CES 2021: what to look out for at the all-digital tech show

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CES 2021 is going ahead in January, but not as we know it. Rather than spanning a handful of hotels, exhibition centres, and casinos in Las Vegas, the crowded tech show will instead be beamed across ethernet cables and over Wi-Fi networks. Thousands of attendees, companies, and exhibitors will be taking their show online for the virtual event.

From January 11 until January 14, 2021, CES 2021 will open its virtual doors to attendees. CES is a trade-only event, and as such, you can't just catch everything from the comfort of your own home, but that shouldn't mean you miss out on the latest news and announcements from the show. Not only will major companies beam out their own special events over the course of those few days—more details on those below—but we here at PC Gamer are prepped and ready to distil all the best bits from the biggest names in PC hardware into bite-size chunks.

You can expect to hear from all sorts of familiar faces at the show. The big three for PC silicon, Intel, AMD, and Nvidia, of course; but also the biggest names in components, peripherals, and monitors, too. You name a company, they'll probably have something going on over those few days—even if it's technically CES-adjacent and not officially part of the show. After all, it's a great time to set up expectations and let people know what you have in store for the rest of 2021.

Not everything that comes out of CES actually, well, comes out, however. It's often not a bad thing—the opposite, in fact. Prototypes are some of the more exciting products to come out of the show, and Razer is known to tease a prototype to generate some buzz, such as the famous Razer triple-display laptop known as Project Valerie. Alienware also made a splash with its Project UFO gaming handheld in 2020, which is also MIA and presumed in the bin or otherwise deterred.

CES is also a hotbed for monitor news, or at least it usually is. Samsung is known to go big at the Vegas show—last year it rented what felt like an entire E3's worth of capacity for its products alone—and so we're sure to see more from the Korean tech giant, and its competitors, too.

CES 2021 dates: when will the tech show take place?

CES 2021 will begin on Monday, January 11 and run until Thursday, January 14, 2021. It's an entirely virtual show this year, so don't expect to see any snaps from Las Vegas during that time. Instead, CES 2021 will be held online—essentially, a week of Zoom calls for anyone attending.

You can also expect further events throughout the weekend prior to CES 2021's official kick-off and during the remainder of the week post-show.

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CES 2021 exhibitors: which companies will be attending the show?

There's a long list of exhibitors for CES 2021, so let's just stick to those companies we know are attending and that may have something in store for PC gamers. We're certainly hoping for some surprises out of the show but for now, here are the companies that we know will be showing their faces.

• Adata
• AMD
• Asus
• EKWB
• HP
• HyperX
• Intel
• Kingston
• Kioxia
• Lenovo
• LG Display
• Mad Catz
• Microsoft
• Philips
• Phison
• Razer
• Samsung
• Unity

There are also a few companies we think a shoo-in for CES 2021 that don't yet appear on the list of registered exhibitors: Dell, MSI, and Gigabyte, to just name a few.

Few of which have announced any specific plans for the show, but you can be sure that whatever AMD, Intel, and Nvidia have in store will make for further announcements from their partners. Further to that, we're hopeful for SSD and monitor updates from the major manufacturers and the first of the year's new peripherals.

CES has already awarded its Best of Innovation Awards for 2021, too. Asus, AMD, Dell, MSI, Razer, Samsung, Seagate, Unity, and Viewsonic all either won or have products as listed honorees for the Innovation Awards.