Best of CES 2025: 16 products that have us pumped

You never know what you’re going to get with CES. Of course, we knew we’d hear a lot about AI — check — and that there’d be announcements of new CPUs and GPUs — also check. But you just never know how the all the pomp and hoo-ha of this annual mega tech event is going to pay off in the real-world, for regular consumers. Does the average PC user have something to be excited about now that the veil has come off of this year’s product launches?

If the PCWorld staff is any indication, the answer is yes! We found plenty of cool products, innovations, and advances at this year’s show that are currently available or promise exciting things ahead. Our picks don’t stop at PC hardware, either. What’s CES without an array of goods for the tech-loving lifestyle? We note a few of our favorite home-tech products, too.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090

overclock3d

I’ve never witnessed a PC product as hotly anticipated as the GeForce RTX 5090, unveiled by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during this year’s CES flagship keynote. And this monstrous graphics card lived up to the hype, at least on paper.

The RTX 4090 is still the fastest GPU on the planet and the RTX 5090 blows it out of the water in all key areas. It has an astounding 21,760 CUDA cores — 33 percent more than the 4090, and more than three times as many as the new RTX 5070. Nvidia graced the card with an ample 32GB of memory (the most ever for a GeForce GPU) and a humongous 512-but memory bus, a high-octane combo for no-compromises 4K gaming and AI workloads alike. And Nvidia’s overhauled DLSS 4 will tap dedicated AI cores to send performance soaring even higher in supported games.

If gamers even get a chance to buy it — even at $1,999, the RTX 5090 will be a screaming deal for AI researchers with all that memory. Everyone is going to want one. -Brad Chacos

Alienware Area-51

Dell

I’m not usually one for gaming laptops, but the newly resurrected Area-51 machine from Alienware might be the one that converts me. Not only is it filled to the brim with the latest and greatest hardware, but the Liquid Teal finish gives the chassis a unique iridescent sheen and it’s to die for. I love the departure from the cliched gamer look (i.e., black exterior with hot red accents), as unnecessarily flashy designs make me wince. I much prefer understated beauty. The underside of the laptop also has a clear window, which allows you to see all of the hardware inside — this is a nice touch.

This laptop doesn’t shove its gamer identity down your throat. Instead, it stands tall in a quiet yet confident manner. -Ashleigh Biancuzzo

Lenovo Legion Go S, powered by SteamOS

Valve opening SteamOS up for other PC makers is a deeply exciting development for the industry, and as the very first SteamOS-powered handheld beyond the Steam Deck, Lenovo’s Legion Go S would’ve earned its spot here for that alone. But I’m buzzing about more than the software on this.

A big part of why the Steam Deck rocks is because it’s so affordable. Most of its competitors try to carve out niches with premium hardware and features — at much higher prices. But Lenovo partnered with AMD for an exclusive license to a more affordable version of AMD’s new game-changing Ryzen Z2 chip, appropriately dubbed “Ryzen Z2 Go.” By using older CPU and GPU cores, Lenovo is able to offer the entry-level Legion Go S for just $499 — giving gamers on a budget a much-needed Steam Deck alternative. -Brad Chacos

Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini x with Snapdragon

Mark Hachman / IDG

Lenovo announced that it’s bringing Snapdragon to mini desktop PCs. Now you can finally enjoy Copilot Plus with your desktop. While both the IdeaCentre Mini x and the ThinkCentre neo 50q are set for the upgrades, it’s the Mini x model that has me most excited.

With the option for either Snapdragon X or Snapdragon X Plus chips, up to 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage, you can totally trick this thing out if you want. It also comes with Wi-Fi 7 connectivity and an incredible five total USB-A ports, two USB-C ports, plus an HDMI, DisplayPort, and ethernet port. I’m not quite sure what engineering wizardry they were able to conjure up over there at Lenovo, but whatever it is, it has me excited to get a new mini desktop PC this year. -Sam Singleton

Second opinion

I’m a mini PC convert. Late last year, I ditched a massive desktop for a mini PC running an Intel “Tiger Lake” Core i7. But now I wish I had waited a few more months to purchase the Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini x instead.

The Intel mini PC runs unbearably loud at anything but the most modest power settings, whereas the IdeaCentre Mini x, complete with a super-efficient Snapdragon X processor, should run much quieter, just like its laptop counterparts.

But even more importantly, I now want a desktop with an NPU for AI workloads. During a one-hour demo with Qualcomm, they showed off a bunch of content-creation apps that directly hook into Snapdragon NPUs. My mind started conjuring how the IdeaCentre Mini x could be a gateway into a whole new world of useful AI – starting with video and image editing (which I already do) but also running on-device LLMs.

Bottom line: I’m not sure how I’ll be using hardware-supported AI in 2025, because this whole AI thing is just taking off. But I know I want the option to do so, and having that hardware in a powerful, compact mini PC is just what I’m looking for. -Jon Phillips

Asus ROG XG Mobile eGPU

Asus

When it comes to the best of CES, my vote is for the 2025 Asus ROG XG Mobile eGPU and its awesome power and versatility. As if it wasn’t enough that it harnesses the power of up to Nvidia’s top-tier RTX 5090 chip with up to 150W power, the external GPU also supports Thunderbolt 5 connectivity for exceptionally high bandwidth. That means it benefits from Thunderbolt 5’s up-to-80Gbps bidirectional data transfer speeds.

Asus claims the eGPU can hit at least 64Gbps, which surpasses USB 4 and rivals OCuLink. I’m also chuffed by XG Mobile’s other port offerings, which include HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1, 5Gbps Ethernet, and an SD card reader. It also sports better cooling than last year’s model and its design weighs just 2.2 pounds. -Dominic Bayley

AMD Ryzen AI Max and HP’s Z2 Mini G1a

AMD’s Ryzen AI Max, previously codenamed Strix Halo, has been causing a furor in the PC leaks community for months now, and it’s easy to see why: It has a lot in common with AMD’s vaunted Threadripper chips. Threadripper debuted as a wild “jam this thing with all the cutting-edge tech we can” enthusiast project and Ryzen AI Max lives up to that legacy. Strix Halo pairs abundant Zen 5 cores and AMD’s powerful 50 TOPS NPU with more integrated Radeon CPU cores than any chip ever seen before, with support for up to 128GB of unified memory and 96GB just for the GPU. Wild!

That insane GPU + 128GB memory configuration will make this an absolute beast for AI workloads, which demand gobs of memory and fast graphics performance. “This is something very, very special,” said Rahul Tikoo, senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s client computing business, in a recorded briefing for reporters – and he’s absolutely right.

Ryzen AI Max mostly targets laptops, but the most interesting launch partner instead crams this monster chip inside of a desktop mini PC. HP’s Z2 Mini G1a comes with loads of ports, the flagship 16-core, 32-thread Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395, 128GB of memory, and up to 4TB of SSD storage (you can add another 4TB yourself via an empty M.2 slot) — literally the maxed-out version of AMD Ryzen AI Max. AI professionals and students are going to go nuts for this wonderfully weird machine. -Brad Chacos