CES 2018: Highlights From January 8 (And Earlier)
LAS VEGAS, NV -- CES never starts when it's supposed to. Companies prepare their products for the show months in advance, journalists arrive in Las Vegas days prior to the event's start, and presentations begin long before the countless booths are opened to visitors. CES 2018 was no different: We started taking meetings and writing stories days before the event officially started on January 9. (And we'll keep writing about all the cool stuff we saw and heard at the show long after we kiss the crowded exhibition centers and meeting rooms goodbye on January 12.)
What Intel, AMD, And Nvidia Have Planned For 2018
CES 2018 kicked off with presentations from Intel, AMD, and Nvidia. The companies used this chance to trumpet 2017's successes and reveal some of their plans for 2018. We sat through each presentation with our notebooks in hand—or laptops on lap—to relay what each company has in mind:
- Intel's Radeon Vega-Powered 8th-Gen Processors, Detailed
- Intel's Vega-Powered SoC Debuts In VR-Capable 'Hades Canyon' NUC
- Intel CEO Brian Krzanich Delivers CES Keynote; No 10nm Update
- AMD's Pre-CES Haul: 12nm Ryzen CPUs, 7nm GPUs, 2000 Series Processors, X470 Chipset
- AMD Lowers Prices On Ryzen 7, 5, 3, And Threadripper CPUs
- Nvidia Pushes G-Sync To TVs With 'Big Format Gaming Display' Initiative
- The First Nvidia Big Format Gaming Displays Are Here
- Nvidia Updates GeForce Experience, Announces GeForce Now Public Beta
Let's Talk About VR
Many pre-CES announcements centered on VR, AR, or some reality other than our own. Perhaps the biggest announcement was teased and guessed at before the show started thanks to a teaser tweet from HTC that all but promised some kind of refresh to the Vive HMD. The company delivered after CES 2018 started, and other companies decided to hop aboard the XR hype train for another run down the tracks:
- HTC Secures VR Dominance With High-End Vive Pro Upgrade
- HTC Vive WiGig Wireless Upgrade Is Coming In Q3 2018
- Oculus Continues Drive For Standalone VR, Partners With Xiaomi, Qualcomm
- 3dRudder 'Blackhawk' Offers Precision Control For Gaming
- Vuzix's New AR Specs Actually Look Like Glasses
- The Pico Eagle Mobile Home Theater Features Kopin’s New High-Brightness OLED Microdisplays
- Merge Made A VR Headset Suited For Kids
- Merge 6DoF Blaster Is A Gun Peripheral For Smartphone-Based AR
Odds And Ends
As always, not everything from CES fits into a neat little category. Here's the best of the rest from our pre-CES coverage:
- Asus Brings ROG RGB Oddities To CES 2018
- Rockchip Launches Its Own 2.4 TOPS Embedded AI Chip
- Cooler Master Announces MasterWatt V, MasterWatt Maker With Cooler Master Connect v2.0
- Seagate's Trio Of Portable Storage At CES 2018
- Lenovo Claims Its New Thunderbolt Graphics Dock Can Handle WMR At 90Hz
You can keep track of everything we produce from and about CES here on our CES tag page, and of course follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep apprised via social media, too.
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Nathaniel Mott is a freelance news and features writer for Tom's Hardware US, covering breaking news, security, and the silliest aspects of the tech industry.