CES 2009 Day 1

HardwareLogic starts the new year with coverage from Las Vegas, Nevada, where CES 2009 is being held.  For those unfamiliar with this event, the International CES event is produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) to promote growth in the consumer technology industry.  The CEA consists of more than 2,200 corporations involved in the design, development, manufacturing, distribution, and integration of consumer electronics.  The show runs from Thursday, January 8 to Sunday, January 11, 2009 at the Las Vegas Convention Center and has been going strong since June 1967, when the first CES took place in New York City. 

Before the first day of meetings started, Gigabyte invited us to a CES launch party on Wednesday at the Palms Hotel.  It was held in a 56th floor penthouse overlooking the strip with a breathtaking view and consisted of two main rooms and a balcony.  A big thanks goes out to Gigabyte for the invite which ended in free food, drinks, and an excellent start to CES 2009.  For more coverage of this event, check out the forums.   

The week is packed with meetings and to start it off, we met with Patriot, OCZ, EVGA, and iBUYPOWER.  We hooked up with them at their hotel suites located at various spots on the strip and it was definitely an adventure bouncing around from one place to the other.  

Patriot Memory

JR from Patriot gave us a tour of their full line of memory products.  They started with a display of their current desktop memory which consisted of DDR, DDR2, and DDR3 kits.  New for 2009 was the Vortex memory fan module that actively cools your memory and provides up to at 30% reduction in temperature.  Although not a new concept, its nice to see Patriot come out with their own variation.  Also in the suite were SDHC cards, 64GB USB drives, and a Core i7 system sporting Patriot's fastest gear.  The system had a 6GB DDR3-2000MHz kit along with a 256GB SSD drive.  It was great meeting JR and we exptect to see both products soon as Patriot continues to be one of the leading manufacturers of memory and storage.   

OCZ Technology

Lisa from OCZ gave us an awesome tour of their product line that consisted of desktop memory, notebooks, keyboards, mice, SSDs, CPU coolers, power supplies, and systems.  OCZ has a full range of components and has several products set to release very soon.  Expect to see faster triple channel kits, a killer SSD called the Vertex, Sabre gaming keyboard with OLED function keys, and a 910W PC Power & Cooling Silencer PSU.   OCZ also held its CES party on Wednesday evening and we really appreciate Lisa for inviting us to the event.  Lots of drinks and cool people made for another great night in Vegas.  Thanks OCZ!