Tom’s Hardware Unfiltered: Computex 2026, Day 1 — night markets, taking the MRT train, and a slew of demos
If you take a look at Tom’s Hardware this week, you might recognize that we’ve been posting many reports directly from the ground at Computex 2026 in Taipei, Taiwan. This year, we’re offering readers a chance to take a look at how we’re coping amid the sweltering Taipei heat and telling you exactly what we’ve been up to each day.
While new announcements (and a lot of writing) are part of the overall Computex experience, we hope you enjoy this series of blog posts from our team on the ground. If you haven’t caught up on our Day 0 post, be sure to check it out first. With the busier trade show days looming, Tom’s Hardware’s fearsome five marches on into the depths of the Nanggang Exhibition Center and beyond.
Paul Alcorn: Editor-in-Chief
The pace of the show is quickening as we get closer to the first day of the show floor opening, which occurs tomorrow. Today found me scrambling after the Nvidia keynote to make it to the Qualcomm keynote, and then the following press question and answer session. Qualcomm really didn’t bring many new announcements to the show, so there weren’t any terribly big news gems to be found. My marathon demo run through Nvidia’s suite, which took two hours, was a lot more interesting as the company demoed a seemingly unending string of gaming and AI demos, with most of those powered by the new Microsoft Surface powered by RTX Spark. In the end, I ended up back at the hotel at 10 pm for some rest before a 7:30 am question and answer session with CEO Jensen Huang tomorrow.
Matt Safford: Managing Editor
I spent the early morning writing, before grabbing Mos Burger for breakfast and heading to the Nangang Exhibition Center (Computex HQ) to pick up my badge and take more photos for daily wrapups and our Best Of story. After showing our Computex rookie Joe Shields around a bit, we headed to Gigabyte’s Computex kickoff, where the company showed off many things, including, most notably, the X870E Aorus Infinity Next, a motherboard wrapped in 3D-printed metal.
We were told that just the production and materials of this board cost thousands of dollars, so it won’t be making it into your next build (unless maybe you’re a billionaire), but it is interesting to see Gigabyte push the boundaries of what is possible.
Joe Shields: Staff Writer, Components
I have to talk about the night market I went to last night first. There was so much to see and even more to eat! So many different foods and vendors selling wares, carnival-style games, and there were a lot of people. I ate a pork pepper bun, fried prawns (would recommend both), and what was supposed to be a brisket burger that I think ended up being chicken sausage. Getting there (and around in general) on the subway was a lot easier than I expected, as most signs/announcements had an English translation and were color-coded.
Today was a day of unrest before the storm, with two events in the late afternoon, including one with Gigabyte, who showed off a lot of cool goodies, including the X870E Infinity Next with its metal 3D printed heatsinks — the star of the show for me so far. At this point, I’m sleepy, as the dramatic 12-hour time change has finally caught up to me. Tomorrow, the fun really begins, starting with a visit to Cooler Master HQ and then to the convention center and booth hopping for the rest of the day.
Jake Roach: Senior Analyst, CPUs
Day one of Computex is down, and it was a busy one (a sign of things to come). I started my day chatting with Intel’s Nish Neelalojanan about a broad range of consumer topics, and we’ll be rolling out some choice quotes from that interview over the coming days (the first is already live). After some time at the Qualcomm keynote, I went back over to Intel to talk Xeon 6+ and the company’s new Arc G3 Extreme.
It’s hard to overstate just how convenient Taipei is when it comes to darting around the city like this. The MRT (train) is fast, cheap, and always on time, allowing me to get around to various places while (mostly) avoiding the Taiwan heat and endless Uber bills.
Today was Intel, tomorrow is AMD. We have a series of roundtable interviews set up, so hopefully we’ll get some more interesting insights into where the x86 gang stands, especially in the face of the RTX Spark announcement from Nvidia.
Jeffrey Kampman: Senior Analyst, Graphics
Today was all about Nvidia for me, from early morning until late at night. In the morning, I joined the throngs of GTC Taipei conference-goers to hear CEO Jensen Huang talk about the company’s continuing full-court press for the data center with Vera Rubin.
We also finally learned all the juicy details of the RTX Spark platform (aka N1) and the company’s considerable efforts to spark a Windows on Arm revolution across hardware, operating system, and software. Even if you’re skeptical about Nvidia’s agentic AI vision for the future of personal computing, it’s impressive that it’s gotten everybody who needs to be on board for a seamless Windows on Arm experience on board, and the platform already feels quite mature. We’ll be spending more time with Nvidia tomorrow between a Jensen Huang Q&A and more hands-on opportunities with RTX Spark.
