Other than televisions, CES is not complete without new PC hardware launches. From Nvidia announcing its highly anticipated GPUs, to new laptops and desktop processors, there was a lot to unpack at this year’s electronics trade show. Along with the new processors, we also got new laptops that will house these new components. While many laptops were mostly refreshes of existing models with updated hardware, we did see some new launches too that really stood out. Here are some of the big announcements from CES 2025.
Lenovo ThinkPad X9 Aura Edition
It may not look as flashy as some of the other laptops, but Lenovo’s new ThinkPad X9 Aura Edition could be a very promising business laptop for portability and sustainability. The laptop is incredibly slim at just 6.7mm, with just the cooling strip with the fans protruding outwards a bit at 17mm. It comes in two sizes — 14 and 15 inches — and the highest weight is just 1.45kg. The laptop also uses a lot of recycled aluminium and the battery is designed to be user replaceable, not something we see much these days.
The displays on the ThinkPad X9 Aura go up to an OLED panel with 120Hz refresh rate and VESA HDR600 certification. It’s powered by Intel’s Core Ultra 7 (Series 2) processors, and comes with up to 32GB of RAM and up to 2TB SSD storage. Batteries are either 55WHr or 80WHr depending on the screen size, and there are a good number of ports including two Thunderbolt 4 and HDMI 2.1.
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Also read: Best TVs at CES 2025 from Samsung, LG, Hisense and more
Asus Zenbook A14
If you thought MacBooks had good battery life, wait till you hear the specs on the new Zenbook A14. Assus is claiming more than 32 hours of battery life which has been made possible thanks to the new Qualcomm Snapdragon X SoC. This is a Copilot+ PC, so you’ll get all the Windows 11 AI features. The laptop weighs under 1kg due to the ceramic and aluminium material which Asus refers to as Ceraluminium. The laptop features a 14-inch Full-HD OLED display, a good selection of I/O ports, and good keyboard travel of 1.3mm.
Asus ROG Flow Z13 (2025)
This convertible Windows tablet from Asus is not new, but it gets a massive performance boost thanks to AMD’s newly launched Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor. It has 16 Zen 5 CPU cores and 40 compute units in the GPU based on the RDNA 3.5 architecture, making it an even more potent, portable gaming tablet. This also makes it a Copilot+ PC which means all Windows 11 AI features will be at your disposal. The tablet features a 13-inch display with a 2560×1600 resolution and 180Hz refresh rate. You can kit it with up to 128GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage. Despite being a tablet, you get plenty of ports like two USB-C, HDMI 2.1, microSD card reader, and USB-A port, and a headphone jack. A keyboard cover comes with it, allowing you to use it as a laptop.
Also read: Biggest gaming launches and announcements at CES 2025
MSI Titan 18 HX Dragon Edition Norse Myth
MSI launched more than 30 refreshed laptop models for 2025 but among them, the Titan 18 HX Dragon Edition is the one that really stands out. This limited edition laptop’s design is inspired by Norse mythology and features hand-drawn dragon motifs and runes, with a vintage-inspired finish. Being from the Titan series, it’s an absolute beast of a laptop featuring an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor, up to 96GB of RAM, and a total of four M.2 SSD slots. The laptop boasts of a massive 18-inch 4K Mini LED display, a 120Hz refresh rate, and VESA HDR1000 certification.
The main ingredient is the GPU, which can be either an Nvidia RTX 5080 or RTX 5090. This bonkers laptop comes with Cherry mechanical keys with per-key RGB backlighting, a six speaker system, and an IR camera. The laptop weighs 3.6kg and comes with a 400W power adapter.
Nvidia RTX 5000 series GPUs
Nvidia officially took the wraps off the RTX 5000 series GPUs for desktops and laptops. These new models promise vastly better performance than the outgoing series, mainly due to multiple AI techniques like frame generation. Codenamed ‘Blackwell’, the new GPUs feature 92 billion transistors on the die, 4,000 AI TOPS, 125 shader TFLOPS, and 380 RT TFLOPS. Some of the new technologies include DLSS 4 which is the main driving force behind these big performance jumps.
Also read: Coolest tech showcased at CES 2025
AMD Rzyen 9 9950X3D CPU
Among new laptop processors, the new flagship Ryzen 9 9950X3D was a big talking point during AMD’s CES presentation. Hailed as the ultimate processor for gaming and heavy professional workflows, the 3D V-Cache in the CPU is what gives it an edge over non-3D V-Cache processors from AMD. The company claims users can expect up to an eight percent increase over the previous gen CPU, and up to 20 percent better performance than Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285K. Different workflows will see varying degrees of benefits, but AMD claims that these will be tangible benefits. The CPU has 12 cores, 24 threads, and a peak boost frequency of 5.5GHz.
Intel Core Ultra HX and H series CPUs
Intel expanded its ‘Lunar Lake’ Core Ultra (Series 2) lineup at CES with the launch of the HX, H, and U series processors. Up until now, we just had the V series in the lineup. The HX series is designed for high-end laptops and all-in-one devices with a multitude of models, led by the Core Ultra 9 285HX. This features 24 cores, 84 GPU cores, 13 TOPS NPU, and a max CPU speed of 5.5GHz.
The Core Ultra H series is what we’ll see in many upper mid-range or performance-oriented Copilot+ PCs. This series is led by the Core Ultra 9 285H which has 16 cores, 8 GPU cores, a max clock speed of 5.4GHz, and an NPU with 77 TOPS.
Qualcomm Snapdragon X CPU
Qualcomm had a chip of its own to show off, but for the budget segment of laptops. The all new Snapdragon X CPU for Windows on Arm devices targets everyday computing and entry-level devices. It features 8 CPU cores, a max core frequency of 3GHz, and an Adreno GPU capable of 1.7 TFLOPS. One thing that Qualcomm hasn’t compromised on is the NPU, which can still do 45 TOPS like the X Plus and X Elite SoCs.While it’s not terribly exciting, the possibilities like even longer battery life for Windows laptops would be the main draw here.
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