NVIDIA Now, HTC Vive accessories and Razer laptop with three 4K screens – CES 2017.
It’s the second day of CES and for the gamers among us, a shitload of cool new hardware and other developments has been shown at the tech fair. Below is a list of everything that will undoubtedly make your gamer’s heart beat faster.
NVIDIA
The NVIDIA press conference saw one announcement after another, though most were related to the growth sector for NVIDIA: self-driving cars. That is not very interesting for gamers, which is why NVIDIA fortunately also came with two new versions of the NVIDIA shield, one for watching TV and one for gaming, and the new service NVIDIA Now. Via NVIDIA Now, the company wants to offer high-end gaming to more people by running the games on their own servers instead of letting the gamers use their own PC. These servers contain hundreds of GTX1080s that can run almost all games at the highest settings, an ideal service for people who have a budget PC.
You actually rent a GTX1080 via NVIDIA Now and that is noticeable in the price: € 25 per ten hours. If you choose to rent a GTX1060, you pay € 25 per twenty hours. You can try the service for free, you can then play eight hours on a GTX1060 or four hours on a GTX1080.
HTC Vive
It seemed serious that neither HTC nor Oculus would make a big reveal at CES this year, but luckily that is not too bad. HTC came up with an additions to the Vive that could well become popular: a tracker that you can stick on anything, a new headband with built-in speakers and the previously announced wireless adapter. This tracker is intended so that developers can use more accessories in their games, albeit the plastic attachments of the Wii. One of the criticisms of the Vive was the headband, which compares tragically poorly to the PSVR’s suspension and didn’t have built-in speakers like the Rift did. That is now changing thanks to the Deluxe Audio Band. It adds two speakers and an adjustable ‘clamp’ on the back of the head that should make the Vive a lot more comfortable. The previously announced TPCAST adapter is also making its appearance at CES. For € 250 you can make your HTC Vive wireless with this adapter. The device has a battery life of 1.5 hours, which can be upgraded with an optional battery to 3 hours.
Razer
Razer calls itself the premier lifestyle brand for gamers, and that’s not entirely unjustified given the brand’s sleek designs and massive following. At CES, this lifestyle brand often comes up with a new design or prototype of which they want to gauge how it is in the market. In this case, it is a laptop with three 4K screens that fold out, in order to make a very small (and of course very tightly designed) package that will certainly appeal to creative professionals and content creators. The laptop, which bears the name Project Valerie, is unfortunately not yet for sale in stores and will not be for the time being. It is purely a prototype that is meant to measure interest in the product and receive feedback. However, the chance that Valerie will not appear in stores is very small, because it already looks like a complete product and the reactions so far have been overwhelmingly positive. If it is for sale, however, you can count on a hefty price tag, which will be around € 6000- € 7000.
Oh, and MSI has announced new Aegis models. Should we give another one away …?
