Best of Computex 2023: It’s Good to Be Back

After three years away, Computex is back in person and in full swing here in Taipei. We’ve spent the last several days on the ground (and on the MRT train) traveling between hotels and the Nangang Exhibition Center, tracking down and trying out the new products at the best tradeshow for PC tech. And despite a lack of major new CPU or GPU launches here, Computex didn’t disappoint.

We spotted dozens of stunning new PC cases, eye-catching and innovative coolers, as well as lots of displays integrated into components of all kinds. New laptops and monitors weren’t here in abundance, but of the few we saw, there were definitely some standouts. The same goes for motherboards, as there weren’t any platform launches, but between boards with ports on the back, boards with bigger screens, and boards with Wi-Fi 7, there were more than a few noteworthy options worth considering.

Below you’ll find the best of all the new tech we saw at Computex 2023, all of which we can’t wait to get into our hands and onto our test benches for full reviews soon. Just… not too soon. We’re going to need some time to recover from the dozens of meetings, the humidity of Taipei during monsoon season, and the jetlag that comes from traveling to the other side of the planet. What day is it again?

MSI RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Slim

Bigger is not always better. In fact, sometimes it can be downright problematic. Fitting some RTX 4090 cards into modestly-sized PC cases isn't always possible. But it's not just the RTX 4090 that became massively bulky this generation, it's a lot of the lesser GPUs as well.

RTX 4080, RTX 4070 Ti, and even RTX 4070 are often outfitted in 2.5-slot and thicker designs, and the same goes for RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT cards. We understand the need to balance cooling capacity with noise levels, so creating a huge 450W RTX 4090 can almost be excused. But when we're talking about the 285W RTX 4070 Ti, or a 200W RTX 4070? Bring back the modestly sized dual-slot cards, please.

MSI has done precisely that with its RTX 4070 Ti Gaming X Slim, and it still sports a factory overclock. Granted, it's not really that slim, more like slimmer, but it's a step in the right direction. We've had 250W–300W graphics cards that used a single blower fan since 2013, and advances in cooling and materials technology should make it pretty simple to do the same for a 285W card a decade later.

MSI says it's working to apply the same principles to higher-performance parts like the RTX 4080 and even the RTX 4090. We say thank you, because not everyone has or wants a big chungus full-size ATX case.

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There weren’t a lot of new monitors at this year’s show, but Asus’ ROG Swift OLED PG49WCD certainly stood out – or should we say stuck out? At 49 inches wide with an 1800R curve, this utlrawide panel occupied a decent-sized chunk of Asus’ ROG booth on the show floor. It had so many people crowded around it that I had to come back on day two, just as the floor opened, to get up close and personal with this beastly display.

And I’m glad I did. Its 5120 x 1440 resolution and 144 Hz refresh rate deliver lots of detail and smooth motion. But it’s the 10-bit QD-OLED tech that again steals the show here, delivering (according to Asus) 99% of the DCI-P3 color space and up to 1,000 nits of brightness. We await a review unit for testing and, of course, pricing is still up in the air, but the PG49WCD looks like a strong contender for our best gaming monitors page.

What if you mashed up Elgato’s Stream Deck with the knobs and sliders of the various Loupedecks, then made the whole thing modular so you could snap whatever pieces on that you might want or need to create a truly custom console for your workflow? That’s the idea behind Cooler Master’s MasterHub. And when I saw it early on here at Computex, I was wowed for the first time at the show in nearly four years.

Structured around a 6 x 4-inch base plate outfitted with pogo pins, there will be three kits aimed at streamers, video, and photo editors. And nine separate modules will be available separately to add to your hub, from touchscreens of various shapes and sizes to sliders and knobs aplenty. We can’t wait to see all that the MasterHub can do at launch in November and what developers do with the SDK. Cooler Master is focusing on PC control first, but hopes by 2025 that the MasterHub will be able to control smart devices throughout the home.

Arctic’s AIO coolers have had a small downward-blowing fan to help cool your board’s VRMs for years. But what if you wanted airflow over a greater area? What if you wanted that airflow to be positionable, so you could lower the temps of your scorchingly fast RAM or PCIe 5.0 SSD? What if you wanted to cool other things around the surface of your board? And what if you wanted the whole thing to look like some kind of futuristic RGB flower? Enter Silvertone’s IceMyst. It’s arguably the most eye-catching AIO cooler in several years, and one that could come in quite handy as components get faster and faster, generating more and more heat.

The basic idea of the IceMyst is that the top of the cooling plate pops off, letting you attach one, two, or several 70mm fans that can be easily rotated to any position around the CPU to blow air over warm components. And while most won’t likely need the seven shown here, it’s interesting to see the cooler works with that many fans.

As for the more traditional aspects of the cooler, the IceMyst will be offered with 240, 280, 360 and 420mm radiators. The IceMyst looks to be one of (if not the) most versatile AIO cooler to date. We can’t wait to get one in for testing.

It’s tough to overstate just how much of an impact Lian Li’s various O11 cases have had on the DIY and custom PC space. The case arguably launched the entire glass and RGB trend, and the company is still finding new ways to refine and improve on this successful design, more than five years later.

The O11 Vision sports glass on three sides, with the top panel being a one-way mirror. You can see into the case from the top. But if you’re sitting next to the system looking into the case, the top will reflect the other parts of the PC back at you, enhancing whatever RGB light show you’ve concocted in your rig. Yes, having glass on three sides raises some serious concerns about airflow, and we’ll be sure to test those concerns once we get one in for review. But plenty of air can be pulled in from the bottom and the side, and there’s room for a pair of fans (or a 240mm radiator) at the back. Clearly, this isn’t going to be a thermally impressive performer. But for those who prioritize looks over the lowest possible temps, it might be thermally good enough.

I love active cooling – especially when it’s chilling my own personal internal components (OK, organs) after days of traipsing across Taipei during the heat of summer to check out exciting new tech. So while I may be biased due to my sweaty back, Cougar's NxSys Aero Chair was one of the most enjoyable new products here at Computex 2023.

In many ways, the NXSys is a traditional, comfortable gaming throne. But Cougar has installed a 200mm RGB fan inside the mesh back to help keep you cool during those steamy gaming sessions. The fan is powered by USB, and a door at the back rear lets you install your own power bank (it doesn’t ship with one). A company rep says they are getting around 50 hours of cooling from a 10,000 mAh power bank. It would be interesting to know how much more run time you’d get with the RGB switched off.

But there's a few other upgrades, like a 1440p webcam that should work with Ryzen AI for better autofocus and autoframe, both USB Type-A and USB Type-C ports, and a microSD card reader — more ports that you don’t often see these days.

The price of $1,299.99 doesn't sound crazy, especially with the high-res screen, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage. Tom's Hardware managing editor Matt Safford was impressed with the build quality during his brief time seeing it at Computex. This may be a laptop to look forward to.

If you’re the kind of person who believes you can never have too many screens – and many of us are with you there – Lian Li’s upcoming UNI Fan TL LCD is the case fan you’ve been waiting for. Available in packs of three for $139 later this year, this 120mm RGB fan has a full-color, LCD display in the middle, which can be used to show specs like your system temperature, still images or animations.

However, if you don’t mind minimal noise for the sake of airflow and cooler temps, you can opt for the SKU that has an RGB fan. Though there is active cooling, Cooler Master says that the RGB fan model keeps the rotation speed low enough that you aren’t likely to hear it. The company says that it keeps the PSUs cool with vapor chamber cooling and single-piece heat dissipation, thanks to extra surface area on the metal back.

The Z790 Xtreme X has a heatsink and cover that shields the bottom three M.2 slots, which are all PCIe Gen 4. The single PCIe Gen 5 SSD slot comes with a giant heatsink you can use to keep the drive from throttling. On top of that, all of the heatsinks are tool-free for easy removal and installation, and there’s a button on the right to pop the card out since you won’t be able to access the traditional lever under the tower cooler for your PCIe 5.0 SSD.

To keep the case cool, there are lots of vents on the sides, but just a single, bottom-facing 120mm fan. That’s because the Tiny Terria is a mere 8.58 x 6.02 x 13.5 inches and, when empty. Despite its diminutive size, the chassis has room for a 12.70-inch graphics card, two 2.5-inch drives and an SFX or SFX-L power supply. Just note that your CPU cooling options are going to be very limited if you install a high-end graphics card.

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After a rough start with the Mattel Aquarius as a child, Matt built his first PC in the late 1990s and ventured into mild PC modding in the early 2000s. He’s spent the last 15 years covering emerging technology for Smithsonian, Popular Science, and Consumer Reports, while testing components and PCs for Computer Shopper, PCMag and Digital Trends.

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