Comdex 2001 - Day 1: Slow but interesting

VIA

Along with most of the manufacturers, VIA didn't have a major booth presence at this year's Comdex; it simply didn't make any sense for them to. We have done an interview with VIA and hope to have some answers to our questions regarding their thoughts on Hammer, the P4X266 and other hot topics shortly.

The only new news from VIA is the updated P4X266A chipset which is said to improve memory performance by between 10 - 15%. Remember that's raw memory performance we're talking about, not real world performance. We should be able to provide you all with a look at the chipset shortly after we return to the lab.

SMC

Our final meeting of the day was with SMC who gave us a look at some of their 802.11a solutions. The successor to the 11Mbit wireless 802.11b standard now offers a native transfer rate of 54Mbps as well as a proprietary extension to support up to 72Mbps transfer rates.

SMC's 802.11a access point and PC card

We have yet to see how close to the peak theoretical transfer rates 802.11a devices will reach but the technology will definitely please those that want the freedom of wireless but the performance of a 100Mbps network.

Final Words

With that said and done, the first day of Comdex 2001 comes to a close and we eagerly await day two. Stay tuned for more reports from the show.