CES 2025 has been a whirlwind of exciting PC gaming announcements, including new graphics cards and upscaling technologies from Nvidia and AMD. But as much as CES is about showing off new individual components and tech, it’s also a great place to see the gaming PCs of tomorrow.
Sometimes CES is full of wacky designs that are more proof of concept than anything, but that’s not been the case this year. We feasted our eyes on some truly gorgeous and impressive gaming PCs, and all of them are either ready to preorder now, or are coming down the pipe very soon. Here are the best gaming PCs of CES 2025.
Alienware Area 51
If you had a rich gamer friend in the early to mid-2000s, there’s a good chance thay had an Alienware gaming PC built inside the iconic Area 51 chassis. The Alienware brand has long since moved away from overt plastic styling and racing vents on the front, but parent company Dell brought back the Area 51 name at this year’s CES, with a fresh look.
The new design mostly resembles a high-end DIY gaming PC, with a great-looking interior, well-thought-out layout, and thoughtful cable management. All components are standard and upgradeable, and the all-black, stealthy motherboard looks particularly cool.
This model was fitted with all the bells and whistles, but when it goes on sale later in the first quarter of this year, the Alienware Area 51 desktop will come with a range of hardware options. That will include the latest Ryzen 9000 and Intel 200 processors, as well as Nvidia RTX 50-series graphics.
HP Omen 16L
HP’s latest miniature gaming PC, the Omen 16L, might have given our Jacob Roach pause for its interesting component options, but nonetheless, it’s one of the better-looking gaming PCs shown this year at CES. Its miniature design is perfect for lower-power components, lowering power costs and helping to keep temperatures and noise levels down.
This is the smallest gaming PC HP has ever made, but it can still pack in some powerful hardware, like an Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti or an AMD RX 7600. Those aren’t the RTX 5090, but they’re still plenty capable for high-frame-rate, 1080p play in most games. They’re also physically small enough to fit inside such a compact design, helping keep this chassis lightweight and portable — it could be a great LAN machine.
If you want to go really low power, or have a more professional system inside this PC, there are also options for APU processors without a GPU, though that does sacrifice a lot of gaming ability.
Keep an eye out for a closer look at this gaming PC in a review from us later this year.
Maingear Apex Force and Rush PCs
The loudest and most eye-catching gaming PC designs at CES have to go to Maingear’s new Apex range of gaming PCs. These tempered-glass, wraparound chassis would look fantastic if they were just focused on the internals with gorgeous hardline watercooling, beautiful distro plates with unique designs, and some of the best RGB lighting you’ll find outside of a DIY enthusiast’s system.
But these PCs aren’t just full of great-looking and performing gear — they’re covered in gorgeous sticker art, too. This gives them a real boutique gaming PC feel, and yet these are going to be sold as pre-built systems, for you and anyone else to buy. That potentially opens the door up to many more gamers and PC enthusiasts to enjoy a gorgeous hardline water loop without all the headaches. Well, most of the headaches. Maingear might build it for you, but maintenance will be down to you.
Hardware inside will range from the more-modest to the extremes of the latest generations of CPUs and graphics cards, each cooled by their own custom water loop. This kind of thing is usually only found in the back of custom PC manufacturers’ catalogues, reserved for the most demanding of gamers. But Maingear is bringing that kind of styling to the mainstream in beautiful fashion.
There’s no confirmed release date or pricing on these just yet, but expect them to be very expensive. Just look at those nickel-coated fittings. They don’t come cheap.
Hyte Nexus-powered cases
Hyte went in a different direction with its PCs. As well as leaning into its kawaii aesthetic, it also has a range of new cases with a giant touchscreen on the front. It uses these in a range of different builds to show off different looks with different kinds of hardware. They can play videos or display useful system information — this is something that Hyte’s Q80 CPU cooler has had for a while, but now it’s extending into larger case designs too.
It’s not just about looks, though, as these screens can handle media functions, launch apps, or provide news and updates on a separate, readily-accessible display.
Also built into these Y70 chassis is a new custom distro plate for even more customizable watercooling.
For more news from CES 2025, from cars, to displays, to floor cleaners, and more, check out our ongoing CES 2025 coverage. Want to get a head-start on some of the best tech of the year? Here are the best CES 2025 products you can buy or preorder right now.
