Computex Coverage 2005
Introduction and Abit
Computex is one of the largest computer conventions that’s held on a yearly basis. The show is located in Taipei, Taiwan and is always swarmed with visitors. This year I had the chance to attend and visited many of our sponsors as well as made many future possible supporters. Take a look at what they have in the near future. Pictures are worth a thousand words.
Abit:
Here’s all their current Fatal1ty products. The NI8 SLI is the Fatal1ty nForce4 for Intel. Also shown are the Fatal1ty AN8 SLI and the older Fatal1ty AA8XE. The Fatal1ty X800XL with 512MB has a picture of Johnathan Wendel. Ehhh… While the Fatal1ty line is great, I’m not all too sure that everyone wants a picture of him on our hardware.
Here are more video cards from Abit. The higher end X850 series along with X800 AGP. Notice the power connector used on it. Two floppy connectors?
Here are the new Abit motherboards featuring the Intel 945/955 chipsets. The BL8 is BTX form, and something that many of us don’t really care as of now. The AL8 will be the mainstream Intel motherboard for the budget enthusiasts. The NI8 SLI is non-Fatal1ty and comes with Abit’s Silent OTES. Sorry about the pictures, that blue glow is a backlight from the showcase.
Here you’ll see Abit’s new Silent OTES and the use of it on the AN8 SLI non-Fatal1ty. The Fatal1ty AN8 SLI is featured on a live demo and is connected to Abit’s uGuru panel. The most interesting part of the panel is that it has a CMOS clear button. What happens if you accidentally push it when the system is on? You’ll have to restart and go back into the BIOS and reconfigure all your settings. No your motherboard won’t fry. The fan bracket is included to provide additional cooling to video cards and other add-on cards.
Here are the new upcoming Abit AMD motherboards. Many complained that the AN8 didn’t use the nForce4 Ultra chipset so Abit is going to release a AN8 Ultra version. The NV8 is a Socket 754 with PCI-E motherboard. The KN8 is pretty much the same as the regular AN8 but without the OTES. Again sorry about the picture. There is a green glow coming from behind the showcase.
Here we see Abit’s new optional accessories. The new uGuru clock features a instant messaging function that allows gamers to call for real help during intensive battles. Let’s say that you’re in a game and want to ask your friend to join. Of course you can always pick up the phone and call but then gamers have gamer friends worldwide. The only way to contact right now would be to exit the game, message your friend, and then get back in. Most likely you’ll lose your spot and never get back in. Abit’s uGuru clock allows instant messaging of gamer friends with the push of a button. It’ll let your friend know where you are and what game you’re playing. Can you say immediate backup? The certification is to prove that the AW8-MAX has been Dolby approved. This means that home end users can use the AW8-MAX for high quality audio. The remote control is a new device that’s similar to the uGuru clock. It also displays all the systems speeds and etc, but without the Skype function. The remote control does allow you to control the multimedia playback at the touch of your fingertips.
Here is Abit’s demo of the ATI Crossfire. The board isn’t an Abit board but they were displaying it anyway.
Gigabyte
Of course we start off Gigabyte by showing their new 6800GT 3D1 video card. The card features a custom PCB with dual 6800GT GPU’s. This card is currently the fastest “single” card solution available. As for the pricing and availability, they’re waiting for the G70 to be released and will decide later whether the 6800GT 3D1 will be a wise choice in terms of price/performance.
Gigabyte’s coolers because popular after the release of their 3D Rockets. The new G-Power coolers are very similar to Thermalright heatsinks and are getting great hype. Gigabyte introduces a new watercooling system to meet further cooling demands. The waterblock is similar to Swiftech’s pin design. It has small pins inside. You might wonder why there’s a fan on top of the CPU waterblock. That fan is used to cool surrounding components like MOSFET’s and RAM. One very interesting concept from Gigabyte is on their video card. The heatsink has both a fan and watercooling capabilities. Without watercooling, the fan spins to cool the heatsinks. With watercooling, the fan spins to cool the heatsink even more. You can also turn off the fan if you want silence. Great idea isn’t it! The last two pictures show small fans that function like Abit’s OTES. It has a duct to guide the airflow to cool MOSFET’s and other components.
Here’s the big hype from Gigabyte for the past few days. The i-RAM is a new device that plugs into the PCI slot and connects to a SATA drive. It supports up to 4GB of memory, which in turn is used as storage. It has blazing fast speed! Just check out the PCMark04 scores!
Everyone is heading towards user friendly multimedia devices. Gigabyte is currently striving in that direction and is apparent with their new gadgets. Shown here is the HA91 with the wireless keyboard and mouse (the mouse is the ball with two buttons on the left). The unit has wireless capabilities and allows you to connect to another computer to show your movies and etc. It also allows recording from TV to blank DVD’s. The notebook shown is my favorite out of all they have. It’s all white and comes in a decent size. It’s light and very portable. I liked it so much I took a picture of it. Haha.
Here are a couple of video cards to show Gigabyte’s heatpipe cooling for video cards. It’s different between the X800 and the 6600GT. The two boards taken are AMD A64 X2 ready. One is from Nvidia and the other from VIA. The last picture is just on a general server. Nothing interesting here but I took a picture mainly because I wanted to mention the use of that big heatsink and those Delta-looking screaming fans.
I was fortunate enough to attend the Gigabyte/Intel Press Conference where speakers announced the roadmaps and future prospects of Gigabyte. The pictures are pretty much self-explanatory.
Asus and DFI
Here you can see the dual 6800 Ultra from Asus. While it’ll pack great performance, the card size won’t even fit in a regular ATX case. That thing is HUGE. Gigabyte’s version is much better, even if it’s just 6800GT. What’s innovative is the Wireless TV-out capability of the 6600GT. I wonder how it’ll work.
Here are the current and future motherboards based on Intel and ATI chipsets. Notice the heatpipe cooling method that’s similar to the Silent OTES by Abit. We don’t really know who actually came up with the idea but at least we know Abit was the first to market it.
Shown here is Asus’ Crossfire. Although it’s showcased, the platform is for Intel users. They didn’t show any AMD version, or at least I didn’t see it.
Here are DFI’s newest motherboards. The first picture is their Intel nForce4 motherboard. The second is the AMD Socket 939 with ATI’s chipset that allows Crossfire. This is the first motherboard shown with the chipset by any motherboard manufacturer. Kudos to DFI for being fast on this one. The next two pictures are of a different line called OC Party. The main focus of these motherboards is to make it as affordable as possible (some still think the LANParty is expensive) and keep all the overclocking features. These boards are still under construction. There is also another motherboard shown that I didn’t get a chance to take a picture. My battery died. It’s the Socket 939/AGP motherboard that everyone’s been waiting for. The Intel nForce4, Socket 939 with ATI chipset, and Socket 939 with AGP will all be reviewed here at InsaneTek in the near future when the boards are available. The Socket 939/AGP should be first and will arrive in a couple of days, followed by the ATI XPRESS200 a couple of weeks later. The Intel nForce4 will arrive a month later.
Leadtek and Titan
With so many video card makers pumping out dual GPU cards, Leadtek follows with their dual 6600GT. Looks pretty impressive.
TITAN:
While TITAN doesn’t always put out products every month or so, they do have cool stuff. There you can see the Vanessa S-Type, Vanessa L-Type (a larger version of the S-Type and features a 120mm fan), and their watercooling kits. Like that cool award shown?
Here are TITAN’s notebook coolers.
Here is TITAN’s new watercooling case. The case has the radiator flat on the side panel and has vents to allow cooling. The front panel is removable to allow users the option of changing the look.
Thermaltake
TITAN is not the only one with a watercooling case. Thermaltake’s new Taichi case comes with a bundles Bigwater watercooling kit. The front is also like the Armor/Kandalf cases. It has removable trays to allow users to put in all kinds of accessories they wish.
Here are Thermaltake’s current and future power supplies. The new power supply is called the Power Station. If you think current modular supplies are great, think again. The Power Station provides even better cable management and flexibility. The 5.25” bay is connected to the power supply through a single power cable. It then allows multiple connections to be made through the 5.25” bay. That little P.S.T. unit works the same way and can be placed anywhere to help with cable management. Great isn’t it!
Here are Thermaltake’s newest cases. We’ve reviewed the Circle and will review publish our review of the Eclipse in a couple of days. The new Swing looks like a Tsunami or Soprano without the front door. The Bach, Mozart, Tenor, and Mystic are the new HTPC cases that fit perfectly in a home theatre setup. They’re so clean.
Here is the grand daddy of all cases, at least in my opinion. It has the same great looks of the Eclipse but comes with a slim CD-RW/DVD-Rom! Since the release of the Circle and Eclipse, people have been wanting an actual drive on the front door. Thermaltake has heard the demands and has now released a whole new case called the Eclipse DV. OMG I’m drooling. You bet your ass I’m going to get one.
Here are Thermaltake’s line of cooling products. Remember the old Golden Orbs? Thermaltake brought it back! While many will say it looks like a Zalman replica, you have to keep in mind that Thermaltake did start the orb coolers. The Golden Orb II has just been modified, and as a final result looks like Zalman coolers. The Tribe is Thermaltake’s newest external watercooling unit. Next to it are their watercooling accessories of water level and flow meter. These are housed in a container that fits inside a drive bay. The tide water is a watercooling kit specific for video cards. The unit fits inside your PCI slot area. The two big towers are the external fanless watercooling units. The one in the back is huge. It’s as tall as I am, or maybe even taller!
Lastly, here are Thermaltake’s external HD enclosures.
Lian-Li and Zalman
Is that a huge snail??? Nope, it’s Lian-Li’s newest case. I certainly am not a big fan of it.
Lian-Li ventures finally ventures into the HTPC market with some cool looking cases. The last case is probably one of Lian-Li’s newest cases as well.
Zalman’s biggest debut is their new CPU cooler, the CNPS9500. It has LED lights and features the use of heatpipes and keeping the flower design.
Here are more pictures of Zalman’s Fatal1ty case and their TNN line of cases.
Zalman continues their external fanless watercooling kit with the Reserator 1+. Their waterblocks are also revised.
Silverstone
Perhaps the most impressive HTPC case I’ve yet to see is the SilverStone LC18. That bad boy has a touch screen LCD panel right in front! Car modders will certainly love something like this. SilverStone’s SFF case is designed similarly to the Falcon Northwest FragBox 2, which was also designed by SilverStone. SilverStone is currently working with motherboard makers to push them into making micro-ATX motherboards that allow Crossfire. All the heat will dissipate and exit through the ventilation holes. Now this is true gaming on the go.
SilverStone is one of the first to actually be Nvidia SLI certified in the power supply section. Their power supplies are robust and built with excellent quality. The modular power supply is built on the same specs as the 650W version but has been rated a bit lower to 600W. The 300W fanless power supply is also built with the same specs as higher rated power supplies but has been rated lower mainly because it has no active cooling. The two black power supplies are future SilverStone power supplies that are rated to run 750W and 850W. The 400W fanless power supply is built upon the same specs as the 850W but has been lowered due to passive cooling. The fanless power supplies will come with an optional fan that allows users to be able to push the power supply to provide 850W with the fan installed.
A-DATA, Twinmos, and PDP
A-DATA’s booth is quite large and even features a radio broadcast station at their booth. They’ve announced and released DDR2-1066 memory! Notice the award for the Vitesta PC4800.
TwinMOS has a PRO TwiSTER module that is rated to run PC4800. Another one of their models is labeled “BH5”. We all know what these use. They’ve also displayed their latest DDR2-1066 memory. Seems like everyone is hitting it these days.
PDP Patriot has been getting lots of attention lately. The new Patriot line of memory is getting a revamped look. Just look at the heatspreaders, or should I say heatsinks. It looks awesome. I personally love it. The red will be found on DDR1 and black will be found on DDR2. Is that a single stick of 1GB PC4800???!!!
Geil and Conclusion
GeIL has announced CAS1.5 memory modules and have showcased it at their booth. Notice the memory running 350MHZ at 2.5-3-3-6! Actually that should be an error. The lowest divider for AMD A64 CPU’s is 5x so at 4x the memory is actually running at 4 x 350HTT = 1400/5 = 280MHZ. I will talk to the GeIL engineer about that. Their showcased DDR2 memory features carbon fiber heatspreaders. It’s real carbon fiber, not some cheap imitation that just looks like it. The memory is running at DDR2-1072, the highest shown at Computex. Memtest only shows up to 3 digits so only 107 is being displayed.
Here are GeIL’s other memory products. They have white heatspreader memory for Apple systems, orange heatspreader memory for low latency DDR2, and shiny platinum heatspreader memory for DDR1.
Here’s all the other GeIL products. They have various audio gadgets under their DAVID line. That small USB drive holds up to about 4GB and runs on dual channel. Although it’s currently under construction, it has great potential. The high storage and fast speed allows gamers to install games directly onto the drive and run it without lag. This means that even if your system has 512MB of system memory, you won’t notice lag during boot and load times. Another great innovative product for gaming on the go.
Conclusion:
This concludes our coverage of Computex. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to go to even more booths and take more pictures due to personal work but just taking a look at what’s shown shows a lot of promise in the near future. Expect us to receive goodies to review in the next couple of months. So stay tuned!
BTW, sorry about my terrible grammar since I didn’t have time to get this edited. All that’s important are the pictures right? Hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed putting this thing together for you…