Computex 2006: Abit is back, Biostar expands, and Thermaltake dazzles
by Gary Key on June 10, 2006 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Biostar: AMD Motherboards
The TForce 570 U Deluxe board features the NVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra chipset, passive cooling, and Realtek ALC-883 HD audio. Availability is expected within a couple of weeks with pricing not set yet but expected to be in the US $85~$100 range.
Biostar is one of the few manufacturers' offering both the NVIDIA nForce 550 and nForce4 AM2 boards. The main difference between the two is the lack of HD audio and Gb Lan on the nForce4 board. Like the 570 Ultra board, the TForce 550 utilizes active cooling for the MCP chipset. We can expect to see more passive cooling boards from Biostar in their next product release. The TForce 550 is already available and is one of the cheapest AM2 motherboards currently on the market.
Biostar: Video Cards
Biostar has recently introduced a complete line of video cards based upon NVIDIA chipsets ranging from the 7950 GX2 to the FX5200.
The above shot shows three of the more interesting video cards in the Biostar booth: the V6802XA52, V7602GSG1, and V7602GS21. The V6802XA52 features the 6800XT chipset on an AGP 8x bus with 512MB of DDR2 memory running at 700MHz with a core clock speed of 325MHz. While obviously outdated for today's latest systems, Biostar believes it to be a better upgrade path than other AGP based cards for those still running AGP based systems. Considering the amount of Intel 865 based boards we viewed with full support for Conroe this might not be a bad choice for those on a very limited budget. The V7602GSG1 is based on the 7600GS chipset but has 1024MB of memory running at 800MHz with a core speed of 400MHz and is passively cooled. This was the first 7600GS card we noticed with 1024MB of memory. Whether the card can utilize this amount of memory properly is debatable but it was nice to see cards including 1024MB at mainstream pricing. The V7602GS21 goes for a more common 256MB of video memory, for those that don't believe in overkill.
The TForce 570 U Deluxe board features the NVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra chipset, passive cooling, and Realtek ALC-883 HD audio. Availability is expected within a couple of weeks with pricing not set yet but expected to be in the US $85~$100 range.
Biostar is one of the few manufacturers' offering both the NVIDIA nForce 550 and nForce4 AM2 boards. The main difference between the two is the lack of HD audio and Gb Lan on the nForce4 board. Like the 570 Ultra board, the TForce 550 utilizes active cooling for the MCP chipset. We can expect to see more passive cooling boards from Biostar in their next product release. The TForce 550 is already available and is one of the cheapest AM2 motherboards currently on the market.
Biostar: Video Cards
Biostar has recently introduced a complete line of video cards based upon NVIDIA chipsets ranging from the 7950 GX2 to the FX5200.
The above shot shows three of the more interesting video cards in the Biostar booth: the V6802XA52, V7602GSG1, and V7602GS21. The V6802XA52 features the 6800XT chipset on an AGP 8x bus with 512MB of DDR2 memory running at 700MHz with a core clock speed of 325MHz. While obviously outdated for today's latest systems, Biostar believes it to be a better upgrade path than other AGP based cards for those still running AGP based systems. Considering the amount of Intel 865 based boards we viewed with full support for Conroe this might not be a bad choice for those on a very limited budget. The V7602GSG1 is based on the 7600GS chipset but has 1024MB of memory running at 800MHz with a core speed of 400MHz and is passively cooled. This was the first 7600GS card we noticed with 1024MB of memory. Whether the card can utilize this amount of memory properly is debatable but it was nice to see cards including 1024MB at mainstream pricing. The V7602GS21 goes for a more common 256MB of video memory, for those that don't believe in overkill.
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Gary Key - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
The on-board sound on this board will be the Realtek ALC-882M that is placed on a riser card. The sound was significantly better audio quality wise than some of the 882m solutions we have heard placed on the motherboard. We also spoke with Abit about utilizing the new Realtek ALC-888 which sounded a generation better to us and that was on a $85 ASRock board the same day. We are hoping the transition to the ALC-888 will be a quick one for most manufacturers as it would suffice for about 90% of the users. The balance will want a X-FI or something else discreet.
My issue with Abit, the Product Managers agreed, is that the buyer for these boards will typically not only want a discreet sound solution but also a slot for a TV tuner card or a professional audio interface card. PCI is not dead until the multimedia companies move over to PCI-E, it is that simple and until such time, the board should have two if not three PCI slots that are not blocked, take one of the PCI-E x1 slots, combine the lanes, and give us a universal x4 slot if need be to make room but do not block this slot also. We were able to play with the 975x board before the show opened and although it was pre-production, it ran like a banshee. ;-)
xsilver - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
any indication of what the prices are going to be?hopefully prices will stay the same and just replace a 600w one with a 1200w one?
or if the price is going to be 2x the 600w one, who could afford it??
Gary Key - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
Pricing was not set yet but we would estimate in the $250~$325 range at this time. Yikes.....
emilyek - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
You'd think 50 engineers could rub their heads together and come up with something decent.Have the Thermaltake boys been watching 'Pimp My Ride' or something? The only decent thing in their lineup as shown is the HTPC.
Xenoid - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
The Thermaltake cases were all very nice (and I'm sure very expensive), but is it just me or do the LAN-style carry cases still look ridiculous? Same with that big box for 2 systems in one..I'd rather just have 2 full-towers..they'd take up a lot less room and cost less too.toyota - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
what a waste of ram. i guess this means we will start seeing 1 gig on next gen cards that might actually utilise it.JarredWalton - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
We've already got the GX2 with 1GB, though granted that's really 2x512MB. Vista may actually be able to use the GPU RAM for lots of other things, though - that's the theory anyway. Imagine, no longer getting the slow background refresh when Windows decides to swap some of that information out of RAM and into the page file....