Computex 2005 Early Bird Coverage: NVIDIA's G70, Athlon 64 BTX and more
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 30, 2005 8:53 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
NVIDIA’s G70 at the Show
NVIDIA plans on sticking it to ATI with G70 and offering widespread availability of their new GPU very soon. Manufacturers at the show have already indicated that the first shipments of G70 boards will be in their hands by the second week of June.
Boards are on display at the show, behind closed doors of course. Of course, in Taiwan nothing is ever secret - and thus we’ve had the ability to play around with a number of G70 cards at the show. We can’t say much about the G70 as we are bound by NDA, but all of the cards at the show are single-slot solutions which is refreshing.
Only a handful of NVIDIA’s closest partners have been given G70 designs to show off at Computex, the rest are told to wait until further notice.
We also heard about a new ATI card, but not the R520 we’ve all been waiting for, rather a replacement for the X300 - the Radeon X550. Like the X300, the X550 is a 4-pipe GPU but now running at 400MHz. The GPU is also paired with a 128-bit 200MHz DDR memory bus, but little is known beyond those specs.
So far the R520 is no where to be found at the show; it’s looking like the rumors of a late release of R520 may be true. ATI’s focus at Computex 2005 seems to be their multi-GPU chipset that is due to be launched at the official opening of the show.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
80 Comments
View All Comments
Waylay00 - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
Well if the G70 boards are supposed to be in manufacturer's hands by the 2nd week of June, then when does this mean that they will actually be available for people to buy?Brian23 - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
Sorry, I can't count. I ment to say #37.Brian23 - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
#36, that's what the gigabit ethernet is for!bob661 - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
#36Too bad you couldn't store any movies on it.
patrick0 - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
How about using a SSD for a HTPC?! Now that's silence.bob661 - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
The swap file idea is excellent. I think four 512MB sticks would be enough and would run about $160 on Newegg.sprockkets - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
Of course if you use Linux it has no problems using the RAM as a HDD as it is; look at Knoppix and DamnSmallLinux, both use the ram as a HDD and DSL can run completely out of the ram. You can also do that with Knoppix if you have at least 1GB of ram.But then again, no permanent distro goes to ram soooo...
Beenthere - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
There simply is no justification for the BTX design. It isn't a good design and it doesn't cool Intel's overheating products sufficiently. It's just a marketing gimmick that the Mobo mfgs. were smart enough to NOT adopt despite arm twisting by Intel. Intel is on there way down and the Mobo mfgs. know it.semo - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
solid state storage has been around for some time but not as cheap.http://www.hyperos2002.com/
look for hyperdrive
tungtung - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
That RAMDISK card is quite interesting although there is a Japanese company that make similar product since 1998 (only for Mac though) ... the idea of being able to use older RAM sticks are also the main thrust for that old product ... but that old product (which I just can't seem to remember what or who makes them) has an external power connector + battery backup.It is a nice use for scratch disk / temp drive though.