CeBIT, CeBIT, CeBIT seems to cover most hardware related sites right now. You wonder how much news a single exhibition can offer. After making this coverage of CeBIT in Hannover, Germany, we can assure you that CeBIT is an (almost) never ending hardware news source…
CeBIT, CeBIT, CeBIT seems to cover most hardware related sites right now. You wonder how much news a single exhibition can offer. After making this coverage of CeBIT in Hannover, Germany, we can assure you that CeBIT is an (almost) never ending hardware news source. After spending three hectic days at the biggest european fair, NordicHardware’s representatives Alexander Nilsson, myself and Christopher Zell hardly been able to se one third of what was shown at this year’s version of CeBIT. The place for this spectacle was Deutsche Messe in Hannover, that offers no less than 498,000 sq meters for the exhibitors to show their products on.
CeBIT |
|
This year’s fair had no less than 560.000 visitors, who during a seven day period were browsing the exhibitors booths. We knew that CeBIT would be big, but our experience cannot be described in words, you have to see it for yourself. At the picture below you can see the fair’s 27 separate sections. As if this wouldn’t be enough, you can also find small houses at the roofs of certain sections, where the exhibitors had private parties and casual offices.
Exhibition map |
|
Lets leave the statistics and move on to what you all are waiting for, this spring’s hottest products. Our first section of this article covers nVidia and their partners.
As we reported the last months there is a lot happening right now in the graphics market. The latest chips we have seen previews on are the NV32 and NV34 and as we expected, there were many products based on these chips.
First we have Prolink Pixelview who showed up their version of GeForce FX 5600. The card has a 300/550 MHz clock and seems to have a more restrictive cooling than big brother 5800. Interesting enough is that the cheaper version of the NV31 only used 64 MB memory.
On the right side we see two Pixelview GeForce FX 5800 Ultra. The two cards seemed to be reference cards, of which one seemed to be of an earlier model.
Pixelview 5600 and 5800 |
|
Pixelview 5800 Ultra |
|
Inno3D is well known in Sweden and they proudly showed up their retail package. Palit Daytona had a 5800 ”non-Ultra” to show and they are using a more traditional way of cooling. Palit has chosen not to use the NV31 for any video cards. (Unknown reason).
Inno3D Tornado FX |
|
Palit Daytona FX 5800 |
|
One manufacturer that is most known for aiming at the OEM-market is QDI. Vi have been watching their attempts to enter the retail market, where they have been pretty successful. At CeBIT 2003 they were offering a full stock of nVidia-based video cards.
Triplex were going for a controversial solution, offering a transparent case with some accessories. Nice for those who like to walk the city bragging about their latest buys?
QDI + nVidia = true |
|
Triplex spices it up |
|
Sparkle also had a GeForce FX to offer. This seems to utilize the FlowFX method to cool the card’s chip. If you judge from the box, they will offer the whole NV3x-serie from nVidia.
Sparkle FX |
|
Sparkle cartons |
|
A videocard manufacturer that to this point has been unknown to NordicHardware, is Galaxy. They will be offering video cards built on nVidia’s whole series of chips, ranging from TNT 2 up to GeForce FX. Apparently they will be shipping to both Europe and Asia, using their newly founded 3G Graphics name. It is interesting to see that many manufacturers are aiming at more unconventional cooling. For instance most manufacturers have equipped the GeForce FX 5200 with passive cooling.
PNY was also at CeBIT but their line of customer video cards was nothing but absent. All their effort now seems to be aimed at the launch of their line of Quadro FX. Unfortunately we couldn’t get our hands on any pictures of their products. On the other hand, we were told that they were seriously heading for the european market offering their Quadro based videocards.
nVidia wasn’t the only videocard manufacturer at the fair, the next page covers their worst arch enemy, ATI.
ATI had a different approach than nVidia at the fair. They kept a really low profile and they didn’t have an own booth showing the consumer market videocards. Instead they were aiming for the workstation segment with their FireGL. Their booth was located far away from nVidia and the other big manufacturers and attracting the professional market only. Despite this fact you could see the red and black ATI plastic bags everywhere.
The proud partners of ATI weren’t shy at all. Their big news was of course the Radeon 9800 Pro, based on R350 (read our preview/review of the chip here) but also some budget market cards were shown. The presentation of these cards were a bit more quiet. Let us take a closer look at what some of ATI’s more interesting partners had to offer.
H.I.S (Hightech Information System) proudly showed their new cooling, named IceQ. The name IceQ comes from the word ”IQ”, where Ice insinuate a powerful cooler, meanwhile the ”Q” is insinuating that this is an ”intelligent” cooling solution. The cooler is equipped with a temperature monitoring system and where the system is able to set the fan speed at the appropriate level needed at the moment. At a lower load, the fan is run at lower speeds to prevent noise, increasing the fan speed at higher load to meet the need of higher cooling performance. The architecture itself reminds much of the O.T.E.S coolers, where the hot air is blown out from the back of the case. The fan also has a bit larger diameter than what is normal at video card cooling, to be able to move a lot of air even at low fan speeds to keep a low noise level. The card that was shown with this cooling, was a 9700 Pro and the fan’s RPM would likely drop near below 2000. In the press material only the 9500, 9500 Pro, 9700 and the 9700 Pro are mentioned among those cards that will be equipped with IceQ. We are guessing that they shortly will be presenting a 9800 Pro equipped with IceQ as well.
Front |
|
Backside of the card |
|
In addition H.I.S showed their version of Radeon 9700 Pro All in Wonder, that finally has been released on the european market as well. To those of you that are not familiar with the AIW line of cards it means that the cards are equipped with a TV chip and a ViVo feature, that makes recording of TV shows possible. The recording can be done directly to the harddrive and the TV-shows can be displayed on a TV through the computer. A special software is included in the package that handles all features. A cool remote control comes with the bundle. The picture below doesn’t need more explanation.
H.I.S Radeon 9700 Pro AIW |
|
The next company, Connect3D, also had an AIW card on the menu, but the biggest news at their booth was the Radeon 9800 Pro. The card itself was nothing special, just following the reference design from ATI such as the PCB. Strangely enough they are using the cooling solution used on the 9700 Pro. They also presented other cards based on the slower chip versions in ATI’s line, but these too followed the reference design in detail.
H.I.S Radeon 9700 Pro AIW |
|
On the opposite, the manufacturer Saphire, had some new stuff to offer. First of course the 256 MB version of Radeon 9800 Pro, which you can see at the picture below, together with its smaller brothers in the product line. The Radeon 9800 Pro 256 MB version is not yet officially recognized by ATI. If it is in the right term a ”Pro-card” only the future can tell.
H.I.S Radeon 9700 Pro AIW |
|
Besides these highly expected news from Saphire, they also showed their efforts in creating new creative solutions of cooling.
Innovative cooling |
|
Above they showed a totally passive cooling system, based on the Zalman ZMP80 heatsink but also copper waterblock of high quality. We have earlier seen results hitting 400+ MHz core frequency on a 9700 Pro with watercooling, which gives hope and interest for the watercooled card market, and of course, us overclockers.
Passive cooling |
|
The watercooling |
|
Probably Hercules should be recognized as the pioneer in equipping video cards with watercooling, aimed at the consumer market, but Saphire seems to do a really good job following their footsteps. Unfortunately Hercules wasn’t represented at the fair, so we cannot provide you with any information about their future plans.
More water |
|
FIC that are less known to us at the Scandinavian market, also had some ATI based cards to show. At the picture below you can see their 9700 line models. The 9700 Pro version had some differences in cooling and thankfully enough they equipped the memory modules with heatsinks, which still is pretty unusual when it comes to ATI based cards.
FIC 9700 |
|
FIC 9700 Pro |
|
Radeon 9800 Pro cards were also present. The design seemed to be the exact same as the reference card we previewed recently. Just before the previews of the Radeon 9800 Pro would be published, FIC announced at their web page, that their version of 9800 Pro would have a 400/920 MHz clock and the PR material we received supported this. We also received information about the 9800 non-pro version, that seems to utilize a 325/620 MHz clock, which is the same clock as the Radeon 9700 Pro.
If the clock frequencies on their Radeon 9800 Pro would be correct, it sure seems to be an interesting video card. We sense that those high frequencies only will apply on the 256 MB version.
9800 |
|
One manufacturer that had some big plans, was PowerColor. Vi had a chance to chat a bit with their personnel at the fair and soon we discovered that they were going for a crazy overclocked version of the Radeon 9800 Pro. The reason why we couldn’t get more detailed information about this card is that ATI not yet had their approval and that there are still stability tests done. This overclocked monster card seemed really promising and we can reveal that a core frequency will hit above 400 MHz. If this card will be able to outperform the FIC’s card only future can tell. While waiting for more detailed information regarding this monster card, you have to satisfy with pictures of the 9800 Pro standard version and another nice card.
9800 Pro |
|
The carton |
|
Power Color is actually one of the first to announce what many customers have been waiting for, a 9700 Pro based card with dual DVI.
Dual DVI |
|
A manufacturer that has had a lot of attention lately for its Radeon 9700 Pro cards is Tyan. The company is mostly known for its server motherboard solutions, but recently they have also started manufacturing videocards. What is exceptional about their line of videocards, which by the way is called ” Tachyon”, is the blue heatsink that has made really high overclocking possible. Tyan wasn’t attending the fair either, why we couldn’t ask them about more details, but they were at least represented by their distributors of the european market. In their booth you could see that they will offer cards based on the RV280 (Radeon 9200). We couldn’t find any information about the Radeon 9600 or the Radeon 9800.
Tyan Tachyon |
|
Of course also Gigabyte showed their line of videocards based on ATI’s circuits but these cards will be covered later in this article. Let us leave ATi for a moment and look more into what nVidia was doing at the fair.
On of the more interesting partners of nVidia is Gainward that we had the opportunity to talk to for a while. Their booth was covered with different awards and recommendations that their products have received the last years, and a huge pillar made of GeForce FX boxes.
Cartons |
|
The company has made themselves a name through manufacturing fast overclockable-friendly cards, always bundled with lots of various extra features and accessories. They plan to continue doing that also at the release of GeForce FX line of cards. We can proudly present their upcoming line of products and we would like to give a special thanks to the swedish office in Malmoe, Sweden, giving us some extra time at the fair. Enough sucking up and lets start examining the GeForce FX.
Front |
|
Backside |
|
As you can see the cooling is pretty solid. Large copper sinks cover both front and the back of the card. Instead of the traditional fins, Gainward has gone for round fins like those found on Swifttechs cpu heatsinks. The fan cooling the heatsink is especially developed by Gainward themselves and it should be about 10 dB quieter than the reference cooling systems from nVidia. Further, the design is so far identical to nVidia’s reference design, as you can see from the green PCB. Even the back side of the card seems to be the nVidia reference design, where you find one DVI- and one VGA port. Of course there is also TV-out and an exhaust for hot air. As you can se the card is really large and it is heavy as well. Copper is know to have a heavy weight and carrying this card around a whole day can give even the best some good physical training. The box itself reveals that there will also be some ”Golden Sample” cards but for now, the clock frequencies are the same as nVidia’s specifications for the FX5800.
In/Out |
|
Side |
|
The most interesting with this card is actually all the additional accessories you get. The card itself is actually not the only hardware you get. Gainward has included an own soundcard based on the C-Media circuit. This circuit delivers a 5.1 sound and we also found optical in-out ports on the card. Actually not bad at all.
Soundcard |
|
The soundcard’s in- and outputs |
|
Except for the soundcard, you also get a three input/output Firewire card, headphones and all kinds of cables. Everything to be able yo use all input/outputs that are available on the card. Of course a whole lot of software will be included in the package, such as games and DVD-software.
Accessories |
|
Of course all this has a price. With what’s included in mind, its getting a pretty costly buy. The price tag of a Gainward FX Powerpack! Model Ultra/1000 Plus ”Golden Sample” wont cost less than 699 Euro. A non ultra version will cost about 549 Euro, not anything for the budget customers you could say. Later on Gainward has some upcoming models bases on the NV31 and NV34 for those with a smaller budget.
NV31 |
|
Backside |
|
The pictures above show Gainward’s upcoming cards, based on the NV31 while the picture below shows NV34. The NV34 card delivers far from the same effect that its big brothers do and it has only a passive cooling system. Maybe this could be suitable for the barebone systems?
NV34 |
|
For those who have studied these pictures thoroughly, you might have noticed the white input/output up on the left corner. This input/output is totally unique for Gainward’s products. Through this connector you will be able to connect other hardware later on, to extend your videocard even more. Exactly what Gainward has in mind we cannot reveal today, but in a short period of time you will be able to see the purposes of this input/output slot.
Connections |
|
Not everything in Gainward’s booth was aiming at graphics, but the next product in line has a close connection to video cards.
NV31 |
|
backside |
|
Even Gainward is developing their own watercooling. If you take a closer look, you can see that parts of the waterblock form the letters ”FX”. I wonder what they mean by that?!
Front |
|
Backside |
|
As you can see on the pictures, both the memory block and the GPU block have individual water circulations so that no already heated water is lead to the next part of the system. The radiator used at the show wasn’t the one destined for final use, Gainward is developing a new solution for this too.
Connections |
|
The radiator |
|
In the pictures below you see a radiator, pump and tank unit. This is so far just a prototype and the final product will look different. This solution is borrowed from Pentalpha, having their own exhibition stand on the fair. The system was used as inspiration for the development of Gainward’s own system.
Cooling unit #1 |
|
Cooling unit #2 |
|
Just like Corsair, Gainward is thinking about integrating everything in a separate cooling unit.
Cooling unit #3 |
|
Now when you are a bit warmed up from all the pictures, it’s time to show results of what such watercooling can achieve. Let’s look at the temperature and the clock frequencies.
Temperature |
|
Overclocking |
|
A full 58 MHz extra for the core can be considered good, or what do you think? Unfortunately the memory is quite another story. Since the memory clock frequencies still are locked in the drivers, Gainward couldn’t perform any memory overclocking, but we were promised a solution to this problem in the near future. We are anxious to see the next part of Gainward’s watercooling experiments.
This was far from everything Gainward had for show though. Below you can see Gainward’s own TV-box with ethernet connection, among other things. This product will so far, unfortunately, only be available on the american market.
Tv Box |
|
Connections |
|
Below you see pictures of a future MPEG-card. The details concerning the card are in the present situation secret, why we can’t show you more than pictures. We have never seen a MPEG-card with a fan on it, one can only wonder what Gainward are up to.
MPEG #1 |
|
MPEG #2 |
|
Gainward seems to have an exciting future ahead of them with all their new products and ideas. The first specimen of FX cards intended for reviewers will soon be available, and then we will of course report more.
When we first began to hear that the NV30 was under production and due to hit the market, Leadtek was one of the first companies to straighten it’s back and say that their card would be first to be sold. Their solution considering cooling on this card is, to say the least, interesting. Two angled fans are supposed to ensure that the airflow ”inside” the card cools down the whole heat sink, encompassing the entire product. This is enabled by letting one fan pull in air while the other one blows.
Leadtek FX 5800 ViVo |
|
Backside |
|
The question is whether this cooling is just quiet or if it also cools better than FlowFX, the answer will hopefully be found out soon here on NH.
When it come to inputs and outputs, the non-Ultra variety offers complete Video In and Out functions. Even the Ultra version will later be equipped with ViVo.
Connections |
|
Leadtek FX 5200 |
|
Leadtek’s NV31 is equipped with a pretty awesome cooling, unfortunately the press material on this card was very limited so we can’t reveal much more at the moment.
WinFast A180 MyVIVO |
|
DVR |
|
Leadtek are really investing in DVR and VIVO. Above to the left we find a low cost solution consisting of a GeForce4 MX with VIVO and to the right we see a dedicated video capture card (i.e. DVR).
More DVR |
|
Remote |
|
Here above we see more examples of Leadtek’s ventures on the PVR/DVR market.
 K7NCR18D Pro II |
|
K8N |
|
To the left we find Leadtek’s motherboard for AMD processors, based on nForce2. This motherboard is equipped for good usage of the integrated Soundstorm. When it comes to motherboards, Leadtek has kept quite a low profile, especially in Europe. To the right we find a future card for AMD’s Athlon 64 processors.
Below we find another nForce2 based card.
 K7NCR18GM |
|
Surely our regulars have seen what we are writing about on the following page but for you who are here for the first time for a couple of days, we can reveal that Corsair has some interesting things to show.
The first thing you associate to Corsair is probably memory. When we say memory we don’t mean just any memory but really fast and overclockable memory which unfortunately are delivered with a pretty juicy price tag. If it tastes good, it also costs, we use to say and this is also correct when it comes to Corsair’s products. This was however not at all what was shown in their show case at the CeBIT exhibition. Certainly there were some memory in place and no, those were not DDR II memory or 500MHz DDR I memory, but instead the usual selection. These products however have had to make way for something totally different. Fact is that Corsair is jumping on the water cooling train. The system shown is a completely sealed external water cooling system just like Koolance Exos. The name is Hydracool 200. Why 200 then? Well, the value 200 hints that the system is supposed to be able to handle up to 200W of heat from a processor. Let’s look closer at the system and it’s specifications.
The block installed |
|
Backside of the cooling unit |
|
The block, which can be seen in the picture to the left, is a really thin block made of very thin pure copper. Thanks to the special design by Delphi (who usually make cooling systems for General Motors), this mini block is supposed to handle at least as much heat as it’s larger competitors from the more established water cooling manufacturers. Unfortunately there was no possibility to see the inside of the block but Corsair states that there are a great number of very small fins, similar to an ordinary heat sink, leading the heat away from the CPU. The small white connections we see on the pictures automatically shut tight on disconnection, and thereby stops water spillage when the hoses are disconnected. The technology for this comes directly from the medical service which hints that this is a product that will last for a long time. Further more the connections are so called fast-connections which means that it doesn’t take more than a second to connect or disconnect the hoses to the system. The circumference of the hoses is pretty small, approximately 8 millimeters on the outside, but we were guaranteed that this wouldn’t stop the system from performing excellently. Unfortunately the hoses are mounted stuck on the block which makes it impossible to disconnect them from the CPU block itself if the user would want to switch hoses. The reason is that this system from the start was also meant for people who were just beginning to learn water cooling and Corsair wanted to minimize the risks for the final user of destroying the product by playing to much with the components. The black box, which contains the rest of the system, is equipped with a handle so that the system can be transported easily, making this product extremely LAN-friendly.
Above |
|
Side |
|
Inside the black box we find a number of interesting components. Which material the radiator is made of the personnel we came into contact with could not say, but they believed it to be made of aluminum or steel. The most reasonable metal to use would however be aluminum which leads to the question of corrosion, as copper and aluminum isn’t the best combination. This is taken care of by an addition to the water of the system, stopping or at least slowing down the corrosion. The radiator is cooled by a 120mm fan which spins slowly to minimize the sound level. I, the writer of this text, put my ear directly against the fan and I can assure that the sound level was extremely low, almost as low as a Papst fan. The pump in the system is made by the company Bosch and accordingly we are talking about a really powerful industrial pump which will last for many, many years. Neither did the pump make any noise and the system as a whole was really quiet. This may however be caused by the fact that the system was set on low sound level; we’ll get back to that later.
The tank also fits into the black box and the top openings makes it simple to add more water if needed. On top of that, the system is constructed so that the water level can easily be checked. As it’s practically impossible to see if the system is working or not, since there are no air bubbles whatsoever in it, Corsair has equipped it with a flow meter spinning rapidly when water flows. If it stops, the system should be shut down and controlled. The last component in the box is an IC circuit which handles temperature surveillance of the system and the big LCD display. Consequently the system is equipped with at temperature measurer directly in the water block.
The display |
|
System running |
|
The big front display shows the temperature of the system and offers the opportunity to choose between Centigrades and Fahrenheit. The size of the display is explained by the fact that it is supposed to be easy for the user to see the display from all thinkable positions and angles. Below the display we find a number of buttons which can be used to program two different alarm levels. When the temperature reaches level one, the unit makes a noise and thereby informs the user that temperature level number one is now reached. When the temperature reaches level two, which is the critical point, the system shuts down the computer to prevent eventual damages on the components due to overheating. Corsair has fixed the power supply by simply connecting the system to a 4-pins molex contact which already is placed on the computer’s existing net aggregate. That way, the costs are kept on a low level since you won’t need a separate source of power and the system can easily be connected.
So Hydracool 200 is Corsair’s first attempt on the water cooling market and we are very impressed by what has been achieved so far. If the system performs just as good as Corsair says it does, they should have good chances on really succeeding with this system. Already now there are a lot of plans for the future and we can among other things mention that within a few weeks, the water block for both video card and north bridge will be introduced, making the system easily uppgradable. Furthermore Corsair is working hard constructing a standard for measuring the effect the effect of a water cooling system so that comparison of different systems can be made more easily. As soon as we get a testing example of Hydracool 200, you will of course be informed and this should be done very soon, since press samples will be shipped out in a few weeks. Until then you will have to please yourselves by just looking at the pictures.
At AMD we got to see more of the forever delayed 64 bits processors Opteron and Athlon 64. They were sitting in a small cabin which did not attract very much attention where they demonstrated their new products.
Powered by Opteron |
|
Stress test |
|
When we came from the separate cabin AMD were making stress tests on the Opteron. The system managed this challenge excellently.
Memory tests |
|
Opteron mainboard |
|
To show what good the larger memory addressings of the 64 bit processors’ can do, AMD showed a benchmark where you could see how the reference system began to collapse as it’s memory ran out. The Opteron system however managed very well thanks to the great amount of memory. To the right you can see how a server motherboard is supposed to look. Here you have a couple of DIMM-slots to play with, to say the least.
VIA Athlon 64 MOBO |
|
SiS Athlon 64 MOBO |
|
For ordinary users, there were some more motherboards to look at, adapted for the Athlon 64 platform. To the left you find VIA’s product and to the right you’ll see SiS.
nVidia Athlon 64 MOBO |
|
Gaming tests |
|
Of course nVidia was also represented with a ”sequel” of nForce2. What we didn’t see in AMD’s show case was Ali’s chipset for Athlon 64, more about that later. We also got to drool over a graphics demo which was really impressive.
Portable 64-bits |
|
Portable Barton |
|
Both Barton and Athlon 64 will be added in portable boxes within a relatively short amount of time. How Opteron will develop we can only wait and see.
AMD Embedded |
|
AMD is also investing in the embedded market as you can see above. Maybe they can give Intel’s Strongarm a fair fight?
SiS was on the spot; we mostly wanted to see Xabre II but unfortunately we did not find much more than some specs. Motherboards were there however.
746 FX |
|
748 |
|
Above you’ll see some of the supply for those using AMD processors. To the left we have the sequel to SiS 735/745, now with DDR400 support among other things. SiS 748 are bragging with HyperStreaming which accelerates the internal buses. Maybe they have looked a bit too much at AMD?
R 658 |
|
Xabre 600 |
|
To the left you’ll see the latest product from SiS on the P4 front in form of R658 and to the right: Xabre 600. Earlier this year we looked at Xabre 400 here. Xabre 600 is the same card but with clock frequencies on 300/600 MHz instead of 275/550 as in Xabre 400’s case.
On the Xabre II front we got the following facts:
Considering the last point, the card has shown to have support only for 4x Aniso, which eventually hints that SiS still hasn’t succeeded in fixing it’s programs with texture filtering performance. When it comes to FSAA we have heard that it will be both MSAA and SSAA, in both cases there has been talk about reaching up to 4x.
Earlier there were rumours that the card is going to have two TMUs (which would have given a 6000 MT/s fillrate), we have not been able to find out whether this is true or not. If this would be true, this sounds very impressive, maybe SiS can put up a fight against the two larger companies.
VIA did not make much noise at CeBit. They wanted to show their mini-motherboards and integrated solutions. A processor integrated on the motherboard at a reasonable price is not a bad idea, only, too bad that VIA’s C3 perform like something from the middle of the 90’s.
Mini-motherboard |
|
Integrated C3-processor |
|
Via were focusing hard on integrated C3 CPUs in, as good as, all of their mainboards for show.
Very tiny |
|
Connection possibilities for PC-cards
|
|
Up to the right you can see that the motherboard has a place for PCMCIA-cards of the same type that exists on laptops, these motherboards also has a integrated CPU.
Except this we also heard about VIA KT600 for AMD’s processors. This motherboard will have full support for 400mhz memory and FSB (which nForce2 already have unofficially). But there is no plans for dual channel DDR on VIA’s motherboards. They simply think that it’s better to develop a great memory controller instead of having double channels.
Now we are at the third party-manufacturers, first is Soyo who showed some motherboards for different platforms.
Soyo Canterwood |
|
Soyo Springdale |
|
CeBit 2003 was overfilled with Springdale and Canterwood-based motherboards. Unfortunately our pictures are very dark just here because Soyo’s show case had very bad lightning for our camera.
Soyo KT400 |
|
Soyo KT400A |
|
At the AMD-place, KT400 and 400A was the thing. The cheaper alternatives won’t budge much by nVidia’s success because the graphic-giant’s motherboards are still a bit more expensive.
Soyo K8 (Ali-based) |
|
Plexiglass |
|
We see a nice thing above: Ali’s chipset for Athlon 64. You don’t hear much about Ali nowadays, maybe they’ll be able to change this if they come up with some great Athlon 64-motherboards.
Finally, we can see on our right side that one of the ”example computers” is totally transparent.
More about different third party-manufacturers’ motherboards in part 2. Now let’s take a look at some storage devices.
There was not much interesting stuff in the storage area. The CD-Writers has almost stopped in development and we’re still at 52x. We found something interesting though:
DiscoBolo 3.2 Terrabyte |
|
The Front |
|
How about 3.2 Terrabyte storage space in one single unit? Maybe nothing for the everyday home user.
Western Digital was of course here with their 10 000 RPM:er.
WD Raptor |
|
WD Caviar SE |
|
Even the classic Caviar Special Edition was in place, we looked at their 200 GB-piece of this hard drive here.
Hitachi Deskstar 180 GXP |
|
Seagate Barracuda V |
|
Hitachi and Seagate were also there to represent their latest hard drives. IBM’s hard drive-manufacturing has now been taken over by Hitachi and they offer the Deskstar 180 GXP.
We also managed to film two short clips on an interesting product type, the storage organizer. One for hard drives and one for CDs. The clips speak for them selves.
CD-Organizer
Harddrive-Organizer
Of course we computer nerds are not only interested in the latest motherboards and video cards. When we where there, we also looked at some ”multimedia oriented” products and we found some really nice pieces.
Neuston DivX-player |
|
What we know is that Neuston is the second manufacturer which releases a DVD-player with DivX-support.
More Neuston |
|
KISS DivX-player |
|
What we found out about Neuston’s player sounded very good and we even talked about getting a test-example. Now to the KISS-player, they had some pretty nice news: they’ve gotten support for DivX 3.11 certification (since before, the player is already certified for DivX 4.x & 5.x). KISS also spoke about their opportunities to connect the player to a computer and even install a harddrive in it. The player will be available with a harddrive pre installed, but you can practically fit any IDE-harddrive in it. Why not hit it big, and buy a 200gb, in DivX-format you would’ve have space for 300 films.
Further more, you also have the possibilities to stream films, music and so on, over a network with the KISS-player.
Down to the left, you can see another gadget which handles a lot of different formats, and plays them on its little screen. And what about the small digital camera to the right. Maybe something for you who wish to take some nice ”upskirts” on the next trip?
Digital Data Player |
|
KISS DivX-player |
|
There were many USB-memory as you can see to the left. Despite taste, budget and needs, you’ll find something that matches you. To the right you can see the videophone, which never became popular. Will it have a market now, since broadband has spread over the world?
USB-memory |
|
Videophone |
|
Personally, i’m not so convinced about the videophone’s usefulness. There are many moments when you don’t want to look at the person you are talking to.
Trapezia 3-way |
|
Gigantic touchscreen |
|
Above, we can see all Parhelia-users wet dream: a system made out of three monitors ”in one”. Or if you wish to impress some coworkers, the huge touchscreen might be better.
Mini speakers |
|
TV-card |
|
On the mass, we found a couple of nice speakers by Soundridge. How small they really are can’t be seen by the pictures, unfortunately. To the right we have a couple of nice TV-cards, which, among other things, has support for Digital TV.
Besides Corsair, there were also a couple of other known memory manufacturers on site. The in Sweden relatively well known manufacturer GeIL showed us some of the coolest memory we saw during the fair. Their high end model is GeIL PC3700 466MHz DDR Golden Dragon, and are supposed to handle 466MHz without being overclocked. To be able to handle these speeds, the modules are equipped with handpicked 4ns chips. Further more, the 6 layer PCB is built around a new technique supposed to give clearer signals, essential to reach the specified speeds.
New is that these memory sticks lack heat sinks, and the explanation of this that the new chips and PCB dramatically decrease the generation of heat, thus rendering heat sinks unnecessary. Then what are the memory’s timings? The modules for show on CeBit are supposed to handle 2-7-3-3 2T, faster than stated at their web site, where it says CAS 2.5 7-3-3 2T @ DDR466 PC3700. The reason for this is that the memory for show was an ”Ultra”. That memory is supposed to run CAS 1.5 @ DDR400, nothing to sneeze at. Regarding the matter of voltage, GeIL are still as generous as always. 2.5V-3.1V aren’t supposed to be a problem, and playing with voltages within this frame do not affect the lifelong warranty. The price tag on the European market is as of yet unknown. So far GeIL have sported lower prices than Corsair, and we hope that they continue this aggressive pricing.
GEIL PC3700 |
|
Silver modules |
|
GeIL also had PC3500 memory intended for Dual DDR systems for show. These are delivered in pairs, and tested together in the factory, assuring trouble free operation in Dual DDR systems. PC3500 means a clock frequency of 433Mhz, and the memory are supposed to handle voltages between 2.5-2.9V.
DC DDR PC3500 |
|
A-Data was another memory manufacturer with products for show. The company has a sort of relationship with Albatron and specializes in memory and displays. The fastest memory they had for show was a 256MB DDR450. Not as fast as GeIL, but still impressing since it’s specified as CL2.
DDR450 |
|
A-Data memory |
|
Of course Corsair were there, but their memory wasn’t the most interesting thing they had in their exhibition case, which is the reason for them having a page of their own in our reportage. Though we did find a big memory manufacturer having a couple of new things to show us, GeIL are not the only ones having developed a DDR466 memory. Twinmos proudly showed their latest product, TwinMOS PC3700 (DDR466). The memory will be available in 128/256/512 MB and is said to be equipped with 4.3 ns chips. Cas Latency is 2.5 and the voltage handled is between 2.5-2.7V.
DC DDR PC3500 |
|
The response from all of these manufacturers were very good, and we hope to shortly being able to present reviews of these modules.
This was the end of part 1 of NordicHardware’s CeBit 2003 coverage. In the next part, coming up shortly, we will take a closer look at, among other things, mainboards.
Leave a Reply