Did you think I was kidding when I said I'd see you again tomorrow? When the
dealer offers more tech news, I always say hit. AMD showed up to CES this year
and chose violence against itself. The company announced the Ryzen 7 9850 X3D,
the new fastest gaming CPU, which is kind of awkward because the CPU is
taking that illustrious title from the 9800 X3D, which is also an AMD chip. The
company claims about 7% uplift in performance over the already fast 9800
X3D. Very meh. And it's pretty much meh
across the entire road map this year. But hey, FPS is actually FPS. Any port
in a storm. Laptops did not get left out. AMD refreshed their laptop CPU
lineup with the Ryzen AI 400 series, including business-focused silicon
that's supposed to make spreadsheet crunching enterprise class, which I
think means your boss won't yell at you for using Teams on 25 separate Chrome
tabs. Of course, it wouldn't be CES without AI being duct taped onto
everything. AMD unveiled the Ryzen AI Halo for developers, a mini PC designed
specifically for AI development jam-packed with their latest Ryzen AI
Max Plus CPUs to compete against NVIDIA's DGX Spark. They also released
the Ryzen AI P100 series, an embedded processor range made specifically for
physical AI. Because if there's one takeaway from CES 2026, it's that even
your fridge will have an LLM by Q3. Great. I've I've always wanted a fridge
that can hallucinate. Stupid sexy fridge. Intel's CES spotlight has been
on its Core Ultra Series 3 chips, codenamed Panther Lake. Wow. Why did you
guys write that in there? The first major PC processors built on
Intel's new 18A process node, aimed at boosting AI, graphics, and general
performance along with efficiency in laptops and handhelds. Panther Lake's
top SKUs pack up to 16 CPU cores and 12
XE3 GPU cores, with Intel claiming up to 60% better multi-threaded performance
and battery life that can push around 27 hours in certain scenarios, all while
underscoring Intel's pushback toward being full-stack in-house silicon maker.
But James, what about the gaming, James?
Tell us about the gaming. All right, all right, calm down.
Unfortunately, Intel didn't show off the rumored Arc B770 GPUs at CES, but they
did unveil XeSS 3, the newest version of
their upscaler that supports multi-frame generation. On top of that, they
unveiled the new Intel Arc B390 integrated graphics found in the
higher-end X7 and X9 chips, a major upgrade on past iGPUs. Intel's claiming
strong gaming performance here, about 73% faster on average than AMD's Radeon
890M in early demos,
and performance sometimes even rivaling discrete laptop GPUs. Plus, it's going
to use the aforementioned XeSS 3, so the sky's the limit for this little guy.
We're really rooting for him. Apparently, Intel's working on hardware-specific variants of their
chips for handhelds, which had some outlets claiming that Intel murdered AMD
with its Arc B390 mobile graphics. It's so crazy that Intel has transformed from
the superpowered villain into the scrappy underdog I find myself rooting
for. They're like the Piccolo of the tech world. They're probably raising NVIDIA's son, Gohan. Speaking of NVIDIA,
they mostly doubled down on software and display tech, showing off big DLSS 4.5
upgrades and unveiling G-Sync Pulsar gaming monitors. DLSS 4.5 is the next
evolution of NVIDIA's AI upscaling and frame gen tech, rolling out a sharper
second-gen transformer model with cleaner edges and less ghosting. Plus, a
new dynamic 6X frame generation mode
designed to push busting refresh rates like 240 Hz at 4K. Full 6X frame gen is
coming later this spring on RTX 50 series cards, while the improved super
resolution is already landing on all RTX GPUs via a new driver update. NVIDIA
says over 250 games and apps support DLSS frame generation right now. Over in
monitor land, NVIDIA's G-Sync Pulsar displays are launching around tomorrow,
packing variable refresh rate plus innovative backlight strobes and
adaptive brightness tech to drastically cut motion blur and give clarity
equivalent to that of a monitor with four times its base refresh rate. You
got it? G-Sync Pulsar is debuting with partners like Acer, AOC, Asus, and MSI.
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techlink at checkout, y'all. I think the Quick Bits are up to something. I caught
them trying to sneak into Riley's luggage. They're so quirky. They just love them. Laptops. It wouldn't be CES
without oodles of laptop announcements. Some are powerful, some are innovative,
and some are just a little wacky. For example, Asus has teamed up with Kojima
Productions on the limited edition ROG Flow out with Death Stranding-themed
art, but probably won't help you bottle your pee. That's a Death Stranding
thing. Other laptop highlights include Samsung's Galaxy Book 6 series, which
they claim has an up to 30-hour battery life, Acer's Swift Edge with a giant
haptic trackpad, and Schenker's semi-modular Panther Lake Element 16
that's made to be easy to upgrade and keep for the long haul. Oh god,
FRAMEWORK, LOOK OUT! THEY'RE COMING for you! LEGO is also modular, and they showed up
to CES this year to show off their new LEGO Smart Play system, a platform that
packs serious tech into regular old LEGO bricks. At the center is a
standard-looking 2x4 smart brick hiding a tiny custom 4.1 mm ASIC, complete with
sensors, RGB LEDs, a speaker, wireless radios, and inductive charging. Using
magnetic smart tags and a low-latency BrickNet mesh, builds can react to
movement and interaction in real time with synthesized sound effects. The best
part? The whole thing runs without needing a connection to a cloud server,
and it gets its firmware updates via a companion app. They specifically didn't
want AI. They leave that to the fridges. Amazon
rocked up to CES with a snazzy new trailer from Ring. Literally, a trailer.
A literal trailer. A Ring mobile security trailer. It's a solar-powered
LTE-equipped surveillance system with six cameras attached to it that allows
for full 360° coverage basically anywhere you want to park it. Alongside
that, they also rolled out new Elite multi-camera systems, a Sidewalk
connected car alarm, and a lot of smart sensors, all conveniently stitched
together by Amazon Sidewalk. All in all, it seems like most of this would be
genuinely useful, as long as you're cool with your neighborhood being one big
mesh network for Amazon and Ring that you are automatically opted into.
Remember the Chaos Communication Congress? Well, another hacker torched a
white supremacist dating site, literally described as Tinder for Nazis, live on
stage at that same event while dressed as the Pink Ranger. Using an AI chatbot
trained to flirt using {quote} traditional values, the hacker known as
Martha Root lured users into chatting, harvested data, then ran a Python script
to delete WhiteDate and other related platforms in real time. The audience
cheered as the servers vanished to the shadow realm. Yeah. Get this LLM in my
fridge. And CES 2026 has had a wild mix
of health tech. For example, C2's longevity mirror that scans your face
and gives a quick snapshot of your health outlook. Mirror, mirror on the
wall, should I give 911 a call? We also got Lexy's autofocus smart glasses that
automatically change their prescription, alongside Allergen Alerts' Pocket Mini
Lab that tests food for things like gluten and common allergens in minutes,
so you can eat out more safely. I've been looking for an excuse to eat out
more safely. For the diabetics, there's Abbott's Libre Sense app that predicts
how foods will affect your glucose in real time. Still, the best health tech
at CES has got to be Moore's taint band-aid, which aims to track sexual
performance and sensations with a small wearable, turning intimate data into
app-based feedback. Probably not the only feedback you're getting fed.
You know what I'm saying? Sex. And you should plant your taint back in your
chair tomorrow for even more CES coverage. I have to go have a
conversation with the Quick Bits about some of their frankly frightening recent
behaviors. We get it, you wanted to go to Vegas, but you got to grow up
eventually, you know? Running away, smelling Riley's underwear. Come on,
guys.