The PC let its freak flag fly at CES despite the RAM crunch

Wow. After the depressing last couple of months in hardware, CES 2026 was exactly the breath of fresh air and optimism I needed.

To be clear, consumer desktop CPU and GPU news was largely a bust—for new architecture announcements, anyway. Intel focused on mobile processors, talking up Panther Lake during its press conference and taking potshots at AMD’s handheld chips. AMD barely mentioned consumer during its two-hour+ keynote presentation, instead leaning hard into enterprise. (At a “consumer” show, yes.) Team Red did announce Ryzen AI 400 processors on stage, as well as show off an ultra-compact Ryzen AI Halo mini-PC, but the reveal of the Ryzen 7 9850X3D trickled out on the side. As for Nvidia, it straight up told everyone that it would not announce new GPUs during its community update stream.

But AMD also hinted that we could potentially drop a mobile Ryzen CPU into a desktop PC sometime in the future. (Wut.) Intel says the integrated graphics in its Panther Lake chips can go toe-to-toe with discrete RTX 4000-series GPUs—and initial benchmarks appear to back up the claim. And Nvidia dropped both upscaling upgrades and new monitor tech that made Brad a believer in DLSS 4.5 and G-Sync Pulsar right away.

And outside of that, CES 2026 was still plenty full of the weird, unexpected tech it’s known for. HP’s simple yet captivating EliteBoard PC stuffs a whole system into a keyboard. Cooling company Ventiva demoed a fanless (!) handheld for utterly silent mobile gaming. Dell’s 52-inch ultrawide monitor laughs in the face of desk space limits. Asus took “Por que no los dos” literally and packed its new Zephyrus Duo with two full OLED touchscreens. Not unhinged enough? The show floor was filled with all kind of bonkers gear in the very best way. (I’m pining hard for that Jackery Solar Mars Bot. I don’t even spend much time in sunlight.)

So sure, Intel, AMD, and Nvidia all signaled that their focus would be on mobile, AI, software, AI…and AI. (By the way, when we took a count at each press conference, AMD dominated with 207 mentions in two hours. Two hundred and seven.) Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang even told our own Adam Patrick Murray during a Q&A session that “The future is neural rendering. That’s the way graphics ought to be.”

And the RAM shortages still hang in the background of all the fun news, silent but heavy. Few prices were announced during the show. Analysts confirmed coming price increases of 15 to 20 percent on PCs. Both AMD and Nvidia hinted at the return of older chip technologies.

But we as enthusiasts still have plenty of neat things to look forward to. Lots to make our lives simpler, lots that adapt better to the constraints (and pressures) of modern living. Also, a surprising number of $5,000+ robots that I would consider inviting into my home. I did not have that on my 2026 bingo card.

In this episode of The Full Nerd 

In this episode of The Full Nerd, Brad Chacos, Adam Patrick Murray, Mark Hachman, and Michael Crider recap their CES 2026 experiences—the best, the worst, and the most insane things they saw while traipsing through Las Vegas.

(My nomination, sitting at home? Brad’s drink during the show, which was three feet long. I asked him how many ounces it was. He responded in distance. It’s so much liquid that it transcends the typical measuring system.)

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This week’s flood of nerd news

So in the last newsletter, when I predicted there would be a lot of news for this one, I had ballparked more than usual. Boy, did I end up understating that.

Much of the big tech news is packed in the link-filled thoughts above, of course. But there was plenty of smaller, interesting tidbits too—some fun, some sobering. And some downright dangerous, depending on your viewpoint.

• Cheap, but good: Tom’s Hardware did a bit of hands-on testing to comparing the Noctua’s legendary fans and Arctic’s equally legendary alternative. (I own multiple packs of Arctic’s P-series fans, because, yeah. That value.) Turns out, us frugal types aren’t missing out on too much.

• I’m glad for this news: Magnetic switches are all the rage, and Cherry is still fighting the good fight for its survival with not one, but two new magnetic TMR keyboards.

• Happy birthday, Blu-ray: First, I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since Blu-ray first appeared. Second, how the heck has it been 20 years?

• So cute: The deep nerdery of creating art within the intersection of time and space is weirdly profound, with adorable results. (The effort creates images of cats. Meow.)

• Computer Chronicles rocked: Producer and host Stewart Cheifet passed away at age 87 this past December. In addition to being part of PBS’s stellar educational programming, there’s also a PCWorld connection. Both Gordon and Will were on an episode back in the day!

• I’m glad I’m not alone: Game publisher Hooded Horse’s head honcho says that any titles it releases can’t have AI assets, because as the CEO says: “I [censored] hate gen AI art.” I feel less on my own in a universe currently full of endless AI slop.

• Who’s a good pup? I’m more of a cat person, but I still think dogs are great. Even more so after reading this Ars Technica article. And some of the hilarious comments from Ars readers—particularly this one about a dog who knows the names of about 100 toys: “Okay, there’s being a good boy, a very good boy, and then just being a show off.”

• InWin showed off yet another bonkers case? I’m in: The Aeon looks like an egg, sports a ton of glass, and requires an RFID card to open? Already a fan.

• Thank you, Mr. Rosen: I was always more of a Nintendo kid, but Sega was a big part of my childhood still.

• Here we go again! Pebble lives once more, and now it’s revived its round smartwatch. I own an original Round, and boy, this Round 2 is tempting…even though it lacks some important features I’ve come to expect from my smartwatches. (Really, no heart rate monitoring?!) Man, I’m so on the fence.

• Some welcome news: Color me surprised, especially after so many vendors basically kill aging hardware by refusing to support it. Good on Bose for allowing people to take further updates into their own hands.

• Weird, but cool: Keychron is well-known for its mechanical keyboards, but this CES 2026, they decided to bring something a little different with them to the show… (Yes, I’ve notified Adam of this.)

• Y’all, I’m in trouble: Brad wore a cool circuit-patterned shirt during CES. I asked him where he got it. He gave me the link. The site could be ThinkGeek reborn. I’ve already immediately fallen in love with the most fantastic and absolutely ugliest Excel cardigan. (Help.)

Gosh, what a banger of a start to the new year. I thought I’d spend most of this week sneaking in complaints about crowded gyms. Yes, it’s absolutely other people’s fault I ate too much and drank a ton of Will’s excellent eggnog. (Thanks again for sharing that with us!)

Catch you all next week!

Alaina

This newsletter is dedicated to the memory of Gordon Mah Ung, founder and host of The Full Nerd, and executive editor of hardware at PCWorld.