Month: January 2020

Building a PC is scary. There are cables that need to be plugged in, processors that needed to be seated just so, and a whole hodgepodge of components that need to be selected, tested, and carefully installed to get the thing running. One screw up can be costly. The Razer Tomahawk aims to take a huge chunk of the hassle out of building a PC and make the process practically foolproof.

The Tomahawk is possible thanks to Intel, which has a new version of its popular NUC available this year. NUCs are very compact computers produced by Intel. They typically require a little more experience to set up—they have zero software pre-installed—but they’re usually great for tinkering, building a Windows Media Center, or just leveling up from a Raspberry Pi.

Only, in the last couple of years, NUCs have started shifting into more full-fledged computers instead of a mere tinkerer’s delight. The latest NUC is arriving in a few different designs, including one where the motherboard, CPU, RAM, and storage are all put on a single PCI-E card. Which makes them perfect for people looking to build their own PC.

First, you pick the NUC you’d prefer, detailing RAM (up to 64GB of DDR4), storage capacity, and which 9th-gen processor from Intel (up to an i9) you want. Then you choose your GPU (up to a Nvidia RTX 2080 Super), plug both into the available PCI-E slots in the case, and plug in the power cables coming out of the accompanying power supply. Slot it all into place and you’re done. As shown in the GIF below, it takes 30 seconds or less depending on the case.

It’s clearly a lot easier than building a whole-ass PC. Though there are limitations. When I build a PC, I get to fastidiously choose every component, from the fans to the brand of SSD. Razer’s solution isn’t nearly as customizable.

Yet I think a lot of people won’t care—especially people eager to get into PC gaming but reluctant to learn about every element of the machine they’re playing on. Instead of worrying about storage, RAM, or processor, those of you who just want to get on with it could just buy the whole kit and then spend your energy worrying about the GPU—perhaps the most crucial component in a gaming PC.

Razer also claims that many of the components, including the SSD, RAM, and fans) in the NUC will be user upgradable. So if you’re initially nervous about upgrading, you can take your time, upgrading piecemeal as you learn the system.

The Tomahawk seems like a potentially affordable half step between the fully built PCs you can buy from places like Alienware or Maingear, and the super customizable ones you can build yourself. But how affordable remains to be seen—Razer isn’t discussing price yet.

Intel is also pretty quiet on pricing. While Razer has turned the NUC into a super-cool full PC attached to a PCI-E card, Intel’s also releasing a more traditional NUC.

Sunday evening, Intel showed off its own Ghost Canyon NUC. While most NUCs tend to be the size of a Roku box, the Ghost Canyon is large enough that it can include a PCI-E slot for adding one’s own GPU, effectively turning it into a gaming PC even smaller than those that rely on a micro ITX motherboard.

The Ghost Canyon isn’t the first gamer-focused NUC from Intel. I was positively enamored by the i7-8809G two years ago. That NUC shared the big skull on the case but paired the Intel 8th-gen processor with an AMD GPU. Obviously, the big difference is you can use your own GPU with the latest gamer-focused NUC from Intel.

That being said, judging by the size of the case, a Nvidia RTX 2080Ti and other longer GPUs won’t fit. You’ll need something smaller (and less powerful) to pair with the 9th-gen i9 processor inside.

As with Razer, Intel isn’t discussing pricing yet. Both products are expected to ship later this year, and we will review them as soon as we can.

We’re live from Las Vegas at CES 2020! Click here to read our complete coverage.

Alienware has shown off a new prototype during CES 2020, and it looks an awful lot like the Nintendo Switch. The Concept UFO–which, as the name suggests, is still a concept that the company is working with rather than a finalized product–is a portable system with a screen that can detach from the controllers on either side of it, much like the Joy-Cons slide off the Switch.

CNET has gone hands-on with the Concept UFO, and said that, compared to many other prototypes shown at CES 2020, it “looks and feels finished, with a high degree of polish.” The prototype consists of a small Windows 10 tablet with two attached controllers on either side, and like the Switch it can output to a bigger screen as well.

There’s no news of a release date, or even definite confirmation that Alienware will release this as a consumer product, according to CNET, but they report that World War Z was “surprisingly playable” on the Concept UFO.

The Nintendo Switch, which serves as the clear inspiration for Concept UFO, is currently discounted on eBay. Here’s our list of the best games on the system.

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PC gaming or console gaming? Why not both? Today at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, custom system builder Origin PC launched the Big O, a gaming rig that starts at $2,500 and comes with your choice of Xbox One S or PlayStation 4 Pro built into the case.

Originally conceived as a gaming PC with all three current-generation consoles built in, Origin PC trimmed back its original concept for a multi-system Big O computer into something much more sellable. Rather than three consoles, customers can choose between either a PlayStation 4 Pro or an all-digital Xbox One S. The console hardware is housed within a custom Corsair Crystal Series 280X chassis sporting a dual-chambered design.

Rather than just tucking the console into the case’s second chamber and calling it a day, the folks at Origin OC have integrated the PS4 and Xbox One hardware into the machine. Both game console and gaming PC are serviced by the same water cooling system. If you look at the backside of the system, it’s clear the console hardware was taken apart and put back together to fit Origin’s design.

The PC specs aren’t too shabby, either. The Big O can be configured with up to an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X or Intel i9-9900K CPU with a Nvidia Geforce RTX 2080 Ti video card and up to 32GB of RAM. Optional upgrades include SSD storage upgrades for the consoles and an internal video capture card so footage from the console can be captured on the PC for video sharing and streaming.

This is a PC that could come in very handy in my particular line of work. The only downside is the timing. There are new Xbox and PlayStation consoles due out this year. I don’t know if I’m keen on spending several thousand dollars for a system containing a console that’s soon to be phased out. I might have to wait for an even bigger O.

German supplier Bosch traveled to CES 2020 to introduce an artificial intelligence-powered sun visor called Virtual Visor. It’s a major update to a part that has barely evolved in the history of the car.

The Virtual Visor takes the form of a rectangle that swings down from the headliner to block sunlight, but the similarities between it and the sun visor in your daily driver stop there. It’s a transparent LCD screen that uses an occupant-monitoring camera to track shadows across the front passengers’ faces. Artificial intelligence then identifies facial features, like the nose, the ears, and the mouth, and uses this information to tint only the parts of the visor through which sunlight hits the passenger’s eyes, creating a shadow that looks like a robotic Venetian mask. The rest stays transparent.

While this innovation sounds relatively minor compared to the massive changes sweeping across the automotive industry, Bosch predicted it will have a major effect on safety, especially at dawn and at dusk. The company’s research found the sun’s glare causes nearly twice as many accidents as other weather-related conditions, and statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) back up that assertion. The agency annually blames thousands of accidents on the sun.

Interestingly, Bosch didn’t begin the project by throwing millions of development dollars at it. The supplier explained the idea came from three forward-thinking powertrain engineers who built the original prototype with an LCD screen they found in a trash bin. Executives liked what they saw, so they gave the group the proverbial green light, and much-needed resources. While the Virtual Visor is still at the concept stage, and its implementation in a production car depends on automakers, Bosch told Autoblog it’s talking with manufacturers about bringing the technology to production.