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Computex 2006: 300W GPUs, Conroe, HDMI Video Cards and Lots of Motherboards

 by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 5, 2006 10:24 PM EST
61 Comments | Add A Comment
61 Comments

ASRock

ASUS' low cost spinoff, ASRock, has done quite well since its introduction to the already saturated motherboard market. ASRock's designs continue to be extremely cost effective all while carrying ASUS' usual quality of engineering. First up from ASRock is a Conroe 975X motherboard:

ASRock is working on a Broadwater board for Conroe as well, but in order to avoid competing directly with ASUS the Broadwater solution is being held back for the time being.

The ASRock 975X Conroe solution has an on-board SPDIF header that can be connected to a HDMI equipped video card (an ASUS solution is pictured above) to allow for digital audio passthrough over HDMI.

ASRock also showed us its new nForce 6150 based Socket-AM2 motherboard built in a micro-ATX form factor:

Remember ASRock's upgradable motherboard that allowed you to simply purchase a new CPU card and switch between sockets 754 and 939? ASRock showed us its new Socket-AM2 card for the Upgrade series motherboard:

The AM2 card should be available almost immediately and priced as low as $40 - $50, however ASRock isn't sure if vendors will mark the card up even more due to its relatively low volume.

DFI's NF590 SLI and RD580 Socket-AM2 Motherboards Albatron Offers mini-ITX Athlon 64 Motherboard
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  • Missing Ghost - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link

    wow, all I can say is wow. I am quite impressed with Gigabyte desktop motherboards. From the pictures it looks like a better design than even what DFI would do. Also the ASUS socket F board looks excellent. Quite impressive since I am used to think that ASUS' server boards are inferior to like supermicro/iwill/tyan.

  • krwilsonn - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link

    Page 18 of the article seems to be mixed up since the Albatron boards are showing up instead of the Asrock.

  • Regs - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link

    Actually consider what AMD is doing at all. Boy times have changed! ;)

    I'm a life long AMD fan too. Short life, but life long.

  • bob661 - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link

    quote:
    Actually consider what AMD is doing at all. Boy times have changed! ;)
    Where have you been? It's been like that for quite a few years now. Remember when DDR2 was actually on the market? Who wasn't using DDR2 then?

  • bob661 - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link

    quote:
    Unfortunately due to changes in the VRM requirements for Conroe, no current LGA-775 motherboards will work with the new processor.
    Figures.

  • bob661 - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link

    quote:
    There is a lot of concern about the availability of Conroe, as Intel has only committed to around 25% of its mainstream and high end desktop processor shipments being Conroe by the end of this year. After Dell and HP buy up all the Conroes they will want for their systems, there simply may not be any left for the end user to buy in the channel market. Alternatively, there may end up being some supply in the channel market but at significant markups due to a shortage.
    Interesting. Looks like Conroe's may come at a premium until Intel can increase production.

  • shabby - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link

    quote:
    Remember that the HDMI connector can carry both audio and video data, and by outfitting cards with a header for internal audio passthrough (from your soundcard/motherboard to the graphics card) you take advantage of that feature of the HDMI specification


    I dont get it, what is the point of sending audio to the monitor?

  • Furen - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link

    It's meant to be sent to an HD TV. Monitors can just use DVI for digital signaling.

  • shabby - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link

    And whats the point of that too? Its supposed to go to the reciever not the tv.

  • OrSin - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link

    Do you even know why hdmi exist. Most HDTV that have HDMI connects also has audio out.
    YOu connect everything to your tv and send out only singles you need. My guess is you don't have a HDTV.
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