Live from Taiwan: Cebit 2006 Preview

Abit KN9 SLI

Abit claims to have returned to their enthusiast roots with their upcoming KN9-SLI.

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The new Abit AM2 board was designed for both outstanding overclocking capablities and outstanding stability - even at high overclocks.


Biostar GeForce 6100-AM2

To survive and flourish in a tough motherboard market, Biostar has decided to specialize in integrated graphics/HTPC motherboards. Not surprisingly, that means that their AM2 offering is based on the NVIDIA GeForce 6100 chipset.

DFI AM2 LANParty

DFI has had some of the top-selling NVIDIA nForce4 motherboards with their SLI, Ultra, and Expert versions. They decided to skip the NVIDIA dual SLI on Socket 939, and concentrated instead on the ATI RD580, which will launch in about a week.

This time around, though, DFI is showing a dual x16 SLI design for AMD, based on dual NVIDIA chipsets.

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As always, you can expect an enthusiast board with no holds barred with the new AM2 dual x16 SLI LANParty. DFI will also have a Dual X16 AM2 board based on the just released ATI RD580 chipset.


Epox MNF55P SLI2, MNF55P SLI & MU1697

Epox is showing a very wide range of motherboards for AM2 - boards that cover price points from entry to top-end.

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At the top is the dual NVIDIA chipset dual x16 EP-MNF55P SLI2.

Next in the Epox AM2 lineup will be the EP-MNF55P-SLI.

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As you would expect from the name, the SLI version uses just one NVIDIA chipset and supports single x16 or dual x8 video.

Entry level AM2 is filled by ULi M1697 chipset. The ULi offers dual x8 or single x16 - and there is even a patch recently introduced by ULi that supports NVIDIA SLI drivers.

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Of course, with NVIDIA now owning ULi, the question is whether or not ULi M1697 boards for Socket AM2 will ever see the light of day under the ULi name. Certainly, NVIDIA is not likely happy that ULi chipsets can now run SLI with a small ULi-supplied patch that can work with any nVidia SLI drivers.

SiS

SiS has struggled in recent months, but they are still producing new and interesting chipsets for the motherboard market. Their new AM2 design is certainly not high end, with just one x16 PCIe slot.

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However, SiS has still enjoyed success at the low end of the chipset market, and the new SiS AMD chipset fills that entry-level AM2 niche just fine.