If you're working anywhere near the tech community, you'll no doubt be aware that the Consumer Electronics Show took place in Las Vegas last week.
The biggest names in the tech space were brought together to show off their wares to the waiting and gawping tech press.
We had AR, VR, MR and driverless cars as well as a never-ending amount of soon-to-be-forgotten pointless hardware that people in tech will eat up despite them not being viable products in the slightest.
We've collected some of the biggest announcements relevant to the PC games space from its biggest players. Is something missing from here? Let me know over at [email protected].
Having been announced at CES 2017 and launching on Mac products in October of last year, Nvidia's GeForce Now streaming tech is finally coming to PC.
A beta was revealed as part of the hardware giant's keynote at the event, with a release date still to be confirmed. The big selling point for this is that gamers with older or lower-spec hardware can play modern day titles. Unsurprisingly, battle royale games like Playerunknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite are pretty central to the game's market.
Lots of big screens for PC gaming in the living room
Once again, people are trying to push PC gaming into the living room. Nvidia, in partnership with Asus, Acer and HP, has revealed a brand new line of ultra high-end, 65" gaming monitors dubbed Big Format Game Displays, or BFGDs.
These feature 4k resolution and operate at 120Hz with G-Sync tech. Nvidia boasts of super low latency, too, at least in-line with modern day PC games displays, and that the
If that wasn't enough, these will come with its Shield streaming tech, which means access to GeForce Now.
High-end gaming laptops just got a whole lot smaller
Nvidia has been working hard to make powerful laptops that boast some serious clout. Announced on-stage at the firm's keynote, the new Max-Q gaming laptop weighs just five pounds and is 20mm thick. That's a massive dip on the previous iteration, which was 60mm thick and 10mm thick.
CEO and co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang boasts that this is four times more powerful than a Macbook Pro with twice the performance of a current generation console.
Revealed at the show, the Vega Mobile GPU is a new line of graphics card that's to compete directly with Nvidia's GTX 10-series. This is something the hardware giant hopes will help it compete in the laptop space. AMD didn't give much away in terms of specs, simply saying that it is 'low power' has a 'small footprint' and supports VR. We do know that it's just 1.7mm thick, meaning it'll be ideal for smaller form factors.
In addition, AMD revealed that it would be allowing third-parties the ability to make and release custom versions of its Radeon RX Vega 64 and 56 models, which it reckons will give a boost of five to 12 per cent.
There are more Ryzen CPUs on the way
2017 was something of a revival year for AMD with the company seemingly turning the tide in its CPU battle with Intel. Its Ryzen chips certainly turned heads and now the company is following them up with its Ryzen 2 line-up. These are set to launch in April of this year and are the first to feature 12nm process architecture, compared with Intel's 14nm transistor.
These will still work with Ryzen compatible AM4 motherboards. The company has also said that this hardware will be using 'Precision Boost 2' tech for faster performance and better efficiency for power.
We now know what Intel and AMD are up to
That AMD was working with its rival in the chip space Intel was announced last November, but at CES we finally saw the fruits of their labour. What has emerged is the Intel i5 and i7 chips which are powered by Radeon RX Vega M graphics cards.
These also boast 4GB of HMB2 VRAM, which is meant to save on battery life. No laptops are confirmed as using the tech just yet, but surely it will not be long.
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HP
HP dives into streaming
HP is finally getting into games streaming with the Omen Game Stream App. We're not giving them any points for originality for the name!
The tech will be launching on all of its gaming PCs later this spring. The lift pitch is that gamers will be able to stream games from an Omen laptop to any other machine. HP boasts that the tech being used here can deliver 1080p picture at up to 60 frames per second.
Concept laptop points to an interesting use of Razer's phone
Following the release of Razer's phone last year, the Hong Kong-based games tech giant has given us a look at what comes next. That is Project Linda - a gaming laptop that lets users 'dock' their phone as a trackpad. Using a mouse alongside this turns the phone into a second screen experience.
This is currently a concept, but no doubt Razer has big plans for this hardware as it attempts to create more reasons to own a Razer phone. Reports point to a well-designed bit of kit, but there are still a lot of questions about the hardware and its specs.
Razer is doing PC games accessories' strangest trend better than the rest
Razer is getting in one on of the stranger PC games accessories trends now - the wirelessly charging mousepad. Popularised by Logitech's Powerplay tech from June 2017, Razer is following it up with Hyperflux. This sees the firm pair two of its products for one package. What sets this apart from the crowd is that the Mamba Hyerpflux mouse doesn't have a battery on board, meaning its lighter than its original counterpart.
Resurrected by some of the staff who worked in the peripheral giant's Chinese factories, the firm is focusing on PC accessories for the time being. The line-up so far includes its STRIKE keyboards, RAT mice, FREQ gaming headsets and GLIDE gaming surfaces.
Alex Forbes-Calvin is a freelance writer and photographer, mostly operating within the games industry. Over his career, he has written for the likes of MCV, Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, The Observer, VGC and Esquire. That's on top of writing books for Dark Horse on RuneScape, Assassin's Creed, Dead Island 2 and more.
