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

ASUS' Concept Motherboard

ASUS showed us something we honestly can't believe we hadn't seen up to this point from any other motherboard manufacturer: a concept motherboard.

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The ASUS Pluto Concept motherboard was designed to showcase technologies that ASUS is conemplating using on future production motherboards.

The first feature of the concept, which has already been done by some of ASUS' competition was an audio riser card to help separate the audio circuity from noisy components on the motherboard:

The next feature of this concept motherboard is an electroluminescent rear IO panel to help you figure out where to plug things in, while in the dark:

There's also a POST diagnostic display on the rear of the motherboard that is a bit more verbose than most diagnostic displays that you sometimes find on motherboards themselves:

Despite being able to display more text, the debug display is still not as verbose as we'd like in order to use it for anything more than a very high level diagnostic tool. We do commend ASUS for the creativity and putting in the effort to do something new with its products.

There is also a water cooling element to the concept, however we weren't able to get a shot of it running in time for publication. We may be able to bring you more coverage of the concept later this week.