CES 2026: all the upcoming releases and announcements a PC gamer should know about

Rejoice, PC gamers, for a new SSD controller has arrived

Phison has a new PCIe 5.0 controller on the way, and it looks to be pretty impressive. With speeds up to 14.7 GB/s read and 13 GB/s write, it's not far off the speeds of Phison's flagship controller, the E28. Though this controller is aimed at the mainstream market, described as a "cost-effective" solution by Phison itself. It reportedly keeps power efficiency in mind, and while IOPS aren't amazing at 2000K, they're not awful.

One to watch out for in the coming year, as other brands will use this controller to power their own SSDs.

Our top pick for lightweight gaming mice just got... heavier

It's not quite what it seems. Corsair has announced two new versions of the Sabre V2 Pro, a mouse that our Jacob Fox cannot stop talking about ever since his review. However, these new mice ditch the absurdly low weight of the original (36 grams) in favour of more premium materials: magnesium (56 grams) and carbon fibre (55 grams).

Why would you pay more for a heavier mouse, especially when it's using materials famed for their relative lightness and strength? I honestly don't know. Especially when they're $50 to $100 more. Corsair claims that enhanced rigidity and strength are great for the CM model, while the MG model benefits from cooling benefits and, again, added strength. But the MG model also has cutouts, that might be controversial with some.

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Hey, look, PC components!

Hey, I see you commenters saying it's going to be a parade of things few can afford. I'm struggling to argue with that because, let's be honest, you're right. PC gaming is too expensive—with the ongoing memory crisis, more so now than ever—and CES is all prototypes and flagships. But allow me to highlight something from the halls of CES 2026 that's not going to cost the Earth...

Er...

Um...

Oh!

Be Quiet! has announced a new version of its popular air cooler, the Dark Rock 6 and Dark Rock Pro 6.

The Dark Rock will be the more affordable of the two, with a single fan (Silent Wings 135 mm) and six heat pipes. The Pro version has two Silent Wings fans and seven heat pipes. There's also a prototype version of the Pro with an LCD screen attached. Though you are only allowed to install it inside your PC if you cover your head with a napkin to hide your shame from God.

Another smart wearable for gamers

Aren't you lucky? So many smart wearables for gamers. Smart wearables. For gamers. Here's Asus with a special pair of Xreal R1 gaming glasses; essentially glasses that, when peered through, appear to display a big ol' screen.

"The gaming display of your dreams," so says Asus.

"Using the ROG XREAL R1 glasses is like sitting in front of a whopping 171-inch display from four meters away," so says Asus, again.

Not to brag but I have a pair of similar specs from Lenovo. I've had them for a few years. They are a bit of a fun for a while with a gaming handheld but now they are parked back in the box. I dunno, just feel like a handheld screen is better, though these newer Asus glasses promise a high-speed experience with micro-OLED rated to 240 Hz.

Only problem is, they're only 1080p. And you might look like this guy. Hey, at least these are a real product.

A smart wearable for gamers

Razer is making a gaming headset that offers similar functionality to smartglasses. It will take photos and videos through the lil' cameras outside the earcups and has its own Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC. it also gives out gaming advice using AI, hooking up to all the major chatbots. But it's only a prototype today; no details, no price, nothing. To be honest, I'm good, you can keep 'em, Razer.

Smart... Lego?

Lego is making a Smart Brick. A brick with a custom ASIC (application specific integrated circuit), accelerometers, light and sound sensors, and even a mini speaker. I'm sure people will find ways to use these in many creative ways, much like all the motors previously introduced into the Legoverse, but in the meantime it's going to be used to response to certain Smart minifigures and Smart Tags to create sound effects and such.

Stream Deck in a gaming keyboard anyone?

There's no other way of describing it: Corsair has gone whole hog on its latest gaming keyboard. It's stuck an entire Stream Deck (Stream, not Steam) on the right-hand side, where there should be a numpad. There are dials, 5-inch screen, and the usual programmable buttons to help you stream, record your gaming sessions, or whatever else it has plugins for.

The price is what I'd consider 'whole hog', too. It's $350.

What's Intel up to, then?

Intel has announced a new lineup of chips at CES, codename Panther Lake. We've heard about Panther Lake before, even getting the scoop on the technical details, but now we're looking at full SKU lists.

There's new nomenclature here. The top-of-the-line chip is the Core Ultra X9 388H, coming with 16 cores (8+4+4) and a Max Turbo clock of 5.1 GHz. The 'X' denotes that it comes with the shiny new Arc B390 GPU. This uses 12 Xe-cores of the somewhat improved Xe3 architecture—though, no, it's not Xe3 in the sense that it's 'Celestial', the next-gen architecture expected in Intel's discrete GPUs. Still, Intel is claiming up to a 77% boost in performance versus the LNL Core Ultra 9 288V, which had a fairly beefy GPU for its size anyways.

The non X chips have less powerful iGPUs. You can see how the top chips compare in the table below.

Dual-screen gaming laptops are go?

Asus usually offers something drool-worthy at CES. This time, the dual-screen ROG Zephyrus Duo 16.

Are dual-screen laptops the future? I don't think so, especially as this is one chunky device with the magnetically attached keyboard overlaid over the second screen (effectively turning it into a normal laptop). However, Asus does throw gamers a bone here: you can flip the laptop into 'Tent Mode' to play co-op games locally from across a table, each player with a dedicated screen. I guess that's pretty neat. No price for this one yet, though. I imagine that is NOT pretty neat, especially with an RTX 5090 and Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chip inside.

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Asus also has a new prebuilt gaming PC on display. It features not one, but three holographic fans. Two in the front, one on the side. This lets you display various holographic images and, dare I say, actually looks kinda cool? Here it is in action:

AMD wrapped up

I'm back on duty and CES 2026 is in full swing.

AMD's conference has been and gone. Lo and behold, it was almost entirely about AI. There were two new(ish) announcements for gamers, though.

Firstly, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D. This chip was accidentally detailed at the end of last year, hence why it's only sorta new, but now we know for sure what we're getting... a Ryzen 7 9800X3D with a 400 MHz clock speed bump.

We asked AMD what sorta performance uplift we can expect from this chip versus the 9800X3D and were told to expect around 2–3% improvement. Not great. Presumably the price tag won't be a mere 2% more, either.

More exciting are the new Ryzen AI Max chips. These new chips combine the full 40 CU firepower available on the die with a lower core count CPU.

With knobs on

Love this Cyberpower PC case with knobs on. It's called the MA-01.

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• Size: mid-tower
• Fans: 3x 120 mm fans in multiple positions
• Knobs: Knobs!
• Colors: Satin Dark Silver/Satin Matte Off White/Satin Matte Steel Gray
• Price: $150/$250, depending on the material
• Release date: Early Q2, 2026

New Samsung (and LG) OLED panels with RGB stripe subpixels

It's still early days for CES 2026. However, some brands like to get ahead of the wave of announcements. Brands like Samsung, and to a greater extent, LG—likely to get ahead of Samsung.

Both have announced new OLED panels using RGB stripe subpixel layouts. It sounds boring—and I guess it kinda is—but the use of a slightly abnormal subpixel layout on OLED gaming monitors leads to some slight rendering issues with OLED panels. By adopting a vertical stripe subpixel layout, called RGB stripe by LG and V-Stripe by Samsung, both companies are able to provide panels that no longer run into issues with text.

Samsung has a 34-inch, 360 Hz QD-OLED panel ready to go using the new subpixel layout. Though you'll want to look out for MSI, Asus, and Gigabyte models; these companies are first in line to actually use the panel in their products.

Meanwhile, LG has a new 4K, 27-inch OLED panel ready to roll, which offers dual-mode functionality for 240 Hz at 4K or 480 Hz at 1080p.

AMD keynote @ CES 2026

Hey, great timing. AMD's Dr. Lisa Su will kick off CES 2026 with a keynote at 6:30 PM PT, January 5.

You can watch it live below, or check the replay after the event.

AMD at CES® 2026 - YouTube

Watch On

I won't make it out to be something it's not. I suspect we'll hear a lot about AI at the event, considering AMD's position in the market behind Nvidia, and the fact the event is called 'together we advance_AI'.

"Dr. Su returns to the CES stage in Las Vegas to highlight, alongside partners and customers, the AMD vision for delivering future AI solutions – from cloud to enterprise, edge and devices," the YouTube description reads.

But, hey, we know that AMD's roadmap mentions new Zen 6 processors coming this year on TSMC's 2 nm process node, though likely later in the year, among other possible announcements.

So, stick around to get a flavour of what's ahead—and at least one monologue about how AI is a turning point for humanity or whatever.