LEAPING FORWARD

AS A YEAR ENDS, people get sentimental. Review the past, see what went right and what went wrong. I say, to hell with looking back. It’s all about the future.

While 2017 brought us some great hardware, 2018 is going to be even better. I feel this is the year when all the exciting innovation will happen. Case in point: AMD’s Radeon chief jumped ship and went to Intel. Days after, Intel announced that it plans to work on discrete GPUs! Are we going to see three main players in the graphics market? I hope so.

2018 will also be the year when n VR gets really serious. Headsets are going oing wireless with full inside-out tracking that lets you move around in as much space pace as you can afford. This will force wireless eless video standards to improve. I hope that once this happens, content will improve.

Other fantastical things I’m looking forward to? Better screens. This means we’ll see screens with higher resolutions and higher refresh rates. And higher refresh rates aren’t just for gaming. They make a huge impact on the desktop, too. If you’ve never moved a window at 120Hz, you’re missing out! In fact, the screen is our number one driver of the PC. And to drive the increased pixel density, GPUs will need to really up the ante.

And wouldn’t you know—it’s all very convenient that we’re going to have three major players making GPUs now. Good times ahead! Tu an Nguyen is Maximum PC’s editor-inchief, also known as“the pointy end of the stick .” He’ s been writing, marketing, and raising hell in the te chi nd us try for 19 years.