The trend for white PC components has taken its hold, and the charm for clean aesthetics is not going anywhere. I took a tour of everything Gigabyte introduced at Computex 2024 this year, and I came away with one dominant impression: The age of white PCs has fully arrived. Other than the emphasis on AI, of course.
Gigabyte isn’t the first brand to employ this strategy, as other PC parts manufacturers have been offering white components for years. In fact, even Gigabyte has been offering quite a few under its Aero and the now retired Vision series. Just last year, we also saw the Z790 Aorus Pro X and the B760M Aorus Elite X AX motherboards featuring all-white aesthetics. But this year, it really feels like Gigabyte is taking it to the next level.
It starts with some new motherboards. I got to check out the seven new upcoming motherboards, all of which come in white. Five of them will support next-gen Intel Arrow Lake, while the other two feature the AM5 socket for Ryzen 9000/8000/7000 series processors. These include the Z Aorus Elite Wi-Fi 7 Ice, Z Aorus Elite X Ice, Z Aorus Pro Ice, Z Aorus Tachyon Ice, Z Aero G, B650E Aorus Stealth Ice, and the X870E Aorus Pro Ice.
Whether you’re planning for the new Ryzen 9000 series desktop CPU lineup or Intel’s Arrow Lake processors later this year, Gigabyte clearly wants to cover you for your next all-white build.
That’s not all. The company also showcased the C500 Glass Stealth Ice PC case in an all-white finish equipped with RGB lighting and a built-in ARGB controller. Gigabyte even has new white AIO liquid coolers, case fans, and a special version of its M27Q gaming monitor to complete the ecosystem.
Lastly, we got an early preview of the LCD Edge View, a tiny white display that can be mounted inside your PC case or placed on your desk to showcase various stats like CPU clock speeds, system temperatures, GIFs, and more. The product is at an early stage of development, and the company is working on launching the accessory by early next year.
The LCD notably comes with a single USB Type-C cable solution that can be hooked up to the front or rear I/O. Or, you can use a converter cable to connect directly using the internal USB header of the motherboard.
The big AI TOP announcement
Aside from its all-white approach to gaming, Gigabyte also had a bunch of AI-driven announcements at this year’s Computex under the new AI TOP branding. Playing off the TOPS measurement with its name, this AI TOP line is fascinating as it takes a turn from the company’s focus on PC gaming.
The new blower-style Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super graphics card is perhaps the best example. Foregoing the typical gaming aesthetics, this new GPU is said to be designed specifically for AI development. The line also includes SSDs and a power supply as well. According to Gigabyte, the entire AI TOP portfolio is meant to be an all-round solution for AI models to be trained locally, featuring the AI TOP Utility, AI TOP hardware, and the AI TOP Tutor.
The AI software is where things get potentially even more interesting, though we don’t have a ton of details on how it all works. The goal is to give smaller companies and average people the ability to train their own AI large language models locally, and Gigabyte is offering these applications as a starting place for beginners. According to Gigabyte, the AI TOP Utility is a piece of software designed to simplify the training process in a “no code” setting. There are simple settings you can click through, such as with its “optimized mode” and fine-tuning strategy options.
The AI Top Tutor takes that guidance a step further, and is another application that’s meant to provide technical support and AI-based solutions to problems, using a talking avatar as your guide.
This all represents a major pivot for Gigabyte and for PC companies as a whole. AI has continued to be the focus of all discussions in computing recently, even if the question of what all you can do on-device remains open. Laptops have embraced the shift toward AI workloads thanks to Microsoft’s involvement, but the question of how that will work out on desktop PCs with more power at its disposal feels more open-ended. Gigabyte’s solution is interesting, even if it still feels like the early days of development.
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