Summary created by Smart Answers AI
In summary:
- PCWorld interviews Gigabyte CEO Eddie Lin at CES 2026, covering AI’s expanding role in gaming and rising hardware costs from memory price increases.
- Lin reveals transparent OLED monitors may arrive within two years and notes minimal performance differences between 16GB and 32GB RAM for gamers.
- Gigabyte plans innovative motherboard designs with back-facing connectors and wood panels while emphasizing differentiation in the competitive handheld gaming market.
It’s amazing who you can run into at CES, the world’s largest electronics show. For example, Adam Patrick Murray ran into Eddie Lin, the CEO of Gigabyte. Granted, it was at Gigabyte’s showcase, and he went there specifically to meet him for an interview. But who’s to say that isn’t amazing?
The big theme of CES 2026 is “AI” in everything, as has been the case for the last two years. And Lin was quick to hype up Gigabyte hardware’s abilities in the area, saying that the company is focused on bringing the benefits of the new tech to gaming. Exactly how Gigabyte intends to deliver a “totally fresh experience” via hardware was less clear.
If there’s a secondary theme of CES 2026, it’s the incipient pricing crisis, thanks to memory costs exploding. This is causing the price of RAM, storage, graphics cards, and by extension pretty much everything having to do with laptops and desktops, to rise precipitously.
Lin’s solution is what he calls a “performance matrix,” i.e., measuring every detail for components that actually contribute to gaming performance. “For example,” he says, “we measured 16 gigabytes versus 32 gigabytes [of RAM] for gamers, and the performance gap is only one or two percent.”
Lin also spoke on motherboard design, incorporating features like back-facing connectors for clean builds, and stylish accents like wood panels. There’s exciting news on the OLED front, as he believes that transparent OLED monitors are only one to two years away (and I assume that means prototypes we might see at, say, CES 2028).
Adam wants to know about handhelds, because he’s possibly the biggest fan of the Steam Deck and similar hardware on the PCWorld team. (He was playing in the taxi on the way to the hotel.) “…Lots of Chinese makers also build handhelds,” says Lin. “The most important thing is, just like with a tablet… what’s the differentiation we can have? That’s the only thing I think, how to build with differentiation.”
For more live looks at CES, be sure to check out the PCWorld YouTube channel. And for deeper dives, watch our podcast on its dedicated channel, The Full Nerd.
