Linus Tech tips coverage of CES 2014 is brought to you by nc.com your source for
great technology selection and service along with Corsair memory and Western
Digital guys we are here with the
hypothetical future of the desktop gaming PC this is an
undisclosed thing that Razer has just unveiled here at CES 2014 they're
calling it project Christine and to even
gaze upon it would make anyone who is not a true disciple of the almighty gab
Ben wither and
die oh God I
lived this is it guys this is the
modular gaming PC concept it's not a
real product at all there are engineering samples that probably don't
even look anything like this that are somewhat working but this is and and and
the end product might not look anything like this but this is a concept for what
could be the truly easy to upgrade fully
modular silent yet powerful PC so to
start with you have this base station here so it's one single piece of
aluminum and I mean these guys are such masters of industrial design I mean I
the only comparison that I've ever really made in the past is to someone
like apple they're kind of like the apple of PC to me which we absolutely
Ely need and it is a thing of beauty so
it starts with the base station that then all down the front and all down the
back it has these modules that can be
modularly unexpected right I know I'm throwing you guys for a loop here that's
the most unexpected thing about this video that can be modularly added and
subtracted to the middle Tower so you can see on the back we've got a
completely proprietary interface although Razer hasn't said that they're
100% clear about whether they would make it an open standard for others to create
upgrade modules or not maybe there'd be a certification process but for now it's
fully custom and completely proprietary interface as well as two quick
disconnect fittings so why would you need two quick disconnect fittings and
why is it so quiet well because it is fully mineral
oil cooled so every one of these modules on the back we've actually got GPU 1 GPU
2 GPU 3 CPU memory as well as rear io on
here is mineral oil cooled so the idea
is that you would be able to Simply upgrade from single Graphics to SLI by
buying one of these modules and plugging it into the back so you might say okay
lonus that's absolutely insane that Space Age we must be years away from
that and you know what the reality is we probably are but they are potentially
working on it depending on how much demand there is for this technology so
for those of of you who are you know excited about it please do Post comments
on the video and let them know that you love this and you want to see it and for
those of you who think it's crazy go ahead and do that too but I would ask
you if they already somewhat have it working and this is without actually
being close to a finished product is it that crazy it uses PCI Express for
communication between the different modules and between all the different
parts in some form would it necessarily work with exactly the technology we have
today as a finished product no not necessarily but it's an evolution of
what the PC can be I mean you look at what a high-end gaming PC is now for
someone like me I can upgrade a graphics card in probably about 45 seconds if I
only have one hand to use but not everyone's like that not everyone wants
to open up their PC I mean I've I I I've
encountered professional Gamers who need
advice about what antivirus to run or like how to how to install a memory
module so not everyone's like that and that doesn't mean that you're not an
Enthusiast and you're not a gamer it just means you're not necessarily A
Hardware guy so this the idea is that it
would completely eliminate that uncertainty you would just you would buy
a new PSU and water cooling module you would plug it into the bottom and you'd
have a silent powerful new module that
should be forward compatible with everything else in it so the idea is
that we'd be able to have these systems last over an entire sort of PCI Express
generation rather than being tied down to a system
that's only upgradable within a single CPU socket cycle or something like that
like it's all very again it's very space AG I haven't even talked about the front
yet either so I'm going to go ahead and uh turn this baby back yeah I'm actually
turning the table it's not motorized we're not quite that advanced although
the PC is so there's a Blu-ray reader and writer here there's also a control
module here that is you know very much a work in progress but it has some cool
video playback you know you could probably have a touchcreen on there control your fans and all kinds of stuff
like that we've got a couple ssds front IO front audio and then I don't know
maybe this is a speaker I I don't know it can be anything it can be what you
want it to be but one thing is for certain and that is that it is modular
that is the concept obviously it's not a finished product I cannot stress that
enough it is easy to upgrade in fact I mean this could open up completely new
business models such as you could have a a subscription based PC without being
tied into something like a cloud gaming solution where latency might be a
problem for you you could just say okay I'm going to pay 30 bucks a month and
rather than leasing something that I don't own maybe I just have a subscription so you guys can keep
upgrading me and I don't even have to I don't even have to read the latest reviews necessarily I'll let someone and
whether it's Razer or someone else if it is an open standard I mean the sky is
the limit maybe you just send me the new module I pop it in I send the old one
back and it's Off to the Races and then the last thing is that silence and power
is key and mineral oiled Cooling in a
consumer grade desktop machine is something that I'm sure you don't have
to be a hardware Enthusiast to kind of geek out over thank you very much for
checking out our Showcase of project Fiona did I say Fiona because I meant
Christine Fiona was the uh Edge tablet
and it's funny that I made that little uh Freudian slip there because project
Fiona was much like this and that they showed off a completely crazy thing and
then they got such great feedback that they made it so this is kind of the same
idea guys thank you for checking out this video don't miss any of our content
from CES 2014 remember our trip to the show is powered by nc.com your source
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