Computex 2006: 300W GPUs, Conroe, HDMI Video Cards and Lots of Motherboards
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 5, 2006 10:24 PM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
The Memory Market
The memory manufacturers we’ve spoken to are ecstatic about AMD’s move to DDR2, as they can begin moving away from DDR.
While DDR shipments still outnumber DDR2 shipments, the shift is definitely taking place. Right now there is a price parity between DDR-400 devices and DDR2-667 devices; combined with AMD’s move to Socket-AM2 and the conditions are ripe for a serious transition over to DDR2 in the market. If Conroe ends up being as popular as everyone is expecting it to, the number of DDR2 platforms will continue to increase as will the demand for DDR2 memory.
The breakdown of DDR2 shipments is particularly interesting, with the majority of modules still being DDR2-533. Now that the price difference between DDR2-533 and DDR2-667 has gone down tremendously, we will see the balance shift more towards the latter.
Unfortunately DDR2-800 is still extremely expensive compared to DDR2-667, because of extremely poor yields. One source told us that DDR2-800 was yielding far below 50%, resulting in anywhere from a 30% to 100% premium over DDR2-667. Everyone expects the yields on DDR2-800 to increase tremendously later this year, which will help drive DDR2-800 prices down as well as increase the number of low latency or higher bandwidth DDR2-800 parts.
Samsung has been talking to its partners about the move to DDR3; by the end of this year Samsung is supposed to be sampling DDR3 modules, but the memory makers we spoke to believe that the schedule is too aggressive.
Currently on Samsung’s roadmaps we’ve got DDR3-800, 1066 and 1333, but things could very well change by the time DDR3 actually makes its introduction on the desktop. The memory makers we spoke to expect to see the beginning of a transition to DDR3 by the end of 2007 at the earliest, which seems plausible.
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ceefka - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Just when Intel has attractive numbers on power consumption and also AMD aims again for lower numbers these GPUs negate all their effort and have you on the look out for an even bigger PSU or an additional PSU. How can ATI or NVIDIA justify this? I'd like a good reason.phusg - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
I think you've already given the only reason (CPU's using less). I won't call it a 'good' reason, but all the same.sri2000 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
When I read that line about 1000-1200 watt PSU's, all I could think of was Doc Brown in Back to the Future yelling "1.21 Gigawatts!?!"... (yeah I know - kilowatt != gigawatt... but still).Griswold - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Who knows, maybe ATI/Nvidia bundle plutonium batteries (as seen in deep space probes) with their cards in the future? Not only to feed the cards but mainly to power your cooling equipment...segagenesis - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Exactly my first thought. The concept of a seperate external supply for a graphics card is already ludicrous to me, if this becomes standard then I would hate to see future progression from there. Does anyone remember the Taco Town SNL skit? I desire better video as much as anyone else, but I draw the line when I need a nuclear power station to run it. ATI/nVidia must have forgotten that electricity DOES cost money.Needless to say... impressive Conroe boards, for a premium.
Stele - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
All in all an excellent article, good coverage and of course lovely photos :PThe Asus Pluto board is interesting indeed, especially the audio riser card. By the way, anyone noticed that the riser card is nicknamed Charon? For the uninitiated, Pluto was the Greek god of the Underworld, separated from the living world by the river Styx. Charon was the boatman who ferried the dead across that river to Pluto's domain. The two have hence been generally closely associated with one another. In astronomy, Pluto's moon is also named Charon, for the same reason. Nice bit of humour on Asus' side :P
punko - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Actually, Pluto is the Roman name for the Greek God Hades. Charon was indeed the ferryman of the Underworld, but the river wasn't Styx, but Acheron. I believe that there were four famous rivers in the Underworld, Lethe was another, but I can't remember the fourth.Stele - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
It is another Greek name for Hades (from Greek ????t??, Plouton), but it was adopted by and hence much more commonly associated with Roman mythology.
Oh heh! Styx was the popular misconception... forgot about it. Thanks for correcting me! There were five rivers of Hades: Acheron (the river of sorrow), Cocytus (lamentation), Phlegethon (fire), Styx (hate) and... Lethe (forgetfulness). I guess that explains why you remember Lethe but forgot the others! ;)
DigitalFreak - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Didn't really see anything new here.Audio on a riser card - DFI has been doing it for awhile now.
Lighting around the I/O shield - Been done before.
Debug code readout - Been on numerous boards for quite some time. Asus just made it viewable from outside the case.
Stele - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
No, I wasn't saying that anything was new in the industry, but new at least to Asus. IMHO the concept motherboard was an interesting exhibit, even if it isn't the only one of its kind.More to the point, what's noteworthy is that Asus - along with other manufacturers as well, hopefully - is considering following DFI's Karajan module concept. That can only be a good thing, as long as the manufacturers sincerely mean to improve noise immunity and not just throw it in as a gimmick to charge a premium for.
As for the other ideas... interesting but not terribly unique, as you've already pointed out.