We’re still trying to wrap our head around these 4 weird things we saw at Computex 2024

Computex 2024 was a whirlwind of cutting-edge technology and some mind-boggling innovation that set the stage for some impressive products to come in the future. Amidst the sea of sleek laptops, powerful Ryzen processors, and futuristic gadgets, it is safe to say that there were also a lot of “What the heck?” moments, as we stumbled upon a collection of oddities that left us scratching our heads. Many of these announcements and showpieces may have flown under your radar, so here’s a quick look at some of weird yet somewhat exciting things we saw at Computex 2024.

4 The immersion tank PC with bubbling components

We saw a lot of CPU and GPU cooling solutions this year at Computex, many of which I hope we’ll land on the storefronts soon. But there were a lot of unique and interesting solutions out there too, that definitely leaned more towards the “weird” side of Computex. One of them was an immersion tank PC, which was the result of a collaboration between Intel, ASRock, Thermaltake and Taimax.

This immersion tank PC essentially had two graphics cards and other components bubbling inside a case that looked like a fish tank, filled with “perfluorocarbon coolant,” which is a dielectric liquid. Using a cooling solution like this is obviously not practical — or even advisable — for everyone, but it’s certain to keep all the components, including the speedy Gen5 SSD cool, without needing dedicated coolers for everything. Who knows, maybe this will become a norm someday, and we’ll end up building an immersion tank PC ourselves, given how increasingly difficult it is getting to keep all the components cool.

3 ASUS ROG Project Dali

Customizable E-ink laptops?

ASUS had a lot of really cool stuff to show off at Computex this year, but one that particularly stood out to me as an oddity was the ROG Project Dali. These are essentially laptops with a full-color e-ink display on the lid that allows you to customize your machine with pretty much any graphics you want. They employ a 12-inch 1600×1200 Spectra 6 panel from the official E Ink corporation, which the company says won’t consume any power from the laptop itself.

The demos I’ve seen so far look very promising, but I don’t see it becoming mainstream any time soon. For one, this e-ink display can’t be used as a secondary display as it takes about 10 seconds for the graphics to actually show up on this panel from the moment you apply. It’s also said to be very expensive, meaning a laptop using such a panel could significantly be more for it to be a viable option for consumers. It’s still a pretty cool concept, in my opinion, and it perfectly fits the bill here as a “weird” showcase which only looks cool on the Computex showfloor.

2 Gigabyte AI Top systems and utilities

A complete “train your own AI model at home” solution

Gigabyte going all in on artificial intelligence (AI) wasn’t on my bingo card for this year, but it happened anyway. Not only did it announce an AI utility that would let you train your own AI models, but it’s also promising AI TOP systems to provide a complete hardware and software solution for those who want to build an AI-training PC at home. At the heart of this AI Top system is a TX50 motherboard for high-end Threadripper CPUs. Graphics card options include an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, an AMD Radeon W7900, and an AMD Radeon W7800.

Gigabyte says you can configure up to a quad GPU setup with an AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro W7995WX in a single PC case that’ll easily fit within your setup. The software side of this whole AI Top system didn’t look very promising or supremely impressive, either, and the GUI mostly looked very complicated to work with. Oh, the software also includes an “AI Tutor,” which is essentially a 3D rendered AI model that can help you train or do things using AI. Gigabyte had some other consumer-centric components and peripherals to showcase at Computex, too, but its entire AI Top System definitely stood out as an oddity.

1 Palit’s Lynk+ liquid cooled RTX 4090

Continuing the trend of putting displays on everything

The folks over at Palit showed up for Computex 2024 carrying what is arguably the wildest RTX 4090 I’ve seen so far. That’s right, this particular RTX 4090, which is developed by Palit and Lynk+, supports modular liquid cooling and a massive 7-inch screen. It’s the first graphics card to feature a screen that’s this big, and you can use it to showcase pretty much anything, as it is fully customizable. I’m not a huge fan of seeing displays on all components, but this one’s interesting for another reason.

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What I like about this is that it features a modular AIO kit. The fact that it’s modular means you can swap out the AIO assembly for something that’s potentially better and helps the GPU yield better performance in the future. That’s a welcome change considering how the current crop of AIO cooled GPUs are non-upgradable. Similarly, you can also choose to retain the same AIO cooler and swap out the GPU for a better unit that may launch in the future. That’s even better considering how a performant cooling solution can be retained for many years and can be used with a variety of GPUs. I still can’t wrap my head around the 7-inch display, though.

Computex remains full of surprises

Computex 2024 was a wild ride, and these 4 weird yet really cool showcases were just a glimpse into the oddities that awaited us. That said, the event also had plenty of useful and worthwhile products on showcase that many of us here at XDA can’t wait to get our hands on. The PC case line up, for instance, was impressive, and so was this exquisite mechanical keyboard made by Ducky. One thing’s for sure: Computex never fails to surprise us, and we can’t wait to see what bizarre and brilliant creations the future holds.