While a dizzying variety of devices are on the Computex show floor every year, you’ll find that many share common threads. We analyzed everything we saw in Taipei this year and found plenty of top-notch technology, much of which you’ll be able to buy very soon.
Among the most noteworthy but predictable trends was AI nearly everywhere, but we found plenty of other exciting developments as well. Read on for the top takeaways that will help set the tone for the industry in the coming year.
AI Workstations Abound: Rise of the Personal Supercomputer
(Credit: John Burek)
Nvidia’s GB10 and GB300 chips will spawn a new category of personal supercomputer AI workstations, patterned after the compact DGX Spark and powerful DGX Station. A pivotal piece of Nvidia’s initiative to equip every AI developer, data scientist, researcher, and student with tools to run powerful AI models locally without reliance on cloud services, this is a leap in computing power produced on a single personal machine. Think petascale performance that can run AI models with more than 200 billion parameters, all on your desk.
Nvidia has partnered with manufacturers like Asus, Dell, Gigabyte, HP, Lenovo, and MSI to release unique versions of these powerful machines, all built on the same “Grace Blackwell” architecture. It’s a niche product now, aimed at businesses and academics. But by bringing the tools for AI development to individual users, we’re seeing the first sparks of the next evolution in PCs, where the massive power behind chatbots and learning models is available to everyone. —Brian Westover, Lead Analyst
14-Inch Gaming and Creator Laptops Are Back
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
For a few years now, the 14-inch high-performance PC laptop has receded into the shadow of the 16-incher, which is simply easier to make muscular because of its size and more forgiving thermal environment. Aside from some key models by Asus, Razer, and a scarce few other manufacturers, most gaming laptops of the past few years were 15 inches or larger. Computex 2025 served as a resurrection for the category, with new entries from the usual suspects but a revival from Acer that spells good fortune for the future of 14-inch power PC laptops.
Acer revealed the Predator Triton 14 AI at the show, an OLED 14-incher that introduces a rare combination of silicon that could be the key to such laptops regaining popularity. Instead of an H- or HX-class processor, this Triton uses an Intel “Lunar Lake” Core Ultra 200V chip. This lower-power chip range focuses on efficiency and a neural processing unit potent enough to qualify as a Copilot+ PC. This CPU should promote the battery efficiency expected of such a portable laptop, while the paired RTX 5070 graphics chip should be enough to push the latest games in at least 1440p resolution. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more models like this before the end of the year or early next. —Joe Osborne, Deputy Managing Editor
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The Screens on PC Components Are Getting Out of Hand…
(Credit: John Burek)
At one point in the evolution of enthusiast PC desktops, every manufacturer seemed to get a memo asking them to add RGB lighting to every possible surface, component, and open space. Every RGB frontier has been conquered, at this point, so the new RGB is the miniature LCD. The trend started with displays on the tops of AIO liquid coolers. Then, they eventually spread to unlikely areas, like the middle hub of PC-case fans or the narrow edge of graphics cards.
Mounting “just” one LCD on the top of a liquid cooler is no big deal anymore; we just saw the first example, from Thermaltake, with four panels! V-Color, meanwhile, added little LCDs to a set of its memory DIMM modules. Several manufacturers (Corsair and MSI among them) have recently launched standalone, sizeable screens that you can tuck into fan bays or special niches in PC cases. And some PC case makers have equipped their chassis with LCD panels already built in, designed to display your favorite cat GIFs or just add hardware information. —John Burek, Executive Editor and Lab Director
…and So Are Gaming Monitor Refresh Rates
(Credit: Asus)
Gaming monitors are getting fast—perhaps too fast, for some. At this year’s Computex, we saw gaming monitors level up their resolutions and refresh rates even further. While we’ve seen peak 500Hz refresh rates for some time now by Alienware and LG, Asus debuted a new gaming monitor that promises to go even further beyond. Its ROG Strix Ace XG248QSG features a 610Hz display at 1080p resolution.
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It’s an impressive number, no doubt, but we have to wonder who these monitors are for. To even take advantage of these outrageous refresh rates would require an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, not to mention an extremely potent CPU, unless you are playing ancient games at low settings. Nvidia’s multi-frame generation (MFG) might help your hardware reach those frame-rate/refresh-rate heights, but that approach may not be ideal for competitive players, as MFG is known to add latency. Expect to see even faster monitors as GPU screen optimization techniques like DLSS and FSR improve. —Zackery Cuevas, Analyst
Thanks, Tariffs: Almost Nothing Has a Set Price
(Credit: Matthew Buzzi)
It’s common during trade shows like Computex that not every product on display has a fixed price yet, but prices were even more absent this year than usual. You could point to many reasons for this, including contractual obligations between companies, supply limitations, or logistics, among a bunch of other potential factors.
Still, the chaotic state of US import tariffs this year is certainly a factor. While we heard few official statements on the matter, vendor representatives on the show floor suggested to us on many occasions that uncertainty around tariffs created issues with setting fixed prices or promising firm release dates. (For one, Acer’s whole new line of products was all “to be determined” in terms of final pricing.) This unfortunate trend will likely continue until the US can reach what it deems more favorable trade agreements with its international partners. —Michael Justin Allen Sexton, Senior Analyst
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