CES 2011, Las Vegas - Intel shows off a new generation of Core CPUs. In the Las Vegas Convention Center Intel showed off their 2nd Generation Core CPUs along with a host of mobile systems that, according to Intel, will be faster, cooler, and more energy efficient than anything they have every offered before. Although these CPUs (Sandy Bridge) have technically been launched and the web has been full of reviews, Intel was still showing some demos that were very impressive.

One of the most impressive (to me) was the demonstration of full motion gaming. This was a demo of a special level of the upcoming game Portal 2 using a Razer full motion controller. This controller looked a lot like a Wii controller but it was built for the PC. We watched the Intel Rep as he used the controller to interact with the environment; he was able to stretch cubes, extend things out in front of him and more. I can see this type of tech bringing back some punch to PC gaming. The demo was run on a Core i5 using "out of the box" resolution.

This was not the only cool thing showed off though. We saw a large number of smaller mobile products including a wide array of Slate PCs that were using Atom CPUs. Interestingly the Asus Slate was not in the group. We found out that it was being shown off by Microsoft, and had to go over there to tinker with it.

We also had the chance to see some practical applications of Intel's new AVX (Advanced Vector Instructions). The demo here was a composite of a piece of artwork. An image was created at each step of the work. These were layered in Photoshop and then projected onto a 3D display that did not require glasses. It was fairly impressive and I am sure will have some interesting applications with future consumer imaging programs (3D photography from 2D images?)

We also was D-Link's Boxee media player. This was formerly a prize that nVidia was showing off. However due to a few issues and the lack of a single HD CODEC caused D-Link to move to Intel.

All in all if was an impressive display this year with a serious leaning toward the mobile computing space.