Want to see where PC computing is headed over the coming year? Computex is where the road map gets unfolded and spread out on the table. Tech buffs and industry watchers know January’s annual CES as the big, splashy consumer-gear venue for launches of giant TVs, wild prototypes, and edgy EVs. But Taipei’s mega-show is way closer to the metal for PC computing—not to mention, way close to manufacturing hubs in mainland China (Shenzen’s a short flight) and Taiwan itself (notably, chip-fab giant TSMC). It’s the place where the big silicon players, OEMs, and PC-component crowd convene to wheel, deal, and show off their wares.
It’s a ritual every May or June: PCMag will be on the ground in Taiwan, covering the latest announcements from the world’s foremost tech players. This year, Computex comes early, running from Monday, May 19, to Friday, May 23. (Usually, it’s a week or two later.) Expect much of the big Computex news to come early on in the show: Monday is a “media day” stacked with press conferences and preview sessions. Notable among them is Nvidia’s big soiree at the Taipei Music Center starring CEO Jensen Huang, the biggest draw in town the last few Computexes. (But the updates won’t end there: AMD’s keynote—laden with breaking-news potential—is happening late, on Wednesday.)
Along with keynotes from Nvidia and AMD, we’ll see presentations from Qualcomm, Foxconn, and MediaTek. Last year’s slate was centered on AI in all its forms, from big-money data-center advances to chip launches for local-run AI. We expect more of the same this year, but with a few twists.
To be sure, those same players will be teasing some of their next chess moves on the AI playing board, and those announcements will have knock-on effects for consumer laptops and desktops. But expect a lot else besides—the usual panoply of PC-enthusiast gear (Computex is nothing if not a PC DIY wonderland) and more of the most creative PC builds you’ve ever seen. (The show is also a veritable World Series for PC modders.) Here’s our hit list of what we expect to see at Computex 2025. —John Burek, Executive Editor
Overdue: Budget GPUs. Will AMD and Nvidia Rescue the Rest of Us?
AMD and Nvidia launched new generations of graphics cards earlier this year, packed with the latest cutting-edge features, but we haven’t seen any new entry-level cards or budget options hit the streets yet. At least one of the two manufacturers—possibly both—will use Computex to launch and highlight new entry-level products. AMD and Nvidia did precisely this when the AMD Radeon RX 7600 and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 were released in 2023, which makes it very likely we’ll see a similar move this year.
(Credit: Nvidia)
We know little for certain what these new graphics cards will actually be like. The AMD outlook is hazier; if it pushes out new cards, AMD will likely call its take the Radeon RX 9060, to fit with the company’s new RX 9000 naming scheme. Meanwhile, we do know Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5060 will arrive May 19.
Both cards, should both debut, are likely to ship with 8GB of RAM and a 128-bit memory interface, as this again matches the specs of their last-gen counterparts. This has already been confirmed for the RTX 5060, but we don’t know how a putative Radeon RX 9060 would be equipped. —Michael Sexton, Senior Analyst
Budget CPUs Too, Please! It’s Past Time for AMD and Intel
Over the last year, both AMD (Ryzen 9000) and Intel (Core Ultra 200S) have updated their desktop processor lineups with new generations of CPUs. We’ve tested a steady trickle of new processors from both companies over the last few months, but nothing that we consider budget-friendly. For AMD, this isn’t surprising; the company never really released budget-class desktop Ryzen 3 7000-series processors in its last generation, so it’s not clear if it plans to release a low-cost 9000-series chip this time around, either.
(Credit: PCMag)
Intel is a different story. To little fanfare, Intel released several Core i3 processors as part of its last-generation “Raptor Lake Refresh” product line, and we suspect the chip giant will do so again this year…sometime. If they appear, we’d expect these new Core 3 or Core Ultra 3 processors to fit with Intel’s new naming convention.
We expected these chips to show up at CES 2025 in January, but no dice. So now we’re looking at Computex to see if such silicon will appear. If not, maybe AMD will take this opportunity to grow its market share in the budget segment of the market with new Ryzen 3 9000-series CPUs. But it’s a long shot. Hopefully, one of the two will do something in this vein for the good of budget-oriented tech enthusiasts everywhere. It’s been a long dry spell. —MS
Nvidia and MediaTek may be at it again. Earlier this year, they collaborated on a chip for the DGX Spark AI mini PC, and now rumor has it that the two are working together on an Arm-based system-on-a-chip (SoC) processor for Copilot+ PC laptops, dubbed N1 and N1X. The latest reports suggest that MediaTek is contributing to the central processing (CPU) end of the SoC, while Nvidia (naturally) handles the graphics processing (GPU). Indeed, Nvidia CEO Huang hinted at Nvidia’s CPU aspirations in passing during a briefing with financial analysts around the time of CES in January.
(Credit: Nvidia)
What would such an SoC look like? Alas, those kinds of questions are completely in the world of conjecture. That said, this is Nvidia: With access to the chip maker’s DLSS resolution scaling and frame-generation tools, the SoC might vastly improve upon the traditionally tepid integrated-graphics performance of most current laptop CPUs. (In theory, anyway.) The latest rumors point to a 2026 release for such laptops by partners like Asus, Dell, and Lenovo—but the tech could be teased at this year’s Computex. If indeed N1 and N1X are happening, we’d be shocked if Huang didn’t at least drop another hint or two. —Joe Osborne, Deputy Managing Editor
PC Storage: Expect More Power-Sipping PCIe 5.0 SSDs
Judging by the glut of review pitches we have gotten lately for PCI Express 5.0 SSDs, we are likely to see more than a few Gen 5 SSD launches at Computex. (Not to mention a few ingenious—and likely massive—solutions to tame the big heat these speedsters generate.) We also should see some highly power-efficient Gen 5 sticks that don’t require an active cooling system, now that PCIe 5 M.2 slots are showing up in a wider variety of desktop computers and a handful of laptops.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Some may be mainstream units with DRAM-less architecture that won’t cost a ton but may not show much in the way of performance gains over the previous generation. However, we hope for highly energy-efficient PCI Express 5.0 drives that don’t compromise on performance. It wouldn’t hurt to see more laptops and desktop rigs with native Gen 5 M.2 slots to support them, too. —Tony Hoffman, Senior Analyst
We’ll See NPUs (Almost) Everywhere—and Lots of AI Spin
We don’t necessarily expect new x86 processor launches at this year’s show—how could we, after the deluge of silicon in the past 12 months? However, many of your favorite laptop lines still haven’t received the AI-centric treatment, even though NPU-bearing Intel “Lunar Lake,” “Arrow Lake-H” (to a lesser extent), and AMD Ryzen AI 300 processors are now on the market. PC makers have the opportunity to refresh and refine existing lines with these chips, playing up AI readiness, Copilot or Copilot+ compatibility, and more efficient workflows alongside new chassis designs.
(Design: Lily Yeh | Image Credit: Eugene Mymrin/Microsoft)
Expect local AI processing to extend beyond PCs, too, all arriving with plenty of spin. “Smarter” AI-enhanced TVs, monitors, and other electronics will promise to improve end results, integrate with popular software, and save you time. Some of this may prove true, but we’ll have to sort through the hype live from the show floor. —Matthew Buzzi, Lead Analyst
Unleashing Enterprise AI: Standalone Machines Get High-Performance AI Hardware
Consumers might be impressed by Copilot assistance and simple text summaries from their locally run AI features, but businesses don’t just want an AI feature or two. They want to build and fine-tune their own AI tools, and that demands serious horsepower. So far, companies have been using dedicated servers and repurposed graphics hardware to do just that, but it’s likely that we’ll see purpose-built machines start coming this year.
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Nvidia announced two self-contained AI boxes earlier this year: the DGX Spark mini PC (formerly called Project DIGITS) and a larger DGX Station desktop. At Computex, we expect to see some competitors follow suit. (An early pre-Computex example: Asus’ Ascent GX10.)
(Credit: Nvidia)
These aren’t measly 40-50 TOPS machines with an anemic NPU. These are 1,000-TOPS monsters, built for AI training and inference. Dedicated hardware will blaze through neural network processes, and massive memory and bandwidth will dwarf what a hobbyist with a couple of desktop GPUs can do. These machines will run local models with a billion parameters or more.
Nvidia is showing off its mini PC form factor already, but don’t be too surprised if we see more beefed-up desktops and even some beastly laptops touting similar AI-focused hardware and features. —Brian Westover, Lead Analyst
Where’s Intel? A Giant in Transition, Lying (and Laid) Low
Intel’s in a rare tenuous spot at Computex 2025. Usually, Intel’s keynote is one of the most anticipated of the show; in 2025, the company’s not even giving one. You can’t blame Intel. There hasn’t been much sunny news to tout.
Intel is coming off its roughest year, now equipped with a new CEO in former board member Lip-Bu Tan. Pat Gelsinger is gone. Intel is still reeling on the consumer desktop front from lukewarm reception to its “Arrow Lake-S” chips, and from a mid-2024 debacle around its 13th and 14th Gen Core CPUs failing early due to microcode faults. (It had to hustle to patch the microcode and deploy PR to paper over the mess.)
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(Credit: Rob Pegoraro)
Intel’s Arc graphics project is alive, but one imagines a Sword of Damocles hanging over it in the current environment. Plus, in Qualcomm, the chip maker is facing a nimble new competitor in the laptop-CPU market (with the specter of that rival Nvidia/MediaTek N1X Arm-chip effort in the shadows). Questions are even circling about whether Intel’s vaunted chip-foundry business should be spun off or sold.
Indeed, it’s regroup-and-rethink time at Intel in a big way, and we expect the usual Computex belle to be a wallflower this year. We would expect Intel to tip some progress reports on “Panther Lake,” its next-gen (Core Ultra 300) processors for laptops and desktops, though. Panther Lake is expected to be produced in-house and launch later this year, with mass production in 2026. It should feature updated performance cores, and we’d expect it to continue on with the general chiplet design of current-gen chips, with (for mobile, at least) P-cores, E-cores, and low-power E-cores alongside an improved NPU. More details on Panther Lake, and perhaps a positive progress report, are the best you should expect; anything more is likely gravy. —JB
AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper: Time for a Reboot, or Is HEDT Dead?
While AMD has released high-end “Zen 5” CPUs for its AM5 platform and server customers under its Epyc brand, we hope to see some new high-end consumer-grade CPUs from the company during Computex, in the classic high-end desktop (HEDT) mode. (That’s to say: massive core counts, huge lane allocations, and probably sky-high prices.) AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper processors exist in a space between the more consumer-oriented AM5 processors and the server-grade Epyc product line, creating an option in the middle.
(Credit: Michael Sexton)
Threadripper and Threadripper Pro processors are best viewed as entry-level workstation components or budget server parts, as they have a lot of cores and excel at heavy number crunching. They are not ideal for gaming. The last Threadripper processors that AMD released were on its “Zen 4” architecture in 2023, so the chip maker is due to push out Zen 5-based Threadripper chips to replace these. Computex might be the right time for AMD to do this, bringing an exciting power play to a show that might otherwise be starved for new silicon. We’ll see… —MS
More Disappearing Cabling: Desktop PCs Keep Cleaning Up Their Act
PC aesthetics is a huge focus at Computex; for the desktop-PC modding and tweaking crowd, the show is equal parts fantasyland and look at the future. One of the trends of the last few years has been the rise of the “reverse motherboard” for desktops—PC motherboards that have most or all of the connectors on the back, letting you run cables on the hidden side of your PC’s case and create a clean-looking, easy-airflow interior. (Most new PC cases now have a transparent side panel.) It’s the biggest advance in PC aesthetics since…well, the transparent side panel.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
MSI, with its Project Zero initiative, and Asus, with its similar Back to the Future (BTF), have led the way with PC motherboards and chassis (and in Asus’s case, even graphics cards) that incorporate special cable-hiding cutouts, designs, and connectors.
(Credit: John Burek)
Project Zero and BTF gear has already been on the market for a year-plus. At CES 2025, MSI showed off a further prototype iteration of this, Project Zero X, which took things to another level. And PC case vendors are increasingly designing specific models in their lines to accommodate the cutouts needed to accommodate reverse motherboards. We expect this trend to spread; we’re also interested to see if the other two major mainboard makers, ASRock and Gigabyte, jump on the cable-hiding trend, whether with their own systems or by adopting existing designs. The whole reverse-board trend is ripe for standardization. —JB
PC Displays: Will Glasses-Free 3D Keep Surging in Desktop Monitors?
Glasses-free 3D is not new, but it has changed significantly of late. What once was a gimmick has become a legitimate technology useful in computer-aided design fields like architecture and engineering. But entertainment is another entry point for glasses-free 3D, and we expect more vendors to tap into the technology in new and interesting ways.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Last year’s Computex saw the debut of Acer’s SpatialLabs Eyes, a compact stereoscopic camera that records 3D video and still images that can render in immersive 3D on compatible glasses-free displays. (Indeed, Acer has moved hard into glasses-free 3D, with a series of SpatialView displays to complement the Eyes accessory.) And we saw a similar application in this year’s Samsung Odyssey 3D, a pure 4K gaming display capable of ultra-high-definition, glasses-free 3D. Lenovo showed some new glasses-free gear at MWC, too.
The first few times around on PCs, 3D still needed special spectacles; as 3D begins to break into the mainstream again, we wonder whether other prominent display vendors in the Taiwan brigade, like Asus, BenQ, Gigabyte, and MSI, will try their hand at adding that extra dimension, too, while also ditching the lenses. —Zackery Cuevas, Analyst
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About Michael Justin Allen Sexton
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