Review Computex 2023 – Background

After almost four years it was finally time again: we were allowed to set foot on the exhibition floor of Computex. Like everyone else, we had to skip this component fair for three years, but on Tuesday we set foot again on the ‘hallowed grounds’ of the Nangang Exibition Center for component enthusiasts. And we can reassure anyone, ourselves first, who feared that the pandemic had shrunk this stock market after such a long hiatus: Computex was just back in full glory this year.

We have already published a handy overview of all news items, previews and videos. Yet we can’t show everything and especially the small things easily get snowed under. But even the larger trends are perhaps more difficult to distinguish in separate pieces, which is why we write a largely personal review in this article.

One of the things that stands out during such a fair is that all manufacturers look closely at what they are doing. This is reflected in what you could easily dismiss as copying behaviour: almost every manufacturer comes up with comparable products. Think of the double glass panels with which the Lian Li PC-O11 caused a furore a few years ago: there is now almost no housing manufacturer that does not have a cabinet in its range with two almost seamlessly connecting glass panels. Lian Li upped the ante this year by producing its O11 Vision case with three glass panels, so I’m guessing we’ll see more of that in the near future.

Another example are the fans that are connected ‘without wires’. This year, so many manufacturers came up with such fans that it seemed that everyone copied the trick from each other. There was of course Corsair with its iCUE LINK, but I also encountered fans in the hotel suites of Hyte and Phanteks, among others, who were tied together with pogo pins.

Pogo pins

On the last day I happened to walk by the French company Mred, and there too there were fans that can be connected without cables. Mred’s CEO, however, boasted that their fans have a unique method of attaching them to each other. Where other manufacturers use ‘public tooling’ (read: the pogo pins), Mred had developed its own method. It consists of using copper combs that slide into slots, somewhat similar to the way some batteries in cameras or cordless drills are connected. That would give a much more robust connection that is also much less likely to break due to user error. Now a slightly different way of connecting those fans is quite interesting, but the story about the public tooling that other manufacturers apparently use, I thought gave a much nicer insight into why all those manufacturers are now suddenly coming up with comparable solutions and products.

Everything is a screen

Another development is the placement of displays on almost every flat surface in a PC. Every manufacturer that makes all-in-one water coolers has now placed information screens on those coolers, or even on the fans. Where RGB lighting used to be the norm, it is now a screen. We are also increasingly encountering mini displays in other places: on some motherboards they are integrated into the heatsinks, and simply separate is of course an option. For example, Hyte had a screen on a movable arm that can be mounted on the water pump. The 5″ screen has a full-fledged soc and can display all kinds of content as widgets on the screen. The screen is also part of Hyte’s new, and Hyte’s first, research assistant water cooler, the Thicc Q60. ) radiator with two 120mm fans. The extra thick radiator should give the cooler a comparable performance to a 360 one.

We’ll linger on Hyte for a moment, because we also have to mention the Nexus software. Like Corsair’s iCUE, Nexus not only has to control the RGB of your PC, but you can also control just about any smart home or third-party lamp with it. It’s a bit of reverse engineering of the protocols, insofar as they don’t just follow an open standard, et voilà, you can control your AliExpress LED strip with Nexus. Of course, Nexus also works with Hyte’s own new pogo pin fans, and with the RGB LED strips that you can hang between them.

As we wrote in our cabinet overview, Hyte also plans to integrate a laptop screen into the Hyte 70. That will be the same screen that the modders had already hacked into the Y60, with some 3d printing and the necessary DIY ingenuity. Hyte is going to make a slightly slicker version of that, probably using the same 12.6″ screen that’s in the ASUS ZenBook Duos. Those 1920×515 pixel screens fit perfectly into the slanted piece of glass of the housings and are simply controlled via HDMI So you can show whatever you want on this second screen.

Phanteks also showed an extra screen for your PC, but it is still in the development phase. Unlike the fixed screens from Hyte or others, you can place the screen from Phanteks anywhere. The 5″ 1440p screen is in a separate housing, which you can secure anywhere with neodymium magnets. Inside your PC, but also outside. There is also an option to screw the screen on or to mount it on your computer with a kind of kickstand. Prices are not yet known, but should be announced sometime in October.

Big and small

All major companies rely on Computex. The ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI booths in particular compete to see who has the biggest, and pretty much every Taiwanese manufacturer you’ve ever heard of can be found there. But also a huge amount of companies you’ve never heard of, and probably never will, can be found on Computex. Despite the absence of a large Chinese delegation, China was apparently not eager to provide companies with visas to travel to Taiwan, you could still marvel at small, crazy and flashy niche manufacturers.

That’s how I came across companies that focus entirely on the production of cooling elements for PCs, from heat pads to heat pipes and cooling blocks. Or what about companies that make lipo batteries in all shapes and sizes? This way you can see how small the mini batteries for your headphones are. There were even companies that specialized in rubber: from silicone keypads to the covering for mouse scroll wheels. One such company was aptly named Great Rubber. You will also come across manufacturers of every kind of connector you can think of, or companies that only make membrane switches. I also came across Risun, a manufacturer that seemed to specialize in the production of mini fans for SSD coolers, among other things.

Two manufacturers caught my eye: one made housings and power supplies, among other things, and the power supply was nicely displayed in components as a kind of ‘exploded view’. But DarkFlashTech’s mITX box is what I care about: it was, irreverently, a bit like a coffee machine, but very sleek. The entire front of that Slath Mini is made of glass, but bent around to cover the sides as well. The top and bottom edges follow the contours of the glass and the grille on top neatly covers the I/O ports. With such curved glass and otherwise sturdy aluminum, such a housing is not cheap, about 300 euros, but it is beautiful.

The second notable in this list is the company Well Buying Industrial. That makes buttons in all shapes and sizes, but specializes in buttons with lighting or with screens behind them. For example, Well Buying has a kind of stream decks or comparable shortcut desk tools, but also large rotary encoders with a round display in the knob. There was also a kind of stream deck with 15 LCD buttons and a display rotary encoder, with a Raspberry Pi to control the whole thing. It looked like a prototype or rather a kind of Frankenstein version of the ‘hotkey module’, type MD005, combined with the RS009A Rotary Push Switch.

Sustainability

Computex also gradually turned out to be more sustainable. Of course, plastic is collected separately, but I mean companies that make their packaging more sustainable. For example, there was a company that made new packaging from PET, such as soft drink bottle plastic, with different percentages of recycled plastic, such as blister packs. The more recycled plastic is used, the less transparent the plastic became. But the use of PET can also be made more sustainable; after all, that plastic is perfectly reusable.

Another manufacturer, VicRound, made acoustic damping panels from recycled plastic that is ground up and processed into a kind of cardboard or felt-like material. The material is reminiscent of the PET Felt of the Dutch Re:Felt, which also makes acoustic panels and rockets from it. VicRound panels are said to be already for sale in various forms such as ‘Acoustic Chamber’ and ‘Acoustic Wall Puzzle’.

We have already partly discussed another trend in terms of sustainability with the housings. The ‘flat packs’ from Cooler Master and InWin save an enormous amount of packaging material and transport costs. The latter may not necessarily sound green, but more products in a sea container or in a truck naturally also means fewer emissions per product. However, many cabinets, especially the variants with glass panels, continue to be sold assembled. I spoke to various manufacturers about the use of Styrofoam for such cabinets, and several manufacturers indicated that they are investigating whether the Styrofoam can be replaced by pressed cardboard for the cheaper, less fragile cabinets. For more expensive cabinets with a lot of glass, this would not provide sufficient protection, but an open cell foam could be a slightly more environmentally friendly alternative to polystyrene foam.

Finally

Computex turned out to be back to normal, but with a new look, not least because various robots were driving around the hall. They had to reduce the risk of corona infections by constantly sterilizing the air with UV light. That robot was developed by MSI and listens to the name rolling AMR-AI-PJ-UVGI Robot. Other robots, including those from MSI, have demonstrated how you will no longer have to put the plug in your car yourself, but that does not seem extremely relevant to the consumer. Perhaps we will be welcomed by robots at a future Computex and many more advanced models will be driving around. Until then, all the hardware shown and the interesting conversations with manufacturers are enough for me. In other words: see you next year, Computex!