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
Universal Abit is the successor to the Abit motherboard brand, and Abit has partnered with USI for their manufacturing and engineering expertise. The Abit name will remain as the main identity for products but expect to hear more from Universal Abit as the company transitions itself from strictly IT manufacturing to leading technology design and brand management. The new corporate logo above will be on all products with the color of the square over the "i" representing the product brands. Orange will signify the upcoming multimedia products, green for the corporate brands, and dark green for motherboard products. We certainly would have chosen a color such as red for the motherboard group but overall they are trying to erase the last two years of bad memories for the company.
Abit: Multimedia Products
Abit is entering the growing Media Center PC market with their first products that include the ViiV based IL80-MV motherboard and the iDome digital speaker series.
The IL80-MV micro-ATX motherboard is based on the Intel 945GT and ICH7mDH Express chipsets with support for the Core Duo / Solo (Yonah) processor range. Audio support from the Realtek ALC-882M includes full Dolby Home Studio certification, 7.1 channel output, and Optical S/PDIF in and out connections. HDMI output is fully supported by the on-board Intel GMA-950 graphics system. The system is totally silent and in our brief testing appeared to operate extremely cool in the SilverStone case.
Abit is introducing the iDome DS500 speaker and iDome Sw510 subwoofer to the market later this summer. The iDome speakers support a pure digital audio stream process from input to final output, though you can also use them in analog mode if you so desire. The speakers and subwoofer will be sold separately but the 2.1 system on display consisted of two fairly compact speakers, the subwoofer, and an integrated digital amplifier. The cost for the two speakers will be around US $180 and another US $70 will get you the subwoofer. Both units will work with other manufacturers' products although for the price we recommend buying the set.
The back of the right speaker offers the choice of analog or digital input/output, as does the subwoofer. Each satellite offers 25W/per channel with the subwoofer providing 50W. The subwoofer features a 6.5 inch Super Bass driver featuring DBX technology providing a very deep bass tone with extremely little distortion in our listening tests. The satellites offer an independent 1 inch dome tweeter and 4 inch Neodymium drivers in a high quality case.
The speakers are controlled by a unique uGuru chip that allows for six different sound environments to be selected by the user, allowing you to tweak the processing dependent upon the audio stream being played. These modes consist of Normal, Game, Music, Movie, Rock, and Jazz. We had the chance to listen to these various modes before the show started and were very impressed with the satellites ability to deliver a very clean audio stream in a variety of situations from movie playback to gaming. The highs were clear and bright with the mids being very warm while extending downward to the point where there was noticeable bass response without the subwoofer. However, for games and movies we highly recommend adding the subwoofer.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
27 Comments
View All Comments
soydios - Tuesday, June 13, 2006 - link
Does anybody know when we can expect to begin seeing Socket AM2 motherboards based on RD580 in the retail channels? I'm still waiting for the M2R32-MVP. =\Gary Key - Thursday, June 15, 2006 - link
End of June for MSI and ECS, probably a week or so later for Asus. These schedules might change but they are still working with ATI on bios improvements.
Pythias - Sunday, June 11, 2006 - link
Thats a lot of juice. I though the industry was headed towards power conservation....poohbear - Sunday, June 11, 2006 - link
man abit needs to drop that Fatl1ty nonsense if they're trying to cater to enthusiasts. who's gonna buy an overpriced mobo just because of some gamers name attached to it?! we're not rabid teenagers who have a loyal following to some pop star like computer geek, we're mostly in our 20s/30s, so start catering to adults w/ quality mobos that dont need some geeks name attached to it to stand out. Let the quality and features speak for themselves please, not "fatal1tys" name. have they even done any market research to see if ppl actually buy products because of this guys name attached to em?darklight0tr - Sunday, June 11, 2006 - link
I agree. In fact, I avoid any product that has the Fatal1ty name on it, no matter how good it looks. All of these companies think gamers slobber over the name Fatal1ty, when in fact they don't give a crap. We want quality products, not marketing pieces.Gary Key - Sunday, June 11, 2006 - link
I agree also, this is all marketing and you will see more FataL1y products from Zalman and others in the near future. I would just assume Abit use the color scheme on the boards, add a couple of PCI slots, lower the price, and call it a day. However, these companies assume his name has leverage in the marketplace, whether it does or not, only Abit and others will know at the end of the day.
Abit recognizes this to some degree which is why they will be promoting the Max line heavily into the upper market tier segments. While the board needs a couple of PCI slots, I can tell you it has reached 435FSB with a "B" revision Conroe. ;-)
Missing Ghost - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
sincerely, I don't see what's the big deal about the products they show. They all seem to have ugly layouts and bad design choices.cornfedone - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
All of these new, useless, over-priced mobos are intended for what? As noted by others, the mobos don't have a practical number of USABLE PCI slots, the prices are way excessive, you can bet they will have long lists of defects based on virtually all Asian designed consumer mobos shipped in the past three or more years and there will be little if any customer support for the malfunctioning mobos customers will be stuck with if they purchase these POS. Instead of fixing the defective mobos properly the mobo companies will crank out new POS to great fanfare by the hardware review sites.It's as if the mobo makers are working in a vacuum and don't care that their products do not meet consumer demands and that they don't function properly. I say they can keep their defective products as I don't need them.
koomo - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
The PC world is increasingly becoming a common consumer item, and seems just a few years away from joining VCRs and microwave ovens as disposable-when-broken houseware.Conroe and the K8L seem like logical, traditional progression along the better/faster/cheaper curve.
But now we're looking at 1000W power supplies? How will the PC gaming developers handle this, with a smaller-and-smaller piece of the overall video gaming pie requiring such power-hungry and expensive toys?
I'll take a PC game over a console any day, but I wonder it would be best to take a holiday for a year on the latest software/hardware until the future lower-energy video cards are supposedly due. And in the meantime, spend more time playing boardgames with VASSAL ;)
dhei - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
Another day, another voltron inspired case. Honestly are people buying these? Or is this some sick joke from case manufactors. I want the guy who started this trend to be fired.:)Hey Thermaltake, 1960s Sc-fi movies called, they want there computer props back.