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Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/2133
Taiwan Pre-CES Technology Tour Part 2
by Gary Key on December 12, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
In our first Pre-CES article from Taiwan we mentioned OCZ Technology's upcoming product plans for early 2007 that include NVIDIA 8800 series graphics cards, affordable gaming mice, new cooling products, and a partnership with ASUS and Shuttle to build gaming specific kits that consist of motherboards, memory, custom SFF cases, and probably power supplies. Besides the product announcements OCZ Technology also hosted their first APAC Summit.
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The purpose of the OCZ Summit 2006 was to bring together several different partners in the PC Industry to discuss current trends, showcase upcoming products, and demonstrate overclocking techniques utilizing today's latest hardware. The participants included abit, Albatron, ASUS, Biostar, DFI, Gigabyte, Shuttle, and SIS. Each of the participants presented their take on the current industry, displayed a few of their latest products, and openly spoke at length with the media members about their product's strengths and weaknesses in an honest manner. These discussions were lively at times and we have to admit some of the comments surprised us as we were expecting a full tilt public relations spiel from the collective group. Instead, we were mainly treated with engineering lingo along with a few technical demonstrations. Being the geeks we are, the technical demonstrations were the most exciting although we wish there would have been more of them.
What did we learn? Unfortunately, some of the more exciting items are under NDA until CES but we did pick up a few tidbits here and there. It appears the AMD/ATI R600 graphics cards are still on schedule for an early Q1 2007 launch and should provide some very serious competition to the GeForce 8800 series. However, all of the expected benefits and performance improvements of this release will also bring some serious power requirements. We heard power consumption numbers hovering around 430~450W for the high-end CrossFire setup while under full load. Those are power requirements just for the cards according to our sources who said the first silicon spins actually consumed even more power. What the final numbers will be is anyone's guess but be prepared to start looking at 800W+ power supplies in the near future if you want to run extreme performance GPU configurations.
Most of the manufacturers are very upbeat about the upcoming AMD 690G (RS690) chipset for the AM2 platform. This will be the first true competitor from AMD in response to the NVIDIA 6150/430 combination. This chipset features an enhanced Radeon X700 graphics core that will be renamed the Radeon X1250. It features full DX9 support (we're still trying to determine whether Shader Model 3.0 is supported) along with the AVIVO video engine for hardware accelerated H.264 and VC1 video playback on Blu-ray or HD-DVD drives. Power consumption with the accompanying SB600 is said to be very low with the chipset possibly being used in upcoming mini-ITX boards.
We were also informed that the upcoming enthusiast level Intel P965 motherboards from ASUS and Gigabyte among others should easily reach 550FSB levels with 500FSB being the minimum level of FSB overclocking capability. The manufacturers are very comfortable with the chipset now and the next wave of boards should show additional maturity in their designs. Of course, this comes right before the launch of BearLake in the spring so if you are currently using Intel be prepared for more growing pains with this new release.
Speaking of Intel, all of the manufacturers were excited about the upcoming E4000 series of processors as it will bring the Core 2 Duo technology further downstream in the market. This will open up opportunities for utilizing Intel chipsets such as the 946PL in the lower-end markets where VIA and SIS are having success. Also, we were told that motherboard requirements for the Quad Core series of processors have been clarified and to some degree "tightened" up by new Intel specifications. This is another reason why generation two P965 and generation three 975X boards will be introduced shortly. Finally, we expect a new set of Intel video drivers that should greatly enhance the performance of the X3000 graphics core in the G965 motherboards within the next thirty days. While we have had G965 motherboards for the past few weeks, we have delayed our reviews waiting on this driver set and are hoping it comes out quickly and delivers the promised performance expectations.
OCZ Technology
We have already discussed most of OCZ's new product introductions in our first article but noticed an interesting item on display in their booth.
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OCZ will be introducing several high performance water cooling blocks over the next few months. However, it was their prototype Phase cooling system that caught our eye. Although this unit has been discussed for the past year, OCZ assures us the unit is now in the final stages of design work and will be introduced early next year at a street price of around $400.
DFI
As one of the premier performance oriented motherboard companies, DFI has been introducing some of the best overclocking motherboards around for the past few years. Their upcoming product releases will include motherboards based on the AMD RD600 and NVIDIA 680i SLI chipsets along with a revised 975X Infinity that is probably one of the best value to performance 975X motherboards on the market today.
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DFI publicly demonstrated their new LanParty UT ICFX3200-T2R/G motherboard based on the RD600 chipset. The board features dual PCI Express based Gigabit controllers from Marvell that can be teamed together, Karajan audio module featuring the Realtek ALC885 HD audio codec, IEEE 1394 support, four 3Gb/s SATA ports via the SB600 Southbridge, four 3Gb/s SATA port via the PCI based Promise PDC40719 (TX4300) chipset, three PCI Express x16 slots (1 x16 electrical or 2 x8 electrical, along with 1 x2 electrical), three PCI slots, and one Ultra133 IDE port via the SB600. The board is designed for mid to upper range overclocking, low power consumption, and true asynchronous memory speed capability. While initial testing shows this board will not break any SuperPI records, it is one of the top performing motherboards in applications and 3D gaming available today. The BIOS offers an incredible amount of tweaking options for those looking to extract the last ounce of performance out of their board and other components.
ASUS and Shuttle
As mentioned in our previous article, Shuttle, OCZ, and ASUS are working on a system that is designed around the ASUS Striker Extreme motherboard, Shuttle's custom case that will be the smallest ATX tower design case designed to run NVIDIA GeForce 8800 series cards in SLI, and memory/power options from OCZ. We will report on the final design and have internal pictures available during CES 2007.
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In the meantime we had an opportunity to play with the new ASUS P965 Commando board that is designed for serious overclocking. We were able to reach a benchmark stable overclocked of up to 550FSB with 4GB of OCZ Flex XLC memory at DDR2-1100 (5-5-5-12) on 2.15V with a Intel X6800 processor. This motherboard series should launch in early January and we will have additional specifications available shortly.
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ASUS also showed off their new P5N-E SLI motherboard based on the NVIDIA 650i SLI chipset. We are expecting a retail sample shortly and will put this motherboard through its paces to see how it compares to the Intel P965 chipset.
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We already reported on the new Shuttle Supertuned XPC chassis/motherboard offering but we were able to play with it during a gaming session. The unit included a GeForce 8800GTX and ran just as cool as a small ATX tower case with a similar setup. We believe Shuttle with OCZ's assistance will have a winner on its hands with this unit. We are expecting a retail sample in the near future and look forward to testing it.
Gigabyte
We spoke at length with Rockson Chiang, Product Manager, and Liliana Wen, Marketing Specialist, about Gigabyte's upcoming product releases and the new Gigabyte United joint venture with ASUS. The details of the merger can be found here but in essence the current Gigabyte motherboard and graphics division along with related support functions will become the new company with support being provided by ASUS in areas such as procurement leverage and manufacturing expertise to reduce product costs. Other positives about this deal will be an emphasis by Gigabyte United on expanding their research and development capabilities along with higher quality products designed around performance and affordability. We have already witnessed a greatly improved product in Gigabyte's latest product releases this past summer and the next revision of motherboards should build upon this success.
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One of the new products Gigabyte was displaying is their GA-N680SLI-DQ6 motherboard based on the NVIDIA 680i SLI chipset. The board features Gigabyte's updated Silent Pipe cooling system, new 12-phase power deliver system, and BIOS tweaks that should make this board very competitive with the current 680i offerings. The expected launch date is after CES and we will have further details and a preview of the board in early January. The current lineup of DS3, DS4, and DQ6 P965 motherboards are being redesigned currently with improved quad core performance, new heatsink designs, layout tweaks, and a Micron D9 friendly BIOS. We expect to have final board specifications and photos in the near future.
abit
Universal Abit was showing some interesting products and after speaking with Kiner Lau, Technical Marketing Manager, we became really excited about the new P965 based abit AB9 QuadGT motherboard. We are also interested in some upcoming product releases featuring their ultra high performance NVIDIA 680i motherboard, new iB-90 HD Intel G965 mATX motherboard for the digital home, and additional multimedia products such as a consumer level GPS unit. The 5.1 iDome speaker set also holds promise.
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abit showed us their new AB9 QuadGT motherboard based on the P965 chipset. This board addresses the layout issues of the AB9 Pro and improves upon its performance with 500FSB level overclocking expected along with terrific stock performance. This board will also feature support for ATI CrossFire, digital PWM design, quad core support, and a solid capacitor design. We expect this board to be one of the better P965 boards in the near future.
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abit also presented us with a retail sample of their new NF-M2 nView AM2 mATX motherboard featuring the NVIDIA 6150/430 chipset combination, Realtek ALC883 HD audio codec, Gigabit Ethernet based on the Realtek RTL8211BL controller, DVI or VGA output, and overclocking capability. The board is available now and we will be reviewing it shortly.
Albatron
Albatron recently provided us with their KI51PV-754 socket 754 mini-ITX motherboard that we are currently testing. Albatron told us this motherboard has proven to be very popular but one of the main suggestions from users was to move to a socket AM2 design. Albatron will be doing this sometime next year but until then we highly suggest that anyone interested in a high-performance mini-ITX platform take a look at the current offering.
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For those of us looking for an Intel based mini-ITX motherboard, Albatron will be releasing one based on the Intel 945GT/ICH7 chipsets that feature mobile on desktop technology. This offering will fully support the Yonah (Core Duo mobile) and Merom (Core 2 Duo mobile) processor series, DVI/VGA/TV-output, and up to DDR2-800 memory support. While based on the GMA-950 video engine, it should offer good performance for typical home applications and video processing support.
Compro
Compro was not part of the OCZ summit but they managed to grab us in the hotel lobby during our visit and we were glad they did. Compro is in the process of rolling out some new multimedia products during CES and we were able to look at one of their first new products.
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Their new VideoMate V600 analog TV box allows you to watch analog TV shows on your CRT/LCD/PDP monitor at 1680x1050, 1600x1200, or 1440x900 resolutions now. The unit also supports 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, and 1280x960 resolutions. The unit is fully plug and play compatible and does not require drivers. It features a built-in 2D+3D Y/C separation and noise reduction chipset along with progressive scan video output. The unit can be connected via S-Video or composite video inputs, stereo audio, and supports 480i component video input. The unit is designed so that you can connect your Xbox or Playstation 2 to the unit and output the game video/audio content to your monitor. Unfortunately, one minor drawback is that the output is limited to a D-sub (VGA) connection at this time. We will have a review of this unit coming up in the near future.
Closing Thoughts
We certainly enjoyed our time in Taiwan and want to thank all of the companies that we met with for their generous hospitality. We were able to view some exciting new products, discuss product plans, and gather information that we will be able to share with you in the near future. In the meantime, you can look forward to reviews of several of the products that we've discussed in the coming weeks, along with some that we can't mention -- although they fit nicely in our luggage for the trip back home.