ranzware
Well, that was a blast. Several of our illustrious hardware team were on the ground at CES 2025 in Las Vegas this year, and now the jet lag has abated and the dust has settled it’s time to round up all of the winners of our Best of CES 2025 awards for your perusal.
CES is always fertile ground for gaming laptop releases, and this year we weren’t disappointed. But 2025 was something of a special show, as we also got to see the wraps taken off Nvidia’s next-generation 50-series graphics cards—and they were a sight for sore eyes after months (nay, years) of speculation and rumour.
AI was still everywhere, as you might expect, but we carved our way through the crowds to find the implementations worth talking about. We also saw some impressive-looking CPUs from AMD (and a brief glimpse of the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT, however fleeting), alongside some interesting gaming chair concepts, the odd clever case design, and even some handhelds worth talking about.
A pretty successful show in general then, and a good opportunity for us to get hands on with the very latest tech. We’ve narrowed down our awards to nine categories, and each recipient of our coveted trophy is well deserved. Roll on 2025 then, as it seems there’s plenty of exciting hardware coming our way.
Best gaming laptop of CES 2025
1. Best gaming laptop of CES 2025
Razer Blade 16 (2025)
CES has long been a showcase for the latest laptop releases, and this year was no exception. But out of every gaming laptop we cast our eyes upon, it was the Razer Blade 16 2025 that really stood out. Not only is it a slimmer-looking, edgier-feeling machine, but it keeps the fantastic OLED panel from last years model while updating the hardware inside to include AMD’s Strix Point chips in the CPU socket (all the way up to the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370) and RTX 50-series mobile GPUs. Razer also says it will be “aggressively priced”, although what that translates to in practice remains to be seen. Still, it’s a truly desirable object to hold in your hands, and one we can’t wait to test out when it releases in Q1 of this year.
Best gaming chair of CES 2025
2. Best gaming chair of CES 2025
Razer Project Arielle
We’ve seen gaming chairs with fans integrated into them before, but Razer came sweeping in this year with a mesh chair design that makes the whole concept feel seamless. Not only can Project Arielle deliver a steady stream of cool air down your back in a way that feels soothing, not irritating, but it can even provide a subtle yet comforting blast of heat for those chilly winter mornings. Personally I was expecting it to be a bit gimmicky, but having tested it myself it was a delightful effect. It remains a concept for now, but I reckon it won’t be long before we see something like this available for sale.
Best graphics card of CES 2025
3. Best graphics card of CES 2025
Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition
CES 2025 featured a rare event this year—a fully fledged Nvidia graphics card launch, unveiling the RTX 50-series GPUs to the world. While a smorgasbord of cards were unveiled (including the rather promising-looking RTX 5070 touting RTX 4090 levels of performance for a mere $549), we’d be remiss if we didn’t give this award to the new top-end card for this generation, the RTX 5090. Not only does it feature an astonishing 21,760 CUDA cores, 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 680 5th gen Tensor cores, but it somehow manages to be remarkably slim and svelte looking to boot. Perhaps the best looking Founders Edition card of all time? You be the judge, but we were suitably impressed.
Best processor of CES 2025
4. Best processor of CES 2024
AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3D
Stand back everyone, it’s a monster. AMD’s new high-end laptop chip is essentially a Ryzen 9950X3D with a 54 W TDP, which means it should be about as beefy as mobile CPUs come. 16-cores, 32-threads, 144 MB of L3 cache and a 5.4 GHz boost clock makes for a tantalising chip on paper, although thermals remain a question for now. It looks like a staggering amount of silicon for a mobile device on paper, and it’ll likely feature in some of the 18-inch models we saw at this year’s event—alongside some chonky cooling solutions, we expect. Still, it’s a remarkably highly-specced mobile chip, and looks like a bit of a victory lap for AMD and it’s gaming-friendly 3D V-Cache technology, especially now so many laptop manufacturers are starting to choose its mobile silicon over Intel.
Best new tech for gaming at CES 2025
5. Best new tech for gaming at CES 2025
AMD Ryzen AI Max
Ah, Strix Halo. We’ve been covering the rumours surrounding these mobile chips for such a long time, it feels slightly surreal finally seeing them in the flesh. And specs wise, they don’t disappoint. At the top of the range sits the Ryzen AI Max+ 395, a 16-core 32-thread 5.1 GHz beastie with 80 MB total cache. It’s the iGPUs on these chips that truly get us hot and bothered, though, as the top chip gets 40 CUs, with 32 CUs each on chips further down the range. Could this mean thin, light, dedicated GPU-less devices that possess the mettle to deliver excellent gaming performance? The Asus ROG Flow Z13 looks like a candidate, although as usual we’ll need to benchmark one for ourselves before giving a final verdict. Still, exciting, isn’t it?
Best handheld of CES 2025
6. Best handheld
Lenovo Legion Go S
Handheld gaming PCs are starting to refine down to a formula, and the Lenovo Legion Go S, on initial appearances, doesn’t have a huge amount that makes it stand out. But it’s got the right elements in all the right proportions, marrying an eight inch 1200p display with a choice of Z1 Extreme and Z2 Go APUs in a form factor that feels both familiar and comfortable. Plus, it’s the first handheld other than the Steam Deck to use SteamOS—a development that’s been a long time coming. There’s something confidently refined about this one, although we’ll have to put it through the ringer ourselves to see if it holds up to close scrutiny.
Most innovative use of AI at CES 2024
7. Most innovative use of AI at CES 2025
Nvidia DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation
Walking the show floor and taking in the generative AI barbecues (you think I’m kidding) and the AI-touting cat toilets, you’d be forgiven for thinking all the AI implementations at this year’s event were nothing but hype. Leave it to Nvidia though, as DLSS 4 looks truly impressive—not least because it now uses transformer-based AI models that reduce ghosting, improve temporal stability, and provide higher detail for all RTX card users. For the 50-series alone, though, you get Multi Frame Generation, which Nvidia says can multiply frame rates by up to 8x over traditional brute-force rendering. “Fake frame” doubters may protest, but we saw DLSS 4 in action for ourselves—and all those improvements stack up to look staggeringly good in person.
Consumer-first award
8. Consumer-first award
Asus ROG Strix Scar 18
In a world where gaming laptop manufacturers are increasingly soldering hardware to the motherboard to keep things slim, it was truly refreshing to see what Asus was doing with the latest version of the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18. Slide a latch on the back panel, and you’ll reveal two diagonally-mounted latch-held SSD drives, just begging to be swapped out and upgraded on a whim with nary a tool in sight. The SO-DIMMs are tool-free to access too, meaning this big hunk of gaming laptop should be remarkably easy to upgrade. Chalk one up for a consumer win—and we can only hope more manufacturers follow suit in future.
Best gaming PC
9. Best gaming PC
Alienware Area-51
It wasn’t just the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 that impressed us when it came to upgradeability. Alienware makes some desirable (if pricey) gaming PCs, but its tendency to use proprietary parts has traditionally been a sticking point. No longer with the new Alienware Area-51, as it now uses standard ATX motherboards and power supplies. Not only that, but it’s festooned the insides with a smattering of QR codes, linking out to tutorial videos on exactly how to remove and upgrade the components. A genuinely good idea, and one that shows—with the Area-51 models at least—that Alienware has been taking some of that upgradability critique on board.
Source link
Kurt Indovina
Add comment