Gadgetory

Linus tech tips coverage of Computex 2016 is brought to you by the Corsair lapdog the gaming command center that allows you to use a full-size Mouse and mechanical keyboard on your couch and by MSI so this right here in the Asus booth is the rog Avalon one of the most bewildering demonstrations that i've seen even at a tradeshow probably since project christine two and a half years ago at CES they're taking kind of the idea okay of these modules that you slide into kind of a computer backplane breaking the ATX form factor and the constraints that it imposes on us once and for all but in a more realistic direction so this right here is a finished sort of high-end configuration of what an rog Avalon might look like and it's got a few key advantages so number one is that with two simple buttons you can pull off the right and the left side panel along with this plexi top a very very unusual internal layout so the motherboard is actually right up here on the top but conspicuously absent are any cables other than the two for the fans for the radiator and the two that go into the graphics card that's plugged into a PCI Express 16x slot over here on the side and this is very very intentional so in order to achieve a near cable list design for what is probably though it's very early stages right now probably going to be a bare-bones system asus has taken a normal motherboard and pretty much completely blown it up so all of these you know Dogfish codename boards that i'm holding here are pretty much what is inside the bottom module you can see they clip together with solid connectors whether they're twenty four or eight pin connectors like you would normally find on a motherboard or slot style connectors like you might find on say for example a bare-bones server so the idea behind it is that anyone can DIY their own bare-bones machine with this thing whether it's thanks to the two and a half inch hot-swap SATA cages in the front whether its thanks to the fact there are no obstructions when you're trying to install a motherboard like you would typically see on a bare-bones computer or whether it's just for the easy access to the memory modules here in the top not only that but they're saying that if this were to come to market they would be looking at ways to future-proof it as well in a way that you typically can't do with a motherboard so these right here are IO modules that would be able to unplug and plug into the back and they support anything from higher performance audio solutions to extra m dot two slots for an additional SSD all the way up to oh I don't know new unreleased IO connections like say for example you know let's say they had done this two or three years ago and USB type-c came out of nowhere boom you could add type C to your machine now with all of that said I have some serious reservations about this concept so for one thing Asus I love them dearly but they have been the kings of building something once with the idea of future-proof nests and upgradability and then either never delivering on upgrade modules or in the case of things like the hyper kit or things like those Thunderbolt II X modules that you can theoretically plug into almost any Asus full-size normal motherboard the availability or the cost is a serious concern so for things like upgrading these modules on couple kinetic bone even if they're cheap to manufacture the regional office wants their cut the distributor wants their cut the retailer wants their cut you got to pay shipping on the darn thing does it even make any economic sense and compared to a regular bare-bones where it could already have the power supply and the motherboard installed where you're basically plugging in SATA power SATA data and two connectors for your graphics card compared to that are we really achieving anything better here especially considering that the i/o is very similar that was pointed out to me that it supports four dimm slots not two compared to an IT export it's very similar to what you would see on an ITX motherboard these are hard questions for anyone to answer right now but I'd love to hear from you guys in the comments is a Seuss's product manager who is very bullish on this idea correct or am I so thanks once again to Corsair for sponsoring our trip to Computex this year you can check out the lap dog at the link in the video description and a shout out to msi they are showing off they are showing off their new Aegis X desktop as well as their GT x 1080 gaming X graphics card we've got that linked in the video description as well so don't miss any of our Computex coverage by making sure you're subscribed Alliance tech tips and I will see you guys at the next booth or maybe Luke will