CES 2006: Motherboards, Memory, Cooling, and a Few Surprises
by Wesley Fink & Jarred Walton on January 11, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
DFI
The most significant new item at DFI could not be photographed, since it is still under NDA. We can, however, tell you that DFI will be producing a top-end ATI RD580 Socket 939 motherboard for dual x16 Crossfire. This time around, DFI is using the excellent ULi M1575 south bridge with competitive USB performance and SATA2 3Gb/sec with full support for NCQ. DFI expects to ship the new RD580 at the time of the ATI launch in mid to late February.
On display at DFI were two new microATX boards based on the ATI and nVidia integrated graphics chipsets.
At the top is the DFI Socket 939 board based on the ATI RS482 (Xpress 200) chipset. The bottom board is Socket 754 featuring the nVidia 6100 chipset.
DFI also plans one more revision to their just-released nF4 Expert. The new board will provide further improvements to the overclocking capabilities of their nF4 Expert.
MSI
MSI has been relatively quiet of late, so we were curious to find out whether they had anything interesting to show us.
Like most other Tier 1 manufacturers, MSI is working on a 975X motherboard, the 975X Platinum. Features are comparable to what most other 975X boards are including, with the only noteworthy addition being Dolby Master Studio certification for the audio. The socket 939 based K8N Diamond Plus is similar in many ways to the 975X board: it's a dual X16 SLI board, and once again, special attention has been given to the integrated audio. A Creative Audigy SE 7.1 chip is integrated onto the motherboard, which should be better than most other onboard solutions. MSI has also used a heatpipe cooling arrangement for the chipset, which should help to accommodate longer graphics cards.
MSI was also showing products other than motherboards, including a variety of ATI and NVIDIA based graphics cards, but there wasn't much new in that area. We know that both ATI and NVIDIA are working on their next generation products, but we don't have anything that we can discuss or any images to show at this time. We did get a picture of MSI's HTPC barebones unit, pictured above. Since this is the Consumer Electronics Show, it should come as little surprise that virtually every motherboard-related company was showing some form of home theater device.
The most significant new item at DFI could not be photographed, since it is still under NDA. We can, however, tell you that DFI will be producing a top-end ATI RD580 Socket 939 motherboard for dual x16 Crossfire. This time around, DFI is using the excellent ULi M1575 south bridge with competitive USB performance and SATA2 3Gb/sec with full support for NCQ. DFI expects to ship the new RD580 at the time of the ATI launch in mid to late February.
On display at DFI were two new microATX boards based on the ATI and nVidia integrated graphics chipsets.
At the top is the DFI Socket 939 board based on the ATI RS482 (Xpress 200) chipset. The bottom board is Socket 754 featuring the nVidia 6100 chipset.
DFI also plans one more revision to their just-released nF4 Expert. The new board will provide further improvements to the overclocking capabilities of their nF4 Expert.
MSI
MSI has been relatively quiet of late, so we were curious to find out whether they had anything interesting to show us.
Like most other Tier 1 manufacturers, MSI is working on a 975X motherboard, the 975X Platinum. Features are comparable to what most other 975X boards are including, with the only noteworthy addition being Dolby Master Studio certification for the audio. The socket 939 based K8N Diamond Plus is similar in many ways to the 975X board: it's a dual X16 SLI board, and once again, special attention has been given to the integrated audio. A Creative Audigy SE 7.1 chip is integrated onto the motherboard, which should be better than most other onboard solutions. MSI has also used a heatpipe cooling arrangement for the chipset, which should help to accommodate longer graphics cards.
MSI was also showing products other than motherboards, including a variety of ATI and NVIDIA based graphics cards, but there wasn't much new in that area. We know that both ATI and NVIDIA are working on their next generation products, but we don't have anything that we can discuss or any images to show at this time. We did get a picture of MSI's HTPC barebones unit, pictured above. Since this is the Consumer Electronics Show, it should come as little surprise that virtually every motherboard-related company was showing some form of home theater device.
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Leinad - Saturday, March 4, 2006 - link
I see that the Corsair Nautilus500 is available, and at pretty much the expected price. I have searched around looking for any information on the Cryo-Z, and don't see any. Just curious if anyone in Anandland had any further information...I also wanted to second the request/suggestion of the addition of a cooling area to Anandtech.
yacoub - Thursday, January 12, 2006 - link
And the best thing about all the Asus boards pictured? EVERY ONE OF THEM IS PASSIVELY COOLED. About time. Dinky motherboard fans are the bane of many otherwise-quiet systems and they're often of such poor quality as to die within a few months and leave the user with a board that can overheat.Very nice work, Asus.
JarredWalton - Thursday, January 12, 2006 - link
Funny you should mention that. I have an ASUS K8N4-E Deluxe board that has been used less than 3 months. It has a dinky NB HSF, and guess what died this past week? So now I replaced that 30mm or whatever fan with a spare 60mm fan jury-rigged into the case, and it cools better and runs quieter. Small fans are garbage.SignalPST - Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - link
Sounds very promising. Hopefully, they'll fix the problems with the NB heatsink and 7800GTX 512MB getting in the way. When should we expect more details for this board?
FlyingShawn - Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - link
Quick correction on what looks like a typo on your DualCor coverage. The article states that the 1.5 Ghz processor runs XP Pro and the 400 Mhz runs XP Tablet. Actually, the 1.5 Ghz runs XP Tablet and the 400 Mhz runs Windows Mobile 5. So basically you have a full XP Tablet for when you need it and the instant-on benefits of a Mobile 5 PDA for when you need information like PIM data quickly.abakshi - Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - link
Yeah I was about to post that.That brings up another interesting issue though -- is data synchronized between the two sections (e.g. Outlook contacts/calendar/etc.), and do that mean you can run both parts at once and simply switch between the two (since they seemingly share only the user interface elements)?
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - link
Yes, DualCor was demoing synchronized data between the 2 OS. I will correct the OS/processor statements in a few minutes.monsoon - Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - link
since we didn't get the new MAC MINI at Macworld, i'm eager to read your coming review of the AOpen PC Mini with CORE DUO insideHoudani - Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - link
Those Aopen boxes look stupendous on the outside. I'm eager to hear how their innards fare. All three of them there boxes are intriguing.wilburpan - Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - link
This is probably the wrong trade show for this, but was there any indication from CES as to whether BTX is increasing its penetration into the market?