Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang holding the Project Digits computer on stage at Nvidia’s CES 2025 press conference. | Image: Nvidia If you were looking for your own personal AI supercomputer, Nvidia has you covered.The chipmaker announced at CES it’s launching a personal AI supercomputer called Project Digits in May. The heart of Project Digits is the new GB10 Grace Blackwell Superchip, which packs enough processing power to run sophisticated AI models while being compact enough to fit on a desk and run from a standard power outlet (this kind of processing power used to require much larger, more power-hungry systems). This desktop-sized system can handle AI models with up to 200 billion parameters, and has a starting price of $3,000. The product itself looks a lot like a Mac Mini.“AI will be mainstream in every application for every industry. With Project Digits, the Grace Blackwell Superchip comes to millions of developers,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a press release. “Placing an AI supercomputer on the desks of every data scientist, AI researcher and student empowers them to engage and shape the age of AI.” Image: Nvidia Project Digits looks like a mini PC. Each Project Digits system comes equipped with 128GB of unified, coherent memory (by comparison, a good laptop might... Read the full story at The Verge.

Gaming juggernaut Razer has announced the next-generation Blade 16 at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, which will ship with a bevy of internal and external upgrades, including a number of firsts for the 16-inch edition of Razer's workhorse gaming laptop. Here's everything we know about the new 16-inch Razer Blade.

It's been months of rumors and speculation, and we weren't even 100% sure if the GeForce RTX 5090 would arrive in CES 2025. However, the wait is over; we're now seeing a ton of 5090 devices being announced to the public during this year's big tech conference. MSI is by no means a slacker, as it has taken some time to break down all of its devices that it plans to release in the coming year, including a few that have the mighty 5090 powering their graphical heart.

The 2025 Asus XG Mobile, now with standard Thunderbolt 5 instead of a proprietary connector. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge This smoky black translucent box isn’t a gaming PC — instead, it might be the most powerful single-cable portable docking station ever conceived. When you plug your laptop or handheld into the just-announced 2025 Asus XG Mobile, it promises to add the power of Nvidia’s top-flight GeForce RTX 5090 mobile chip, and up to 140 watts of electricity, and two monitors, and a USB and SD-card-reading hub, and 5Gbps ethernet simultaneously.That’s because it’s the world’s first* Thunderbolt 5 external graphics card and one of the first Thunderbolt 5 docks, using the new 80 gigabit per second bidirectional link to do more things with a single cable than we’ve ever seen before. Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge The 2025 XG Mobile’s ports — and a standard AC power connector, because the power supply lives inside. And if you’re keeping score, I’m pretty sure it’s also the first standards-based portable eGPU with an Nvidia graphics chip. While Asus’ last-gen XG Mobile also boasted up to an Nvidia 4090, you could only tap into that power with a proprietary port found only on a few Asus devices. (Its USB4 and Oculink rivals have mostly featured the AMD Radeon 7600M XT.) None of that makes it the most powerful eGPU out there, as I currently have no performance figures from Asus, and you can definitely go further with bigger docks that can fit desktop graphics cards rather than mobile GPUs. But Asus rep Anthony Spence tells me that the Thunderbolt 5 link does give you up to 64Gbps of bandwidth for its Nvidia graphics — more than USB4 and tied with Oculink — and I’m wowed that Asus managed to fit all this and a 350W power supply (no external brick!) into a sub-2.2-pound package with a fold-out kickstand.Asus says it’s even 25 percent lighter and 18 percent smaller than the previous proprietary model. It’s got HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1 for video output and a pair of 10Gbps USB-A ports, in case you’re wondering. Image: Asus Note that it comes with a little vertical stand, too. When it arrives later in Q1, it won’t come cheap. Spence says the top-tier XG Mobile with an RTX 5090 laptop chip will cost $2199.99 — meaning you could almost certainly cobble together a more powerful (but stationary) solution yourself. That said, Asus does plan to sell a lower-end $1,199.99 version with Nvidia’s mobile RTX 5070 Ti. Again, you’re paying for compact power here rather than maximum bang for the buck. Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge Yes, that Asus ROG logo is light-up, programmable RGB using the company’s Aura Sync. You can also make out the top-mounted SD card receptacle. While it should work with any Thunderbolt 4 or USB4 laptop or handheld, including Asus’ own ROG Ally X, you’ll likely want the still-rare Thunderbolt 5 to get the full GPU bandwidth here. Finding a Thunderbolt 5 computer that doesn’t already have a powerful discrete GPU might be tough, but perhaps some of 2025’s thin-and-light laptops will seize this opportunity to double as potent travel desktops. *We are aware of one possible Thunderbolt 5 eGPU enclosure, to house a desktop graphics card, but that WinStar has barely even been detailed yet.

Just when you thought Nvidia couldn't push its GPUs any further, we've finally got our eyes on what's next for PC gamers. Whether you're gaming on a laptop or desktop system, you'll soon have access to the RTX 50 series of graphics cards. The star of the CES show is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, replacing the RTX 4090 as the new king of gaming GPUs with an all-new architecture and more powerful AI processing.

From issuing warnings to those using Windows 11 on older hardware to reiterating its commitment to the TPM 2.0 requirement, Microsoft has shown no interest in relaxing the minimum hardware requirement to run the latest version of Windows. A few months ago, the software giant also patched one of the famous setup exploits used to install Windows 11 on unsupported hardware.

It's been a few years since Dell pulled the Area-51 brand from its library, but it turns out it was never gone; it was just waiting. Now, during CES 2025, Dell will open the gates once more and produce Alienware gaming devices that use the Area-51 name. But will it be a rise to past glories, or would Area-51 be better off locked up in Nevada?

The 2025 Razer Blade 16. Razer announced it’s overhauling the Razer Blade 16 inside and out. In addition to a new CPU and GPU, the Blade 16 is now thinner overall than the outgoing 2024 model and comes with a few tweaks to its audio system and keyboard. The new Blade 16 comes with up to a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU and a “next-gen Nvidia GPU.” The company also bumped its speaker array from four to six speakers, while the display carries over the 240Hz OLED introduced to the line last year. This is the first time Razer has put an AMD processor in the Blade 16. Razer says it’s packing all of that into a chassis that’s over 30 percent thinner than last year’s model at just 0.59 inches — or 14.9 millimeters — thick in the front and 0.69 inches (17.4mm) in the back, not including the feet. For reference, the 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 is 0.61 inches (15.5mm) thick, including feet. The new Razer Blade is also deeper than last year’s model, measuring 250.5mm front to back, versus 244mm for the 2024 Blade 16. Despite all of that, Razer says it increased the travel of its keyboard keys from 1mm to 1.5mm. And there’s now a Copilot key, of course.That thinness may come at a cost: the new Blade 16 has a 90Wh battery that it says can charge to 80 percent in about 45 minutes. The fast charging may come in handy; the larger 95.2Wh battery in the Blade 16 we reviewed in 2023 already felt like it wasn’t up to the task. That review unit was also a hot laptop. Razer says it’s using a new thermal gel that covers more interior surface area than the 2023 model. The 2025 model (top) vs. the thicker 2024 model (bottom). Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge 2024 (left) vs. 2025 (right). The AMD chip it’s using might help things, though. When we tested an Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 with that Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 CPU against the same laptop with an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H, the AMD version ran for three hours longer in non-gaming tasks and put out slightly less heat, though Asus puts a much lower power draw cap on its gaming laptops than Razer does. Naturally, we won’t know how any of that affects the new Blade 16 until we have one in hand to test. The 2025 Razer Blade 16 is due out in the first quarter of this year. Razer didn’t announce pricing, but you can bet it won’t be cheap.

A few hours ago, Acer unveiled its new AI PCs, which fall under the Copilot+ Umbrella. Now, at CES 2025, the company is ready to take on the gaming market with its Predator refresh. As expected, the updated hardware is powered by AI, but perhaps more interesting to gamers would be the fact that it houses Nvidia's RTX 50 series GPUs.

The 2025 Asus ROG Flow Z13. Asus has a new version of its Surface Pro-like gaming tablet for CES, and it’s making some sizable changes both inside and out. The Asus ROG Flow Z13 for 2025 is once again a slightly chunky, almost-half-inch-thick, 13-inch tablet with a built-in kickstand, magnetic keyboard cover, a bunch of ports, and a clear window on its rear with RGB lighting to show off its innards.That fun glass window is now larger, with a direct view of the motherboard, but the biggest change for the ROG Flow Z13 is its switch to integrated graphics. That may seem like a step backward for a gaming-focused tablet since gamers covet dedicated GPUs, but Asus is outfitting it with AMD’s powerful new “Strix Halo” processor. The ROG Flow Z13 can be configured with the Ryzen AI Max 390 for $1,999.99 or the Ryzen AI Max Plus 395 for $2,199.99. The top-end model with the Max Plus 395 has 16 CPU cores and 40 graphics cores, while the base-model Ryzen AI Max Plus 390 (curse these names) has 12 CPU cores and 32 graphics cores. The Z13 utilizes a redesigned stainless steel vapor chamber for cooling these graphics-heavy chips, which are capable of 120W TDP. All that power in the Z13 is responsible for driving a 13-inch, 2560 x 1600 touchscreen display with a speedy 180Hz refresh rate (up from 165Hz on the last-gen model), which you don’t often find in laptops and tablets of this size. For ports, it’s got two USB 4, one USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, HDMI 2.1, a microSD card slot capable of UHS-II speeds, and a 3.5mm combination headphone / mic jack. It’s also got a 5-megapixel front-facing webcam and 13-megapixel rear-facing camera — so you can flash your RGB as you awkwardly take tablet photos in public. It also has Wi-Fi 7.The Z13 supports USB-C Power Delivery for charging, but that won’t be powerful enough to allow its full performance under load. Instead, it comes with a 200W power adapter that uses Asus’ proprietary and reversible slim power jack — like on its recent laptops.Other quality-of-life improvements for the Z13 include a new detachable keyboard with larger keycaps and a more generously sized touchpad. And on its right side, beside the power button and volume rocker, is a new “ScreenXpert” button that summons a Command-Center-like widget that includes multiple-display window management controls, quick access to operating modes like Turbo mode or Silent mode, and other settings like muting your mic. It’s primarily there to help control things while in tablet mode since the keyboard contains shortcuts for most of these functions.I got a quick glimpse of the new ROG Flow Z13 at a preview event, and Asus sent me a preproduction model right before CES to get a little bit of hands-on time. It’s what I’m writing this post on right now, and boy do I appreciate the updates to this keyboard cover. The 1.7mm key travel and bigger touchpad go a long way toward getting work done. While the Ryzen 395 chip has the potential to be power-hungry, the battery life on the Z13 shows some promise. Asus is only claiming 10 hours of battery life, and I did manage to get through a full eight-plus-hour workday of Chrome tabs, streaming music (though the speakers seem kind of bad at first listen), and writing across multiple virtual desktops the day before flying to CES — with pretty much no issues.I definitely prefer a proper laptop to a tablet with a kickstand and keyboard cover, but being able to remove the keyboard deck for a little more flexibility and comfort when it’s time to fire up a game is pretty slick. I tried out a little Helldivers 2 on the Flow Z13, and it performed quite well, especially for a tablet. Set to the Z13’s native 2.5K resolution, in-game render scale on Ultra Quality, and texture details on medium, I saw 60fps or just slightly under, and it looked really nice. If I bumped it down from Ultra Quality to Quality scaling, it jumped up to an even smoother 80fps. This was, of course, while the tablet was plugged in and its fans were blasting on Turbo mode. Diving in again while unplugged dropped the Ultra Quality render scale performance down to the 45 to 50fps range since playing on battery limits you to Performance mode instead of Turbo.This is preproduction hardware, but so far, it’s pretty impressive for integrated graphics. AMD’s new chip might have something special here for thin and light devices, but since it lacks Thunderbolt 5, that means the Flow Z13 can’t use the full GPU bandwidth of Asus’ new XG Mobile eGPU. (Previous models could use the older XG Mobile via its proprietary connector.) But of course, that would make this somewhat portable PC gaming solution a little less portable, and the new XG Mobile costs about as much as the Flow Z13 itself.But does a gaming tablet make much sense in 2025 when portable PC gaming is being so adequately served by the Steam Deck and a bunch of other dedicated handhelds? We’ll have to see how a production model of the ROG Flow Z13 fares when it launches sometime in February.Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

AI is in the air at CES 2025, both on the software and hardware side, with companies looking to merge the two wherever possible. We have already seen this from Acer and Asus today. Now, it seems like HP is ready to throw its hat into the ring with its latest range of Victus and Omen products.

Image: Acer Acer has spec bumps and display upgrades for its top-of-the-line Predator Helios 18 and 16 gaming laptops coming later this year. Announced at CES, the Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop now sports a dual-mode Mini LED display that can switch between 4K with a 120Hz refresh rate or 240Hz when running at 1080p. That maximum refresh rate is actually a smidge slower than its 250Hz WQXGA Mini LED (2560 x 1600) predecessor, but that might be worth it for folks who want to enjoy both 4K resolution gaming and high frame rates on a single device. The Predator Helios 18 AI can reach up to 1,000 nits of brightness and supports Nvidia G-Sync to help prevent screen tearing, display stutter, and input lag. Image: Acer The design for the new Predator Helios 18 AI gaming laptop has also been updated to display more configurable RGB lighting. The internal specs have also been upgraded, with configurations offering up to an Intel 15th Gen Core Ultra 9 275HX processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 mobile graphics, 192GB of DDR5 system memory, and 6TB of PCIe Gen 5 SSD storage. The RTX 5090 GPU, in particular, is at least partially responsible for the “AI” inclusion in the laptop’s updated name, which supports over 150 optimized AI apps for things like LLMs, image generation, and more, according to Acer. The Predator Helios 18 AI will be available in the US in May, with pricing starting at $2,999.99. Image: Acer Aside from size, the Predator Helios 16 AI is nearly identical visually to its larger counterpart. The Predator Helios 16 AI has also received some generational improvements, including a 2560 x 1600 OLED display with a 240Hz refresh rate. It can be configured with the same processor and GPU as its larger counterpart, alongside up to 64GB of RAM and 4TB of PCIe Gen 5 SSD storage. It’ll hit shelves in the US in June, with prices starting at $2,299.99.Both models also feature swappable mechanical keys and proprietary sixth-gen AeroBlade metal fans for thermals, which Acer says can increase airflow by up to 20 percent compared to plastic fans. While both models include support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3, port selection is now limited to two Thunderbolt 5 jacks — which might be restrictive depending on your existing peripherals and gaming accessories.