Next week, on January 9, 2024, CES 2024 will begin. It is already clear that some important products will also make an appearance at CES 2024. Gamers will likely be excited about many things, but a few are less pleasant.
What is CES? The CES (short for “Consumer Electronics Show”) is one of the largest trade fairs for consumer electronics in the world, held annually in January in Las Vegas. This is where new products and interesting technologies are often showcased, and the most important manufacturers usually participate.
In 2024, we can again expect many innovations. However, a number of presentations should be particularly noted by gamers. And for almost all presentations, it is quite certain that they will occur.
Artificial Intelligence
AI has been a huge topic since the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022. Therefore, artificial intelligence is expected to play a significant role in 2024. Many companies are jumping on the proverbial bandwagon. Corporations like AMD and Microsoft have already stated that AI will completely change the world.
Additionally, Microsoft’s Chief Product Officer (CPO) Panos Panay intends to share more during a guest appearance at AMD’s official keynote at CES.
Other competitors like Intel are also aggressively promoting “AI Everywhere.” Therefore, AI is likely to accompany us in the coming months and years, influencing many aspects of life.
And this is true in both positive and negative ways: While gamers greatly benefit from AI in features like DLSS, others fear that artificial intelligence may also lead to job losses. AI is expected to divide people like few other topics before.
AMD’s FSR 3.0
At the end of 2023, AMD introduced the latest version of FSR. FSR is AMD’s alternative to Nvidia’s DLSS. FSR has been an important step for AMD to counter a significant buying argument for an RTX graphics card from Nvidia. Intel’s counterpart is called XeSS. All three projects are real-time upscaling technologies aimed at increasing FPS in games.
So far, FSR 3.0 is being used in half a dozen games, and many are waiting for a major announcement regarding the broad support of the software. So far, Nvidia has the upper hand with DLSS, and many hope that AMD will finally close the gap with Nvidia. Unlike DLSS, which only works with Nvidia graphics cards, FSR is also compatible with third-party and older graphics cards:
New Graphics Cards from Nvidia: Super Models of the RTX 4000 Series
For months, rumors have been circulating that Nvidia will release an upgrade or at least a refresh for its RTX 4000 series in 2024. There are now several rumors under the names RTX 4080D or RTX 4080 Super.
Overall, it should be good news for gamers that Nvidia might offer new graphics card models with more performance or at least more video memory. On the other hand, the prices Nvidia is likely to demand for the new GPUs will not bring joy to gamers. For an RTX 4080, you already pay at least around 1,200 Euros (via geizhals.de).
New OLED Models for TVs and Gaming Monitors
We can expect that several manufacturers will present new gaming monitors with OLED displays.
As colleagues from TFTCentral report, several gaming monitors with OLED displays are set to be released in 2024. With up to 42 inches, a refresh rate of 480 Hz, and other features. At least LG’s “WOLED technology” is said to enable such high refresh rates.
Many manufacturers like Samsung or LG are likely to take the opportunity to showcase their new models at CES 2024. However, the prices are expected to be quite high, targeting buyers with the appropriate budget.
Why is OLED so exciting for gaming? OLED offers several advantages compared to LCD displays. OLEDs provide excellent contrast ratios and deep blacks. In an OLED display, each pixel lights up independently, allowing for very precise control of image quality.
Manufacturers are now using various techniques to prevent burn-in problems, which is why this is hardly a concern with modern devices. Devices like the Steam Deck OLED or the OLED version of the Switch do not experience burn-in issues:
New Processors from AMD and Intel
What’s new from AMD? The Ryzen 8000 processors will be based on the new Zen 5 architecture and are expected to hit the market in the first half of 2024. However, do not expect much new: Zen 5 is said to be “only” a refresh of the 7000 series, which should bring meaningful improvements. The next significant upgrade is not expected until 2025.
What’s new from Intel? Intel is expected to release new desktop processors for gamers in 2024 with Core 200 under the codename “Arrow Lake.” The topic of efficiency is likely to become exciting again. In the last generation, Intel practically went for brute force: a lot of performance, but at the cost of enormous power consumption. AMD’s CPUs simply offer better efficiency. In 2024, or at the latest by 2025, it will be interesting to see who leads in terms of efficiency and performance in the future.
Qualcomm’s First Desktop Processor
What kind of processor is it? In 2023, manufacturer Qualcomm announced its entry into the PC market. By mid-2024, processors under the name Snapdragon X Elite are expected to be available (via chinahandys.net). Qualcomm aims to be the first manufacturer to offer a processor based on ARM architecture. AMD and Nvidia are also reportedly developing an ARM processor, but are still said to be in the early stages. We also know the specifications of Qualcomm’s processor by now:
- The Snapdragon X Elite will be manufactured using a 4-nm process.
- The processor has 12 cores, which can boost up to 3.8 GHz.
- In single or dual-core operation, the chip can reach up to 4.3 GHz.
- Additionally, there is a Qualcomm Adreno GPU graphics chip, which is said to deliver a performance of 4.6 TeraFLOPs. The PS5 delivers a little over double that with 10.3 Tflops.
In the end, much will depend on how good Qualcomm’s software and drivers are. Intel’s first “real” graphics cards mainly struggled due to subpar software.
Many alternatives to the Steam Deck also face software issues. We will introduce you to the most interesting alternatives directly on MeinMMO:
Steam Deck: Here are the 6 most exciting alternatives of 2023
