New chips, new cards, new PC parts, new year! CES 2024 was an explosion of innovation from familiar faces AMD and Nvidia, plus some names you may not know. Here’s the show-stopping stuff from the DIY sphere.
Since the beginning, CES has been about computers. And, 57 shows later, that beating heart has persisted through wave after wave of consumer electronics trends—even the recent push of electric vehicles into the annual event. This year, CES did not disappoint, with yet another gauntlet of computing innovations including impressive cooling solutions, hyper-compact gaming desktops, and supercharged graphics cards.
If you’re looking for which desktop and component products topped everything we saw at the show, check out our broader Best of CES 2024 article. For a deeper cut into coolest desktop PC products and DIY gear we saw firsthand, though, keep on reading.Best Gaming DesktopAsus ROG NUC
The revival of the NUC compact PC line under the Asus ROG gaming brand is a welcome one. The Asus ROG NUC emerges as the top compact gaming desktop of the show, packing plenty of gaming prowess into a 2.5-liter space. The mini PC features Intel « Meteor Lake » processors (the options: the Core Ultra 7 155H or Core Ultra 9 185H), coupled with Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 and RTX 4070 mobile GPUs. Weighing under 2 pounds, it’s a console replacement or a living-room PC with AAA-game capabilities. The small chassis supports up to 32GB of memory, upgradable storage, and a range of ports. Given that the ROG NUC’s parts and performance resemble those of gaming laptops, we also expect the pricing to be similar when it launches this spring. —Brian Westover, Lead AnalystBest Productivity DesktopASRock DeskMeet X600
From the outside, the Ryzen-based DeskMeet is an unassuming black cube; that’s why we’ve taken a couple of photos of it with its shell off. This compact PC features an unusual internal design that allows for an extraordinary amount of upgrade or configuration flexibility and some cutting-edge specs. You can add 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drives on one of two brackets, as well as a host of M.2 drives (including one PCI Express 5.0 drive!) on the top and bottom of the pre-installed motherboard. The board supports the latest AMD AM5 processors, so you can install one of these chips and employ its integrated graphics, though compact graphics cards will fit, too.
The chassis is just big enough for ATX power supplies, but the back-panel plating also supports smaller SFX models. Plus, the screw-mount design for the PSU makes it easy to slide out the PSU and expose the innards of the case for servicing or upgrades. ASRock showed it off packing a snub-nosed Radeon RX 7600 XT. Most surprising: The PC supports high-speed USB4 through a port on the front panel, from a connector mounted directly on the custom motherboard. —John A. Burek, Executive EditorBest Graphics CardMSI GeForce RTX 4080 Super 16G Expert
Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX 40-series Super graphics cards are a real game-changer.
