Taiwan Pre-CES Technology Tour Part 2

Gigabyte

We spoke at length with Rockson Chiang, Product Manager, and Liliana Wen, Marketing Specialist, about Gigabyte's upcoming product releases and the new Gigabyte United joint venture with ASUS. The details of the merger can be found here but in essence the current Gigabyte motherboard and graphics division along with related support functions will become the new company with support being provided by ASUS in areas such as procurement leverage and manufacturing expertise to reduce product costs. Other positives about this deal will be an emphasis by Gigabyte United on expanding their research and development capabilities along with higher quality products designed around performance and affordability. We have already witnessed a greatly improved product in Gigabyte's latest product releases this past summer and the next revision of motherboards should build upon this success.


One of the new products Gigabyte was displaying is their GA-N680SLI-DQ6 motherboard based on the NVIDIA 680i SLI chipset. The board features Gigabyte's updated Silent Pipe cooling system, new 12-phase power deliver system, and BIOS tweaks that should make this board very competitive with the current 680i offerings. The expected launch date is after CES and we will have further details and a preview of the board in early January. The current lineup of DS3, DS4, and DQ6 P965 motherboards are being redesigned currently with improved quad core performance, new heatsink designs, layout tweaks, and a Micron D9 friendly BIOS. We expect to have final board specifications and photos in the near future.

abit

Universal Abit was showing some interesting products and after speaking with Kiner Lau, Technical Marketing Manager, we became really excited about the new P965 based abit AB9 QuadGT motherboard. We are also interested in some upcoming product releases featuring their ultra high performance NVIDIA 680i motherboard, new iB-90 HD Intel G965 mATX motherboard for the digital home, and additional multimedia products such as a consumer level GPS unit. The 5.1 iDome speaker set also holds promise.


abit showed us their new AB9 QuadGT motherboard based on the P965 chipset. This board addresses the layout issues of the AB9 Pro and improves upon its performance with 500FSB level overclocking expected along with terrific stock performance. This board will also feature support for ATI CrossFire, digital PWM design, quad core support, and a solid capacitor design. We expect this board to be one of the better P965 boards in the near future.


abit also presented us with a retail sample of their new NF-M2 nView AM2 mATX motherboard featuring the NVIDIA 6150/430 chipset combination, Realtek ALC883 HD audio codec, Gigabit Ethernet based on the Realtek RTL8211BL controller, DVI or VGA output, and overclocking capability. The board is available now and we will be reviewing it shortly.

Albatron

Albatron recently provided us with their KI51PV-754 socket 754 mini-ITX motherboard that we are currently testing. Albatron told us this motherboard has proven to be very popular but one of the main suggestions from users was to move to a socket AM2 design. Albatron will be doing this sometime next year but until then we highly suggest that anyone interested in a high-performance mini-ITX platform take a look at the current offering.


For those of us looking for an Intel based mini-ITX motherboard, Albatron will be releasing one based on the Intel 945GT/ICH7 chipsets that feature mobile on desktop technology. This offering will fully support the Yonah (Core Duo mobile) and Merom (Core 2 Duo mobile) processor series, DVI/VGA/TV-output, and up to DDR2-800 memory support. While based on the GMA-950 video engine, it should offer good performance for typical home applications and video processing support.

Compro

Compro was not part of the OCZ summit but they managed to grab us in the hotel lobby during our visit and we were glad they did. Compro is in the process of rolling out some new multimedia products during CES and we were able to look at one of their first new products.


Their new VideoMate V600 analog TV box allows you to watch analog TV shows on your CRT/LCD/PDP monitor at 1680x1050, 1600x1200, or 1440x900 resolutions now. The unit also supports 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, and 1280x960 resolutions. The unit is fully plug and play compatible and does not require drivers. It features a built-in 2D+3D Y/C separation and noise reduction chipset along with progressive scan video output. The unit can be connected via S-Video or composite video inputs, stereo audio, and supports 480i component video input. The unit is designed so that you can connect your Xbox or Playstation 2 to the unit and output the game video/audio content to your monitor. Unfortunately, one minor drawback is that the output is limited to a D-sub (VGA) connection at this time. We will have a review of this unit coming up in the near future.

Closing Thoughts

We certainly enjoyed our time in Taiwan and want to thank all of the companies that we met with for their generous hospitality. We were able to view some exciting new products, discuss product plans, and gather information that we will be able to share with you in the near future. In the meantime, you can look forward to reviews of several of the products that we've discussed in the coming weeks, along with some that we can't mention -- although they fit nicely in our luggage for the trip back home.