During its CES 2020 announcements, MSI revealed a killer new gaming PC: the MEG Aegis Ti5, which is designed to be one of the fastest PCs you can buy in more than one way. And as a bonus, it looks like a droid's head.
You'll get an Intel Core i9 processor, plus Nvidia 2080 Ti graphics and up to 128GB of RAM. And to make sure you get as much performance out of those parts as possible, it's engineered with four separate cooling chambers.
MSI's Silent Storm 4 cooling system splits up the CPU, GPU, PSU and VRM unit, so that the heat from one doesn't contribute to warming up the others.
And you can see exactly how it's all performing thanks to an OLED screen on the front, with doubles as a dial control. This is designed to give you useful information about the system, but it's also a quick control setup: you can use it to change profile settings, dial up the processor speed, or even load it with your game favourites, which will launch with customised hardware optimisations, based on the options in MSI's Dragon Center software.
Having 5G on board is an interesting bit of future-proofing – in a fully equipped area, this could give basically the best possible low-latency network performance. But right now it's something that only really works in a few areas – but it's always good to see something that's swinging for the future.
No work on price or release date just yet, but expect later in 2020, and for it be several thousands of pounds/dollars.
MSI also announced a range of new PC peripherals, the most interesting of which is the MSI Creation CK40. It's a full-size keyboard (including numberpad) that has near-silent scissor switches on the keys, that give a feeling that close to great mechanical keyboards (with loads of feedback), but without the loud noise.
It also has a stain-repellant coating, which – if you've ever seen the average keyboard in a well-used office – is pretty welcome.