We were invited to take a look at the Kanto Audio suite at CES by their PR firm, and the brand itself has been on my mind for a while now- offering good quality powered monitor speakers at various price points. This year they are bringing out their new high-end TUK powered speakers, which were first shown off last year, and the entire spec sheet reads like a must-have for many audio enthusiasts, including yours truly. The TUK comes in white or black color schemes, is rated at 130 W RMS for the pair, and features AMT tweeters with 5.25" aluminium concave cone drivers coupled with an on-board DSP and a Class D amp.

I/O includes Bluetooth 4.2 with Qualcoom AptX HD and AAC codec support for those who need it, but most will end up using one of the several wired options encompassing optical TOSLINK, RCA and Phone inputs, a USB DAC for us PC users, subwoofer out, and a headphone jack. So if you fancy connecting a turntable to it to play some old vinyls, go for it! Oh, it also has a USB charger to use with portable media players as well. Read past the break for more on the TUK and other Kanto Audio products we saw this past week.

Razer a dominant player in the PC peripherals market is looking to make their mark when it comes to monitors with their all-new Razer Raptor gaming monitor. Its a 27-inch display featuring an IPS panel with a resolution of 2560x1440. It comes with support for FreeSync and has a refresh rate of 144 Hz. Response times are listed as 7 ms typical and 4 ms with Overdrive. The contrast ratio is 1000:1 and the screen has a max brightness of 420 nits. It also offers 95% of the P3-D65 color gamut, and yes it has support for HDR. Connectivity consists of 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x USB Type-C with power delivery and 2x USB 3.0.

The design features a wide stand that offers excellent stability while also providing channels for cable routing giving the system a clean and unique appearance especially with those bright green cables. As expected of Razer the Raptor monitor also supports Chrome-powered lights in the base which will sync with the rest of Razer's Chrome gear including, mice, keyboards and even laptops and speakers. In regards to availability, no date has been set just yet; however, Razer said it would be made available later this year with an MSRP of $699.99.

Dongguan City Kaihua Electronics Co., Ltd, more familiarly known for the Kailh brand, had their own booth at CES in the design and source section far away from the rest of the consumer-centric show floor. Indeed, this section was more for brands to get B2B relations onboard but that did not stop us from visiting the switch maker that is now responsible for providing switches to more brands than any other today. Kailh had not one, but four new switches under the so-called China style moniker. These are limited edition switches that presumably were made with certain specific customers in mind already, possibly to specific requests to be used with limited edition keyboards as well. The China style BOX switches include the linear Chinese Red switch rated at 45 gf actuation, the tactile and clicky Noble Yellow rated at 65 gf actuation, a lighter weight tactile and clicky Glazed Green switch at 50 gf, and a much heavier linear Ancient Gray switch at all of 95 gf actuation. All four switches have interesting names in common, along with a rated 1.8 mm actuation distance and 80 million keystroke lifetime.

CES may have officially ended but our coverage from the trade show continues. Bitspower had invited TechPowerUp to come visit their suite, mentioning there would be something new and unexpected, and that indeed was the case. Our tour began with the customary showcase of the new GPU water blocks compatible with reference, and board partner designs, for the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 and relatively new AIC RTX 2070/80(Ti) cards as well. These feature integrated RGB lighting compatible with all major motherboard lighting solutions for control, and adopt the split central-inlet flow design as well.

To go with their monitors and laptops Gigabyte also had multiple high-end motherboards and numerous graphics cards on display at CES 2019. Two of the motherboards that caught are attention were enthusiast offerings including the Z390 AORUS Xtreme which offered a 16 phase IR Digital VRM solution with Pow/Rstage. To go with the beefy VRM, they used a new cutting edge thermal design which uses a fins-array heatsink with a direct touch heat pipe and a NanoCarbon baseplate. Wireless networking has been included via an onboard Intel CNVI 802.11ac 2x2 Wave 2 Wi-Fi with AORUS Antenna. Meanwhile, standard networking is handled by an AQUANTIA 10 GbE BASE-T LAN and Intel Gigabit LAN with cFosSpeed. Other additions include Intel Thunderbolt 3, exclusive RGB Fan Commander and OC Touch. Finally rounding out its features is the 127dB SNR AMP-UP audio with high-end ESS SABRE 9018K2M DAC, LME 49720 and OPA1622 OP-AMP, and WIMA audio capacitors. Just be prepared to pay the price of entry as this motherboard comes with a $599 price tag.

Taking things a step further, Gigabyte also had the AORUS Z390 Xtreme Waterforce motherboard on hand as well. It offers many of the same features as the Z390 AORUS Xtreme but adds in an AORUS all-in-one monoblock for both the CPU and PCH area. It also has Triple Ultra-Fast M.2 slots with PCIe Gen3 x4 interfaces along with their Triple Thermal Guards. To afford this high-end board unless you are an extreme enthusiast you might need to sell a kidney considering its eye-watering $899 price tag. Other motherboards on hand included both the X299 AORUS Master and Z390 AORUS Master which are already available at retail.

While visiting Patriot, we also took a moment to examine their latest PC gaming peripherals which included the absurd yet genuinely excellent RGB rollout mouse pad. Available in two sizes (350 x 260 x 3 mm and 900 x 420 x 3 mm) it is made of a polyester and natural rubber with a PCBA and optical fiber material for those sweet RGB LED effects. Speaking of the RGB effects, it offers two zones via software allowing for customization of color and brightness along with flash and breathing modes. Using a button switch will manually allow for seven color options and auto breathing. Overall it was a unique offering that grabbed our attention. Regardless of if you love or hate the RGB fad on some products here it just feels fitting oddly enough.

A quick trip to see Patriot at CES 2019 netted us a chance to look over a massive number of products from SSDs and DDR4 memory, to flash drives and Micro SD cards. In general, when it comes to anything memory or storage related they had everything but the kitchen sink on hand. That said, let's start with system memory. To begin with, they had their Signature Line on hand which uses a simple black aluminum heatshield and comes in capacities up to 16 GB per module with speeds up to 2666 MHz. For a single 16 GB stick at 2666 MHz the listed the timings at 19-19-19-43. Next was the new Viper Steel DDR4 SODIMMs with capacity that ranged from 8 GB to 32 GB and feature XMP 2.0 support for automatic overclocking. As for speeds they top out at 3000 MHz for these kits. Next up was the Viper RGB memory which comes in speeds of up to 4133 MHz and with timings listed at 19-21-21-41. They are also compatible with motherboard RGB sync applications and have been tested on the latest Intel and AMD platforms. Last but not least were the Viper Steel kits which top out at 4400 MHz with 19-19-19-39 timings.

While at CES 2019 we had the opportunity to visit with PowerColor who were showing off their latest external GPU enclosures including the TBX-180/240FU, and the TBX-750FA. Starting with the TBX-750FA this external GPU enclosure uses a Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps) connection and has a 750-watt internal power supply. Due to the size of not only the enclosure but the power supply as well, graphics cards measuring up to 335 x 170 x 58 mm (13.18 x 6.69 x 2.28 inches). When you factor in maximum GPU power is rated at 500-watts pretty much any GPU on the market should work with this enclosure like a cat with a box if it fits it sits. Connectivity options consist of the 1x Thunderbolt 3 port for connection to the host system, 1x Gigabit Ethernet, 5x USB 3.0 (3 up front, 2 in back), 1x SD 4.0, and finally 1x SATA. Overall the enclosure measures in at 359 x 179 x 198 mm and supports Windows 10 and MacOS 10.13.4 or later.

While AMD has enjoyed tremendous success in regards to their Ryzen, Threadripper, and EPYC processors penetration into the mobile market has been a bit slow. However, judging by the number of systems on display at CES 2019 that is about to change. Models from Honor, Acer, Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, ASUS, and HP. The one that immediately caught our eye was the Acer Nitro 5 which packs an AMD Ryzen 5 2500U CPU and an AMD Radeon RX 560X GPU. It also comes configured with 8 GB of memory, 256 GB SSD, IPS display and a backlit keyboard. Overall it looks to be a reliable entry level gaming system.

Next up was Dell's two offerings which were the Inspiron 5000 15 and 5000 14 2-in-1. The Inspiron 5000 15 was equipped with a 4c/8t Ryzen 5 3500U with Radeon Vega 8 graphics (512 shaders). It was also fully kitted out with 32 GB of DDR4 memory, 512 GB SSD, and a 1TB HDD making it an excellent option for productivity and heavy multitasking. Meanwhile, the 2-in-1 was equipped with a Ryzen 7 3700U which is a 4c/8t processor with Vega 10 graphics (640 shaders). It also came loaded with 16 GB of DDR4, 2 TB HDD and a 256 GB SSD giving it plenty of memory and storage space considering its more compact size.

So, that news title may be slightly too flashy for the actual product, but bear with me here: OLED is such an improvement over current mainstream display technologies that its transition to the PC monitor space is one of the most sought-after unicorns in this market. Alienware, via a partnership with LG (that's almost obvious), will be making this particular unicorn come to reality. The Alienware 55 OLED gaming monitor will feature 4K resolution @ 120 Hz, Variable Refresh Rate support via HDMI 2.1 (FreeSync? G-Sync? - all's still up in the air), DisplayPort 1.4, and 98 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 RGB spectrum with a candy of HDR support thrown in the mix.

Mushkin has been focusing most of its product offerings on the storage area, with multiple product tiers in the SSD space. At CEs 2019, the company put together a booth where it showcased some of its more recent advancements in this product category.

The Pilot-E is an internal NVMe SSD available in 250 GB to 2 TB capacities, with an astonishing up to 3.4 GB/s read and 2.5 GB/s write speeds, powered by an SMI SM226EN controller and 3D TLC NAND. Another lower-tier interpretation of the Pilot-E is the Pilot, which ranges from 120 GB - 2 TB, but uses a slower Silicon Motion SM2262 controller which brings the performance numbers down to 3.2 GB/s and 1.9 GB/s in sequential read and write, respectively.

While many have watched or at the very least seen our coverage of AMD's live stream at CES 2019, it just can't compare to seeing the latest graphics card from the company up close and personal. Therefore as soon as we had the opportunity, we took a closer look at the AMD Radeon VII and let us just say the reference card is indeed a bit fancy. The shroud itself is made of metal and has a very similar look and feel to the one used on the Radeon RX Vega 64 liquid cooled reference cards. However, instead of using an AIO for this release AMD instead opted for three uniform fans and a massive heatsink. Not only does this make the card more compatible with small form factor systems, it is also less of a hassle to install. Display outputs consist of 3x DisplayPort and 1x HDMI. Sadly AMD did not include a VirtualLink port (USB Type-C) like NVIDIA for VR headsets, which is rather odd considering AMD is also part of the VirtualLink consortium.

Power delivery is handled by two 8-pin PCIe power connectors giving the card access to a theoretical limit of 375-watts which is 75-watts more than its 300-watt TDP. Considering the Radeon VII has the same power level as the Vega 64 it offers 25% more performance at the same power level. Compute unit count falls between the Vega 56 and Vega 64 at precisely 60 CUs. That said, a few missing CUs are of no consequence when you consider how close the Vega 56 performed to the Vega 64 once tweaked. As for clock speeds AMD has stated the Radeon VII will have a 1.8 GHz core clock, while the 16 GB of HBM2 will deliver 1 TB/s of memory bandwidth over the 4096-bit memory interface.

At CES 2019 we had the opportunity to look at Lian Li's revised PC-O11 Dynamic ROG V2 case which sees numerous improvements compared to previous iterations. It offers a tool-less quick release for all side panels along with improved radiator installation thanks to changed made to the bottom fan mount. Installing a GPU vertically is now a possibility with Lian Li going a step further by also including a seamless anti-sag bracket for stable GPU mounting. Even the dust filters have seen upgrades with the bottom fan filter now being equipped with a plastic frame for increased stability and better usability.

Enthusiasts will be happy to see improved water cooling capabilities with all radiator locations now capable of fitting thicker radiators. They also improved support allowing for the use of up to 360 mm radiator options as well. Those not interested in water cooling can instead use an included plate for more storage space while also hiding the side fan mounts. Overall it is a larger more luxurious case that has seen numerous improvements.

Beyerdynamic had a lot for us to check out at CES 2019 including their new Soul BYRD In-ear Headset which they debuted at the event. Designed to be an all-rounder it delivers well-balanced sound along with a universal three-button remote with microphone that allows for full functionality with Android and iOS devices giving users access to both platforms respective virtual assistants along with the flexibility of media playback, and phone calls. They use a closed design to prevent sound penetrating out while still being focused on comfort via its ergonomic shape that gives users a snug fit. It even has aluminum faceplates giving the Soul BYRD a clean, premium feel. To accommodate various ear shapes and sizes, Beyerdynamic includes five in ear tip sizes from XS to XL. MSRP is listed as $89.00.

Next up during our little tour was the Beat BYRD which is another in-ear design that focuses on delivering balanced sound and powerful bass. It uses an ergonomically shaped housing for a secure fit much like the Soul BYRD with flexible cabling for extended comfort during use. The ones on display featured bright orange wiring indeed living up the high-flier moniker in the placard. However, unlike the Soul BYRD, the Beat BYRD in-ears are just headphones. Meanwhile, the Blue BYRD offering gets rid of the wires altogether and instead uses Bluetooth for connectivity. Like the Soul BYRD, it offers a universal three-button remote and microphone. They also had an active noise canceling Blue BYRD ANC on hand as well which is a neckband in-ear option that makes use of Bluetooth.

During our visit with Silverstone, we had the opportunity to check out their new case lineup which consists of numerous new designs including an all-new Raven prototype. Keeping the unique internal layout established by the previous generations alive, the new Raven has the motherboard I/O pointed towards the top with two 180 mm air penetrator fans located at the bottom operating as intakes with a single 120 mm fan at the top as an exhaust. The design makes use of the simple concept that heat rises to great effect. Drive space is limited to a single 3.5" or 2x 2.5" drives, meaning as of now builders eyeing this new design will want to stock up on M.2 drives. While we don't have official specifications in regards to radiator support, we can say there is plenty of room to set up a water cooling loop multiple mounting points provided near the back and sides of the chassis.

Moving on the side panels are both tempered glass which gives the case a uniform look, however, thanks to that, you can forget about hiding your wire mess behind a solid back panel. Instead, the Raven Prototype will be better suited for those who meticulously route their cables keeping things exceptionally neat and tidy. As for the front panel I/O, it is located on the top left above the side panel and consists of 2x USB 3.0 ports and the usual microphone and headphone jacks. In general, the angular design of the previous Raven cases remains but has been toned down just a bit, giving this latest iteration a sleeker, stealthier appearance.

ZOTAC Technology, a global manufacturer of innovation, is excited to present exclusive unveiling of the newest innovation from ZOTAC and ZOTAC GAMING at CES 2019. Awaiting in ZOTAC's suite at Caesars Palace will be live demonstrations of the latest gaming and computing hardware, including the very first ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX liquid-cooling ready graphics card, a line-up of next-gen ZBOX Mini PCs, the MEK MINI Gaming PC, and much more.

THE SMALL AND STRONG GAMING PC

In the limelight at CES will be MEK MINI, the diminutive addition to the ZOTAC GAMING MEK Gaming PC series that challenges to be one of the world's smallest desktop gaming system with desktop-class performance. Alongside will be unique editions of MEK MINI with a splash of color that will debut exclusive to CES.

While we have covered the MonsterLabo "The First" case earlier this year with it appearing at Computex 2018 and again with further details later, it was also on the showroom floor at CES, meaning we were able to get a closer look. While the design promises passive cooling, the system that was opened for viewing on the showroom floor was equipped with a single 140 mm Noctua fan (can't-miss that color scheme). Which means we can't consider it a passive cooling case as shown. However, it is likely that with lower TDP parts it is entirely possible. Even so, with the use of a single low noise 140 mm fan it handled the configured systems just fine. One system used an Intel Core i5-8600K and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (Far West mod), while another (white) system featured an Intel Core i5-8500 and a GeForce RTX 2070.

Update: We have some exclusive images of the case in the hot Nevadan desert, managing to still look cool.

Lenovo also showed off their Legion Y44w 3840x1200 ultra-wide monitor at CES and quite honestly it is vast measuring in at the 43.4 inches. The display makes use of a WVA borderless 1800R curved panel which offers a crisp image as it covers 99% of the sRGB, BT.709 and DCI-P3 color gamuts. Max brightness was listed as 450 cd/m2 with support for the HDR 400 (Vesa) standard. Naturally, in today's market, no gaming monitor would be caught dead at 60 Hz as such the Legion Y44w supports a maximum refresh rate of 144 Hz with a gray to gray response time of 4 ms with Overdrive enabled. Oh, and it supports AMD FreeSync 2 technology just for good measure.

Creature comforts include a stand that offers lift, tilt and swivel functionality alongside detachable Harmon Kardon powered speakers. There is no shortage of input options either which consist of 2x HDMI 2.0, 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x USB 3.1 Type-C (Gen2), 1x USB 3.1 Type-C(Gen1), Audio out, 4x USB 3.0 port Hub (1 with BC1.2). General availability is expected in April 2019. No information on pricing was available during our visit.

Seagate at CES 2019 unveiled its first NAS-grade solid state drives, under the Ironwolf 110 series. A "NAS-grade" HDD/SSD is typically that which has its durability or endurance rated halfway between client- and enterprise segments. The Ironwolf 110 series boasts of 1 DWPD endurance, and comes in capacities of up to 3.84 TB. Backing these endurance chops is a 5-year warranty. The drive is also designed keeping in mind the rigors of 24x7 operation and RAID environments. Although built in the 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor with SATA 6 Gbps interface, Seagate understands that a lot of home/SOHO NAS devices only feature 3.5-inch caddies. It's likely that these drives will include a simple accessory that lets you use them with 3.5-inch trays.

Available in capacities of 3.84 TB, 1.92 TB, 960 GB, 480 GB, and 240 GB, the Ironwolf 110 incorporates 3D TLC NAND flash memory. All variants are capable of up to 560 MB/s sequential reads, and barring the 240 GB variant that writes at up to 345 MB/s, all variants offer up to 535 MB/s sequential writes. The 4K random access read performance ranges between 85,000 to 90,000 IOPS for the 960 GB thru 3.84 TB variants, and between 55,000 to 75,000 IOPS for the 240 thru 480 GB ones.

While we covered some of Lenovo's products at CES already, we took a closer look at the Legion series of laptops which includes the Y740 and Y540 models. The Y740 comes in 17-inch and 15.6-inch flavors and is the offering most likely to intrigue enthusiast gamers as it comes with up to an Intel Core i7-8750H processor which has 6c/12t, 2.2 GHz base clock and 4.1 GHz boost clocks. To go with that is an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q for that should have no problems delivering an exceptional gaming experience considering Lenovo has paired it with a solid 1080p, 300 nits, 144 Hz, G-Sync display. Potential buyers also have the choice of a Dolby Vision HDR 400 500 nit display as well. Memory capacity ranges from 8 GB all the way to 32 GB of 2666 MHz DDR4. The choice for faster 3200 MHz Corsair memory is also available.

When it comes to storage, there are multiple choices including up to a 512 GB PCIe SSD/ 512 GB SATA SSD or 2TB HDD. Powering it all is a 57 Wh 3 cell battery in the 15.6-inch model while the 17-inch gets a 76 Wh 4 cell battery. All told the unit's base configuration starts at 2.2 kg / 4.8 lbs and 2.9 kg / 6.3 lbs for the 15.6-inch and 17-inch respectively. In terms of size the smaller of the two measures 362 x 267 x 19.95 mm (14.2 x 10.5 x 0.78 inches) while the larger offering is 413 x 305 x 21.95 mm (16.25 x 12 x 0.66 inches). Connectivity options are quite plentiful on the Y740 and include 1x USB-C ( Thunderbolt, DisplayPort, USB 3.1), 1x HDMI, 1x LAN, 3x USB 3.1 Gen2 and finally a single mini-DP port. Other features include an anti-ghost Corsair ICUE RGB backlit keyboard, RGB chassis lighting, Killer WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1 and a solid aluminum chassis. The Lenovo Y740 should be available starting in February.

The VisionTek Thunderbolt 3 Mini eGFX Enclosure is ideal for creative professionals, IT/enterprise power users, professional users in healthcare, finance, scientific research labs, etc., and gaming enthusiasts seeking the ultimate GPU performance improvement to Thunderbolt 3 equipped laptops. Delivering up to 40 Gbps of bandwidth, Thunderbolt 3 is the industry's fastest interface that is rapidly becoming popular on new generation of laptops and mini PCs. VisionTek's Mini eGFX combined with a graphics add-in card significantly boosts the GPU performance of a Thunderbolt 3 enabled laptop, via a plug and play connection to the enclosure.

Players expect higher performing hardware to get the most out of their systems -- whether they're competitive eSports players, PC gaming enthusiasts, or those interested in massive multiplayer experiences or looking to play their favorite single-player titles at the highest settings. Based on feedback from the gaming community, performance is the number one thing they value most. To fulfill gamers' needs, Lenovo is turning user feedback into product ideas. And to ensure our products continue to meet and exceed users' evolving needs, we continually fine tune and improve our innovations. As a result, the latest Lenovo Legion gaming line-up is more powerful than ever -- with a new range of high-performance PCs and an entire family of re-designed gaming accessories and monitors.

TEAMGROUP, the world's leading memory brand, today joins forces with motherboard leader ASRock and release the cobranded Phantom Gaming RGB solid state drive and RGB memory. Both of them are certified and strictly tested by ASRock Phantom Gaming and their lighting effects can be both synchronized with motherboard and officially presented in CES 2019.

The read/write speed performance of T-FORCE DELTA Phantom Gaming RGB SSD(5V) is fully evolved, you can upgrade your computer easily; T-FORCE XCALIBUR Phantom Gaming RGB luminous memory uses high quality OEM IC chips, and also has an eye-catching 120° wide angle RGB lighting range. The easy overclocking feature also receives top recommendations from gamers.

Alphacool showed off an entirely new pump/reservoir combo at CES 2019, which they dubbed the Eisball. Just a quick look at this thing will tell you it is like nothing else you have seen before. Paired with their VP755 V3 pump which was recently updated, means not only is it entirely new from the ground up, it also has a truly unique appearance. Of course no product is complete without RGB LEDs, and the Eisball is no exception with the metal ring located on the outside hiding them from prying eyes while delivering bright illumination that will have no problems being visible in any case with a window.

All cabling for the LEDs and pump are thankfully sleeved in black which which is nice since no one likes mustard and ketchup cabling. There are four ports located on the unit two of which are on the front bottom and are clearly marked inlet and outlet, while another port is located on the opposite side. The last port is in the obvious location which is up top. In general, the Eisball is a unique pump/reservoir combo that will likely garner more than a few looks at CES this year. That said, all I can see when I look at it is R2D2 maybe I am just crazy? Let me know in the comments.

While we covered the Alphacool Eisbaer Extreme at Computex earlier this year, it was once again on display at CES 2019. This sleek and fully encased 280 mm all-in-one liquid cooler comes ready-to-go out of the box and features an expandable all copper design. Rather than use ordinary fans, Alphacool has partnered with be quiet! to deliver high-quality, low noise cooling with two 140 mm Silent Wing 3 fans taking center stage. They max out at 1300 RPM. The quick release fittings provided for expansion with Eisbaer ready products have also seen improvements in terms of appearance. They now come in all black and are smooth, compared to more angular red and blue color coded versions seen on the Eisbaer LT. The matte black tubing features a high kink resistance, while the rest of the fittings are of course industry standard G1/4".

Cooling of the CPU is handled by Alphacool's Eisblock XPX which is the same here as what they sell directly for those building custom loops. Too keep coolant flowing Alphacool has paired the Eisbaer Extreme with their latest VPP755 pump which supports PWM functionality. In order to keep the entire unit looking clean Alphacool has encased it in an all aluminum housing that encloses and protects the radiator, fans, pump, and reservoir. The system is also fully compatible with Alphacools entire family of Eisbaer ready porducts. Availability is expected soon.Specifications Follow.