 Linus Tech Tips coverage of Computex 2016 is brought to you by the Corsair Lapdog, the gaming command center that allows you to use a full-size mouse and mechanical keyboard on your couch and by MSI. So this right here in the ASUS booth is the ROG Avalon, one of the most bewildering demonstrations that I've seen even at a trade show probably since Project Christine two and a half years ago at CES. They're taking kind of the idea, okay, of these modules that you slide into kind of a computer backplane, breaking the ATX form factor and the constraints that it imposes upon us once and for all, but in a more realistic direction. So this right here is a finished sort of high-end configuration of what an ROG Avalon might look like and it's got a few key advantages. So number one is that with two simple buttons, you can pull off the right and the left side panel along with this plexi top, a very, very unusual internal layout. So the motherboard is actually right up here on the top, but conspicuously absent are any cables other than the two for the fans for the radiator and the two that go into the graphics card that's plugged into a PCI Express 16x slot over here on the side. And this is very, very intentional. So in order to achieve a near cable-less design for what is probably, though it's very early stages right now, probably going to be a barebone system, Asus has taken a normal motherboard and pretty much completely blown it up. So all of these, you know, dogfish code name boards that I'm holding here are pretty much what is inside the bottom module. You can see they clip together with solid connectors, whether they're 24 or 8-pin connectors like you would normally find on a motherboard or slot style connectors like you might find on, say for example, a barebone server. So the idea behind it is that anyone can DIY their own barebones machine with this thing, whether it's thanks to the 2.5-inch hot swap SATA cages in the front, whether it's thanks to the fact that there are no obstructions when you're trying to install a motherboard like you would typically see on a barebones computer, or whether it's just for the easy access to the memory modules here in the top. Not only that, but they're saying that if this were to come to market, they would be looking at ways to future-proof it as well in a way that you typically can't do with a motherboard. So these right here are I.O. modules that would be able to unplug and plug into the back and they would support anything from higher performance audio solutions to extra M.2 slots for an additional SSD, all the way up to, oh I don't know, new unreleased I.O. modules. New unreleased I.O. connections like say for example, you know, let's say they had done this two or three years ago and USB Type-C came out of nowhere, boom, you could add Type-C to your machine. Now, with all of that said, I have some serious reservations about this concept. So for one thing, ASUS, I love them dearly, but they have been the kings of building something once with the idea of future-proofness and upgradability and then either never delivering on upgrade modules, or in the case of things like the HyperKit or things like those Thunderbolt EX modules that you can theoretically plug into almost any ASUS full-size normal motherboard, the availability or the cost is a serious concern. So for things like upgrading these modules, I'm kind of looking at it going, even if they're cheap to manufacture, the regional office wants their cut, the distributor wants their cut, the retailer wants their cut, you've got to pay shipping on the darn thing. Does it even make any economic sense and compared to a regular bare bones where it could already have the power supply and the motherboard installed where you're basically plugging in SATA power, SATA data and two connectors for your graphics card, compared to that, are we really achieving anything better here, especially considering that the I.O. is very similar, though it was pointed out to me that it supports four DIMM slots, not two compared to an I.O. that has four DIMM slots. It was very similar to what you would see on an ITX motherboard. These are hard questions for anyone to answer right now, but I'd love to hear from you guys in the comments. Is ASUS' product manager, who is very bullish on this idea, correct or am I? So thanks once again to Corsair for sponsoring our trip to Computex this year. You can check out the lap dog at the link in the video description and a shout out to MSI. They are showing off their new Aegis X desktop as well as their GTX 1080 Gaming X graphics card. We've got that linked in the video description as well. So don't miss any of our Computex coverage by making sure you're subscribed to Linus Tech Tips, and I will see you guys at the next booth. Or maybe Luke will.