CES 2023: Great Tech to Look Out for This Year

It’s every techy’s favourite time of year. CES 2023 has spoiled us with some amazing announcements, and we could not be more excited!

This year we’ve had keynote speeches from big-name brands like AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, Samsung, Microsoft, and so. many. more. It’s been a veritable smorgasbord of innovations and announcements, it’s impossible to talk about them all. So, while we revel in our post-CES 2023 high, we thought we’d shout about our favourites and some key highlights from this year’s event.

What New Tech Has Been Announced at CES 2023?

This year, we’re doing something a little bit different with our coverage of the spicy announcements from CES 2023. The whole Overclockers UK content team is getting involved and covering an aspect they are super excited about. We’ve got highlights from AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, and gaming laptops. Watch this space, we’ll be adding to this article with all our fave bits.

NVIDIA

Simon Procter

With CES 2023, there must be lots of lovely new tech, or in NVIDIA’s case new tech alongside a cheeky rebrand. Sooooo, the big elephant in the room is the RTX 4070 Ti. (Yes, Jeff Fisher pronounced it as Tie again, but not 1 minute later corrected himself to Ti.) Formerly, this was known as the unlaunched RTX 4080 12GB. Now that’s cleared up, this is still an impressive card, featuring 7680 CUDA cores that can boost up to 2.61GHz, alongside the latest RT and Tensor cores. What’s more, they also included 12GB of GDDR6X memory, with a 192-bit memory bus. All these factors combined allow these cards to achieve an impressive 240Hz at 4K resolutions. Even better, you can pick one up today at Overclockers UK!

Laptops

Now that I’ve talked about the controversial topic, let’s move on to greener pastures. Starting with NVIDIA’s new line-up of 40 series laptops, which will launch in two phases in February. Beginning with the flagship lines of 4090 and 4080 laptops launching on February 8^th, followed shortly after by the 4070, 4060, and 4050 lines on February 22^nd. NVIDIA has laser targeted themselves at high-end gaming and content creation, with innovations to their already impressive suite of MAX-Q technologies. This includes DLSS 3 optimised for laptops, ultra-low voltage GDDR6 memory, and dynamic memory states for the GPU. All these factors combined guarantee these laptops have a large increase in efficiency over previous generations. With these capabilities, you’ll be able to enjoy 40 series gaming and creating on the go, confident in the fact that your battery will last!

GeForce Now

Finally, for those of us on a budget, NVIDIA had an announcement sure to please. There’s a new tier on their cloud gaming service, GeForce Now. They’ll be replacing the existing 3080 tier with the brand new 4080 tier, all for the exact same price $20 a month, or $100 for six months. With this upgrade, you’ll be able to enjoy silky smooth frame rates as the servers can deliver up to 240 FPS. Alongside this, thanks to full ray tracing support and DLSS 3 integration, every frame will appear spectacularly detailed. If you’re worried about latency, NVIDIA claims that their service provides click-to-pixel latency of just 34ms! So, no matter what you want to game on, from Chromebooks, iMacs, or even your grandparent’s old family computer, you’ll be able to smash the competition anywhere!

Learn more about the NVIDIA RTX 40 Series with our handy guide.

Jacob Smith

Since no one has reported a cold day in hell, we know Intel certainly hasn’t missed out on flaunting their latest hardware on the CES 2023 stage. Flaunt they have, as the tech giant has shown off more of their 13^th Gen Raptor Lake Line-up they first announced back in September. (The same day AMD launched their Ryzen 7000 processors, but that was totally just a coincidence…right?) Their reveals form a perfect pincer manoeuvre with two big headlines; new mobile and laptop CPUs plus 35 and 65-watt desktop processors.

HX Series CPUs

The former has the most meat on the bone. At the pinnacle of the new mobile CPU line-up is the Core i9-13980HX. Packing 24 cores, 8 performance and 16 efficient, this is the little processor that could with its whopping boost speed of 5.6GHz. Our eyes are getting dizzy just thinking about it. Intel is claiming that compared to last year’s top-end 12900HK CPU this new one is 11% faster at single-threaded tasks and a blistering 49% quicker for multithreaded work. As the HX line of processors was introduced last year to bring some more juice to what laptops can do, this is precisely the trajectory we hoped to see.

The HX line-up scales far down enough to suit most budgets, with three SKUs in i9, i7, and i5 respectively. The bottom rung Core i5-13450HX still offers 10 cores (6 performance with 4 efficient) and up to 4.5GHz boost speeds. Your laptop’s battery life is likely to take a hit no matter what you go with, but it’s good knowing you can at least soften the blow suffered by your wallet.

65W and 35W CPUs

Then there are the new Raptor Lake desktop CPUs. 16 new SKUs were unveiled to be joining the line, nicely filling out the line with more inexpensive and low-powered processors such as the Core i3-13100F as well as high-end offerings like the Core i9-13900T designed to stand alongside the flagship product launched last year, the Core i9-13900K. Most of these are available with a processor base power (PBP) of 65W or 35W, which is Intel’s new way of communicating CPU power in place of TDP (thermal design power). Focusing on raw power over generated heat seems like a good way to communicate this stat to consumers, who might not be as educated in all things hardware, whereas we nerds already know what the numbers mean.

Learn more about 13th Gen Intel with our handy guide.

Emily Haylock

We’ve already had some great announcements from AMD these past few months, from Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs to Radeon RX 7000 GPUs. Always spoiling us, Dr Lisa Su covered a number of AMD innovations coming our way in the near future at CES 2023. Tomorrow, in fact, for one! The Ryzen 7000 Series is getting three high-efficiency CPUs, with a max TDP of 65W. As there’s plenty to get through, I’ll let tomorrow’s launch cover that.

3D V-Cache

The big-ticket item from AMD that we love for desktop gaming is the Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU. Building upon their 3D V-Cache technology, this sixteen-core CPU will have a whopping 144MB cache and be able to reach boost speeds of 5.7GHz. This is where the previous generation of 3D V-Cache fell down, and it’s incredible to see this iteration matching the frequencies of their 2D counterparts. Their base speed is a touch slower, but the massive 3D stacked cache is going to optimise gaming. Plus, there are three models available in this generation of 3D V-Cache processors.

Ryzen 9 7950X3D: 16 cores, 32 threads, 144MB cache
Ryzen 9 7600X3D: 12 cores, 24 threads, 140MB cache
Ryzen 7 7800X3D: 8 cores, 16 threads, 104MB cache

Mobile Processors

AMD also made some big announcements with their Ryzen 7000 mobile processors for laptops. Our eye was most caught by their highly anticipated “Dragon Range” of Ryzen mobile CPUs for gaming and creator laptops, the Ryzen 7045 HX Series. These will be available in Ryzen 5, 7, and 9 models, with the top spec featuring sixteen cores, thirty-two cores, and boost speeds up to 5.4GHz. Pretty juicy really. Based on the Zen 4 architecture, we can also expect support for DDR5 as well as USB4, if equipped with the appropriate controller.

AMD Ryzen Mobile Processor comparison table

The other mobile chip that piqued our interest was the Ryzen 7040 HS Series. These run between 35W and 45W, making them more energy efficient than the 55W 7045 HX chips, but it is their AI capabilities that we’re interested in. These processors will feature Ryzen AI, a built-in engine that handles tasks like blurring backgrounds on video calls and sorting photo libraries. It can multitask up to four AI workloads or combine on a single task – with potentially up to 50% more power efficiency on its competitors.

RDNA 3

The last announcement giving us serious hype is AMD RDNA3 is coming to laptops. There are four Radeon RX 7000 Series mobile GPU models joining the line-up, elevating on-the-go to new standards.

AMD Radeon RX 7000 and 6000 comparison table

The top dog is the Radeon RX 7600M XT, built on RDNA 3 with 32 compute units, 2048 shader processors, and 8GB of GDDR6 memory. According to AMD, it outpaces a desktop RTX 3060 on certain AAA games, with higher frame rates at maximum settings. We’re excited to see how this powerful architecture performs!

Learn more about AMD Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs and check out our handy guide.

Ruth Rowley

We’ve been truly spoilt with gaming laptop news at CES 2023. We’ve selected a few of our favourite upcoming laptops that promise performance that is on par with desktop PCs.

Lenovo:

Lenovo revealed their brand-new Lenovo LA AI chip. This intelligent chip has been designed to automatically fine-tune performance. This includes adjusting frame rates, monitoring temperatures, boosting efficiency, and much more.

This chip will be featured in the upcoming Legion Pro 7, 7i, 5, and 5i gaming laptops. The ‘’i’’ variants will be powered by an Intel 13^th Gen CPU, whilst the Legion Pro 7 and 5 will utilise an AMD Ryzen 7000 mobile CPU. Each laptop will also include one of NVIDIA’s latest laptop GPUs for high-end gaming and immersive visuals.

Keeping this powerful hardware performing at optimum temperatures is Lenovo’s ColdFront 5.0. This comprehensive thermal system includes a dedicated vapour chamber covering both the CPU and GPU along with hybrid heat piping. This will effectively draw and dissipate heat away from the vital components culminating in zero throttling, even with a max TDP of 235W.

In addition to the Lenovo LA AI chip, we also got a glimpse of the Lenovo YogaBook 9i.

This brand-new dual-screen laptop will revolutionise the way you work. The YogaBook 9i features two 13.3’’ OLED displays that can be stacked side by side or on top of each other. This is perfect for seamless multitasking and effective workload management, which is boosted one step further thanks to the Intel 13^th Gen CPU.

As the ideal companion on your morning commute, university lecture, or long workday, this laptop will be bundled with a folding kickstand, a detachable Bluetooth keyboard, and a stylus.

MSI:

MSI has revealed that their line of 2023 gaming laptops will utilise the latest in mobile gaming hardware. This includes brand-new mobile Intel 13^th Gen, AMD Ryzen 7000 series, and NVIDIA RTX 40 Series graphics cards. What’s more, these laptops will feature a redesigned cooling system, consisting of dedicated VRAM-exclusive pipes for better performance and optimum temperatures.

We can’t talk about MSI without mentioning the new Stealth Series gaming notebooks – the Stealth Studio 14 and 16. Powered by Intel 13^th CPUs and NVIDIA RTX 40 series, they have been built with a brand-new magnesium-aluminium alloy chassis, that boasts a lightweight shape with exceptional durability. Perfect for on-the-go gaming and content creation.

Razer:

Razer is also planning on spoiling us with the Blade 16 and 18 notebooks. These enthusiast-grade laptops include cutting-edge gaming hardware from the likes of Intel and NVIDIA.

The Blade 18 is said to be the most powerful laptop Razer has made. It features a 240Hz QHD+ display for buttery-smooth frame rates and greater immersion during gameplay. To take this one step further, this laptop also comes equipped with a six-speaker THX spatial audio set up that is sure to help you escape into all your favourite gaming soundscapes.

What’s more, arguably the best feature of the Blade 16, is the dual-mode mini LED display. This screen can support two different refresh rates and resolutions (4K at 120Hz or FHD+ at 240Hz). You can seamlessly adjust between the two types of screens to best suit your workload. If you are editing, the 4K 120Hz screen will allow you to see every detail of your content in full resolution. Whilst, the FHD+ 240Hz is best suited to getting the most out of gaming.

If all of this has made you question whether a gaming laptop is the right choice for you, check out our ultimate laptop buyer’s guide.

Glyn Smith

For the console gamers among us, CES 2023 has been bountiful! We have seen a ton of awesome console gaming tech including 3 products that really stand out. These include the ASUS ROG Raikiri Pro, Sony’s Project Leonardo, and the Razer Edge Cloud Gaming Handheld.

ASUS ROG Raikiri Pro Xbox & PC Controller

We are super excited for the release of the ASUS ROG Raikiri Pro Xbox and PC controller. Ok, there is nothing wrong with Microsoft’s OG controller but this beauty is the first fully licenced controller to sport “tri-mode” connections. That’s right people, this beast offers Bluetooth, RF, and comes equipped with USB-C charging. Unfortunately, at this point, it looks like you’ll only be able to use the wireless functionality with a PC, but that’s fine with us. The extra features more than make up for this shortfall. Plus, we are all PC gamers at Overclockers UK anyway…

In addition to the wireless technology, the Raikiri Pro comes with a super cute 1.3-inch OLED screen that can display a whole host of useful information, including charging status and the currently active profile. If you want to customise things even further, you can opt to display animations, images, and text.

For audiophiles, ASUS has managed to integrate an ESS DAC to boost audio from the 3.5mm jack. This should guarantee incredible audio, offering amazing levels of immersion when used in conjunction with a headset.

As expected, the controller offers an expansive set of hotkeys, rear buttons, and sensitivity toggles, in addition to the familiar Xbox layout. The top buttons even allow you to switch profiles mid-game and the companion app allows you full control over dead zones, vibration, and many other settings.

Although ASUS hasn’t confirmed a release date, we can expect it to launch by the end of Q1 this year.

Sony’s Project Leonardo

Accessibility is something we feel extremely passionate about, so when we discovered Sony’s Project Leonardo we jumped for joy.

Although the release date is yet to be confirmed, this controller could literally be a game-changer for those with disabilities. As a PS5 exclusive, Project Leonardo aims to make gaming more accessible for those with limited motor control. The controller itself is heavily customisable and can be mapped to your exact requirements. Its rounded design, large buttons, and directional controls ensure it can be used by almost anyone regardless of disability. It can even be paired with DualSense controllers for the ultimate flexible setup.

Razer Edge Cloud Gaming Handheld

Another stirring development is the release of the Razer Edge Cloud Gaming Handheld. This portable Steam Deck competitor is essentially an Android tablet fused with a Razer Kishi V2 Pro controller.

The Razer Edge runs on the impressive Snapdragon G3x Gen 1 Gaming Platform and comes with 8GB RAM, 128GB storage, plus a stunning 6.8-inch 2400 x 1080 AMOLED screen with a 144Hz refresh rate. To tantalize even further it has a large 5000mAh battery, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 two-way speakers, a pair of mics, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. You can even opt for a 5G model for cloud gaming on the go. In fact, the Razer Edge comes with Epic Games, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and NVIDIA GeForce Now preinstalled!

We literally cannot wait to give this thing a go when it launches on the 26^th January.

Bring console control to your favourite PC games.

What Were Your Highlights?!

CES is over and done with for another year and it’s given us plenty of tech to look forward to. Did we cover the innovation that has you excited? Drop a comment below with your highlights from CES 2023!