This year CES is a virtual event. The impact of COVID-19 has meant the annual tech pilgrimage to Vegas has been replaced by a more sedate affair. The good news is that it’s much easier for everyone to watch the most important presentations, including the main CES 2021 keynote by AMD’s Dr Lisa Su. The official patter goes something like this:

“During the keynote, Lisa Su will outline the company’s innovative vision for the future of research, education, work, entertainment, and gaming and will be joined on stage by key partners sharing how AMD technology allows them to offer some of the most exciting products, services, and experiences to people around the world. Throughout the keynote, you can expect a showcase of product demos and groundbreaking innovation, as well as new additions coming to AMD’s high-performance computing product portfolio.”

That doesn’t give away too much about what is going to appear on the virtual show floor, although I expect AMD to focus on its new Zen 3 powered laptop processors. These Ryzen 5000 laptop APUs (codename Cezanne) are rumoured to be everywhere at CES 2021, and you can expect them all to break cover after the keynote finishes.

There may also be a mention of AMD’s Epyc server chips (codename Milan), but we’ll have to see on that front. Either way, you can bet that Dr Lisa Su will hold up at least one chip in her keynote.

AMD had a great 2020, and while its releases of Ryzen 5000 CPUs and Radeon RX 6000-series GPUs were the things that stand out most, it’s also worth remembering that it had some great wins on the laptop front as well. The likes of the AMD Ryzen 4900HS made it into the Asus Zephyrus G14 to great effect, and suddenly Intel’s vice-like grip of the PC laptop market wasn’t quite so dominating. If 2021 continues this trend, that can only mean good things for gaming laptops.