During Computex 2016, as part of their 10-Years of the Republic of Gamers’ celebrations and showcase, ASUS surprised me with a new take on the PC: the ROG Avalon. The Avalon is still a very extensive work in progress, however the fundamental concept is highly intriguing for anyone interested in PC design – using custom form factor parts and fitting them into a dedicated chassis but still opening up the options for users to customize their build. We were able to grab the hardware and Johnathan Chu, Product Manager for motherboards at ASUS, for a short time to record a video for a quick teardown and analysis.

[su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/ioPi-e-dL1o”]

Apologies for the audio, it was an impromptu recording with no equipment apart from a smartphone.

Project Avalon

When you’ve been reviewing and testing motherboards, as well as shouting at certain engineers for absolutely nonsense ideas (or really good ones), there is somewhat a monotony to it all. One generation there’s a new feature from one manufacturer, and the next generation we see it on mostly all the others. Some features are special and aren’t copied, but these require larger amounts of R&D and investment, then require the PR teams to communicate why the new feature is good or not..
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Read full post here:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/10607/hands-on-with-asus-rog-avalon-a-teardown-video