CES 2026 was dominated by AI and its accompanying hype, as evidenced by the keynotes from heavy industry hitters like Nvidia and AMD. But the seemingly insatiable AI-driven demands on the RAM and storage markets also meant that we saw no new GPUs and very few SSD or RAM launches at the show. And laptop and PC makers were very cagey about pricing – although we do know that new models will be more expensive . There was still plenty of innovative and eye-catching tech to be found in Las Vegas this year, even if we had to look in some unexpected places to find it.
Intel’s Panther Lake launch and AMD’s Gorgon Point did give laptop makers a reason to launch new models, and Dell took the opportunity to backtrack on last year’s rebranding, with impressive new XPS laptops . The lack of new GPUs meant that things were a bit boring in the realm of gaming PCs, but Lenovo unrolled some excitement with its expandable Legion Pro concept , and Asus decided RGB wasn’t enough, wrapping its latest prebuilt in hologram-generating fans . Not to be left out, ASRock jumped into the AIO cooling ring with a dual-pump concept with a hologram that hovers over your motherboard.
These are the best 18 products that the editors of Tom's Hardware found at CES 2026. — Matt Safford
Best CPU: Intel Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake"
Intel Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake"
CES 2026 was light on CPU announcements. We heard about Ryzen AI 400 ‘Gorgon Point’ chips, which are just a refresh of the existing Strix Point lineup, and the much-discussed Ryzen 7 9850X3D. Intel finally unveiled Panther Lake, which is a series it has been discussing for the past six months, and for years in the context of its 18A process. Panther Lake wins, but make no mistake; it doesn’t win by default. Even in a year light on CPU announcements, Panther Lake takes the crown not only because of its impressive performance targets, but also because of what it represents for Team Blue.
With the death of 20A on Intel’s road map, 18A has served as the inflection point, the point at which the ambitious manufacturing strategy Intel laid out close to five years ago actually reaches completion. Moreover, it represents the point in which Intel is bringing together the disparate approaches we’ve seen on mobile over the past several generations. It’s designed to be the AI PC enablement of Meteor Lake, the efficiency of Lunar Lake, and the performance of Arrow Lake-H, all wrapped up in a package that boasts a massive iGPU that Intel says can rival entry-level discrete graphics.
Across both desktop and mobile, Intel’s offerings have carried an asterisk for the past few generations. Lunar Lake is the most efficient x86 chip on the market, but it takes a clear backseat in performance. Arrow Lake is remarkable in its productivity performance, considering the efficiency and architectural approach, but it lags in gaming performance. Panther Lake, according to Intel’s claims, carries no asterisk. We’ll have to see if those claims hold up once the chips are available, but if there’s any announcement out of CES that holds some promise for the future, it’s Panther Lake. — Jake Roach
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🔴 Intel doubles down on gaming with Panther Lake, claims 76% faster gaming performance
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