Computex 2004: Graphics Cards Galore
by Derek Wilson on June 5, 2004 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
PowerColor and Pro-Link
Among the more edgy items that we saw at the show is PowerColor's X600 line of cards. They feature both the very obvious orange rubber "flames" as well as lights.
For the less brave, there are more subtle cards, such as this PCI Express X300.
Pro-Link produces the PixelView series of cards, including the PDF and PDF-II. These cards feature a shroud around the entire graphics card and an LCD panel read-out with useful statistics like temperature and fan speed.
The PDF-II is a much more useful revision, as the display panel can be mounted in a drive bay. We were also informed that the PDF would move to the NV4x line at a later date, so look for a new revision in the future if this is your thing.
ProLink had a couple of other products on display; like everyone else, their GeForce 6800 Ultra solution was based around NVIDIA's reference platform. It is going to be another couple of months before we start seeing more differentiating products hitting the market, most likely in the form of more unique cooling solutions. Until then, price and availability will dominate the success of any solution.
ProLink also had their PlayTV@P7000 on display, which is basically a TV tuner + remote offering from ProLink. Unlike most solutions, ProLink's software solution appears to be a bit more polished than your average run-of-the-mill TV tuner software. Granted ProLink doesn't offer a 10-foot-UI, but no company does (yet) in this market segment.
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EddNog - Sunday, June 6, 2004 - link
Okay, who FUBAR the photos?!?J/k ;-)
-Ed
Illissius - Sunday, June 6, 2004 - link
Damnit, I wanted to see MSI's 6800s :/.Oh well. Can you just say whether they had any nBox-esque coolers on them? Best coolers evar (possibly) excluding the Silencer and Zalman's stuff.
jiulemoigt - Sunday, June 6, 2004 - link
I had to laugh what happened to ATI's responce that shader 3.0 weren't useful and not going to be implmented? it just goes to show that it's more about PR that about what is useful, this is the second time in as many months ATI is having to pull the foot out of their mouth... when's nvidia going to get caught? or has it finnaly come down neither company should be throwing stone in the first place as they both live in glass houses... for the record I like nvidia's cards but hate both PR deptments!kristof007 - Sunday, June 6, 2004 - link
Wow I can only imagine what kind of overclocking will be avalible with coolers like PowerColors fan (at least I think it was PowerColor). This should be very exciting summer.orion23 - Saturday, June 5, 2004 - link
Hi, did anybody notice a picture of an ASUS ATI X800 PCI EXPRESS video card with support for Shaders 3.0?Also, how many different X800's are out there, 2 or 3?
X800 450MHZ
X800 XT 500MHZ
X800 XT PE 520MHZ
orion23 - Saturday, June 5, 2004 - link
NeedSpeed - Saturday, June 5, 2004 - link
Alienware has been shipping 6800 Ultra's from at least May 14th when I got mine. They announced the card a month earlier.Its not cheap, but it is very fast. The drivers are still not perfect.
DerekWilson - Saturday, June 5, 2004 - link
doh!!HIS is working on a dual DVI solution, but they aren't sure about the market yet. I essentially told them "if you build it they will come" ...
they did have a sample dual dvi board (I believe an x600 though I could very easily be mistaken), but the very important fact slipped my mind since I didn't have pics of it...
Sapphire also mentioned working on dual DVI solutions for the future (of course, they've told us this in the past as well).
I'll add an update to the article.
Lonyo - Saturday, June 5, 2004 - link
I take it you missed the captions on Asus' booth saying both the 5900 and X800XT are the fastest PCI-Express cards? ;)RyanVM - Saturday, June 5, 2004 - link
#5, my thoughts exactly. Not one single manufacturer felt the need to stray from the ATI reference design far enough to go dual DVI? Pathetic.