7 CPU and RTX 2080, but graphic card in Triton 500 will have Max-Q design.

Triton 500 will be available in stores in February and Triton 900 in March.

Razer Raptor

Yes, Razer is officially stepping into monitor market. Its first productis 27-inch Raptor monitor with 2560x1440 resolution. Moreover,144 Hz IPS panel and support of AMD FreeSync (a smart technology that supports dynamic refresh rate for reducing tearing and stuttering, the analog from NVIDIA is G-Sync) sound like a great start. The materials are also quite premium: textured metal at the back and an aluminum stand that allows 90-degree tilt. Another feature that should be noted — barely noticeable bezels — just 2.3 mm. Moreover the stand is illuminated by RGB strips. The model will be available at the end of the year at a price of $700.

Alienware Area-51m

Being the most powerful gaming laptop, Alienware Area-51m got a lot of attention at CES 2019. Though the statement is quite controversial, the advantages are still quite impressive — the possibility of overclocking and replacement of hardware components.

Area-51m can be powered by Core i7–8700, i7–9700K or i9–9900K, RTX 2060/2070/2080 and have up to 64 GB of RAM with a frequency of 2400 MHz. It should be noted that manufacturer used Dell Graphics Form Factor for graphic card, which still isn’t supported by Team Red or Team Green.

By default, Area-51m has 17.3 / Full HD / 60 Hz panel, but there is an option of 144 Hz display supporting G-Sync. 2.5-inch bay and two PCIeM.2SSD slots also offer many options for storage configurations. Also depending on the graphics card choice, the power supply ranges from 180 to 330 watts.

Alienware Area-51m will be available from January 29. The starting price is $2,549.

Royole flexible keyboard

Chinese company Royole really impressed the public by the FlexPai foldable phone in Bejing, seems the company had even more surprising projects in development as at CES it presented a flexible keyboard.

The keyboard is fixed in a compact housing-tube. As soon as needed — you can pull it out and start working. In fact, it is a film with letters and numbers. The only significate drawback is absence of tactile feedback. Royole plans to sell the keyboard by Q2 2019.

ASUS ROG Mothership GZ700

The most powerful all-in-one machine with a 17.3-inch Full HD display having 3 ms response and G-Sync support. As you might have guessed the refresh rate is 144 Hz. Inside the Mothership, the manufacturer specs i9–8950HK, RTX 2080, up to 64 GB of RAM and three NVMeSSDs that can be run in RAID 0. On the backside, there is a neat stand that opens automatically. Users will have a few of keyboard connection options: USB-C cable, wireless connection and direct connection by magnetic anchors. The drawback is quite obvious– weight of ASUS ROG Mothership GZ700 is almost 5 kg. Expected ship date — spring 2019.

HP OMEN X Emperium 65

Another gaming monitor OMEN X Emperium 65 from HP has been presented at CES 2019. 64.5 inches AMVA-display (Advanced MVA) has 3840x2160 resolution,4 ms response and G-Sync support while the refresh rate can be set up to 144 Hz. The model has HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.4 ports, NVIDIA Shield built-in module and is equipped with 120 W soundbar.

OMEN X Emperium 65 is a BFGD (Big Format Gaming Display) monitor which 4K resolution and HDR support, which explains the high price — $5000. The model will be available in February.

HTC Vive Cosmos and Vive Pro Eye

Analysts and journalists predicting vast development of VR in 2018 were wrong. Indirectly, this was confirmed by CES 2019 — only Vive Cosmos and Vive Pro Eye helmets can be called notable new products.

Vive Cosmos will be competing with Oculus Quest. The new model is a stand-alone headset that does not require a connection to PC or smartphone. HTC specialists developed new controllers and built six cameras in the headsetto track the direction of gaze and head tilt. Vive Cosmos has flip up design so you can quickly switch between the real and virtual worlds.

Vive Pro Eye is equipped with an eye tracking system. Now you can move objects in VR literally by your gaze. That will definitely facilitate and optimize frame rendering for hardware.

Finally, it is worth noting: do not rush to spend money just to keep up with trends. The AMD and NVIDIA competition will not soon enter a smooth marketing free phase. Gaming monitors and computers showed at CES 2019 are experiments to some extent and not the answer to real market demands. Check Playkey.net — we focus on the main thing, on the gaming experience leaving behind the “hardware” problems.