Of course, we knew that AI would figure prominently at this year's CES. But as CES veterans, we've seen such sparkling promises of the next big thing eventually fizzle. Thankfully there was plenty of meat-and-potatoes PC tech on display in Las Vegas to satisfy the cravings of PC enthusiasts here and now. Whether you're a road warrior, a PC builder, a lover of games both old and new, or a content creator, we saw some truly exciting products for PC users of every stripe, and, yes, some of it even includes AI. MSI could've left well alone with the MEG 321URX QD-OLED monitor.

Since Intel doesn't plan a desktop CPU with AI capabilities until later this year, PC makers are turning to chip startups instead –and the future may be in the Lenovo ThinkCentre Neo Ultra, potentially with AI cards from MemryX and Kinara inside. Lenovo will launch the ThinkCentre Neo Ultra in June for about 1,000, product manager Bryan Lin said from Lenovo's booth at CES 2024. While Lenovo's documentation does not officially include either AI processor, it's likely. And the small content-creation desktop was at CES showcasing both AI cards. While AMD, Intel and Qualcomm have all shown mobile processors with integrated AI NPUs, only AMD has announced a desktop Ryzen processor with an APU inside.

The Groq Tensor Streaming Processor (TSP) demands 300W per core, so luckily, it's only got one. Even luckier, Groq has turned that from a disadvantage into the TSP's greatest strength. You should probably throw everything you know about GPUs or AI processing out the window, because the TSP is just plain weird. The compiler has direct control. The TSP is divided into 20 superlanes.