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
Sapphire
Sapphire was showing several interesting new products under NDA. We couldn't provide pictures, but the new ATI video card will be launching soon. Vendors tell us that they already have GPUs and completed cards this time around and therefore, product will be on the shelves at launch. Specifications hint that this may well be the new top-end video card, outperforming even the 7800GTX 512, which appeared in small quantities in what nVidia is now calling "limited release", and which has now disappeared from the market.
Sapphire was also showing several new motherboards based on the new ATI RD480 and the upcoming RD580 chipsets. While it took Sapphire quite a while to get 480 motherboards to market, they appear committed to providing ATI chipset motherboards looking ahead. Their RD580 boards look to be very competitive with the best products expected at the RD580 launch next month.
Since RD580 is also Socket AM2 compliant, you will see even more RD580 motherboards at the AMD M2 launch. We have also been told that the M2 launch is the likely time frame for release of the ATI SB600 south bridge.
Shuttle
Shuttle has updated several of their recent products, and we visited their suite to get a look at their latest offerings.
One of the more interesting items was their updated version of the M1000 HTPC system, the M2000. The original included a Pentium M 1.83 GHz chip and two analog AverMedia tuners. The M2000 has upgraded the chipset to the 945GM, and with the new chipset comes the Intel Core Duo processor (T1400 1.83 GHz 2MB L2 at present). The added processing power should help out quite a bit with video encoding/ transcoding, and it doesn't change the thermal characteristics much. A new chipset and processor aren't the only changes, though: they have added a hybrid HDTV/Analog tuner along with a second analog-only tuner. These changes address most of the concerns that we had with the M1000; all that really remains is proper CableCARD, which of course won't come until Windows Vista ships.
As expected, Shuttle is also working on various SFF updates. They have everything from a socket 754 update through socket 775 with Pentium D support and a socket 939 unit with SLI, the SN26P. If SFF designs interest you, Shuttle remains one of the top picks for any platform, and all of their designs are aesthetically pleasing.
Sapphire was showing several interesting new products under NDA. We couldn't provide pictures, but the new ATI video card will be launching soon. Vendors tell us that they already have GPUs and completed cards this time around and therefore, product will be on the shelves at launch. Specifications hint that this may well be the new top-end video card, outperforming even the 7800GTX 512, which appeared in small quantities in what nVidia is now calling "limited release", and which has now disappeared from the market.
Sapphire was also showing several new motherboards based on the new ATI RD480 and the upcoming RD580 chipsets. While it took Sapphire quite a while to get 480 motherboards to market, they appear committed to providing ATI chipset motherboards looking ahead. Their RD580 boards look to be very competitive with the best products expected at the RD580 launch next month.
Since RD580 is also Socket AM2 compliant, you will see even more RD580 motherboards at the AMD M2 launch. We have also been told that the M2 launch is the likely time frame for release of the ATI SB600 south bridge.
Shuttle
Shuttle has updated several of their recent products, and we visited their suite to get a look at their latest offerings.
One of the more interesting items was their updated version of the M1000 HTPC system, the M2000. The original included a Pentium M 1.83 GHz chip and two analog AverMedia tuners. The M2000 has upgraded the chipset to the 945GM, and with the new chipset comes the Intel Core Duo processor (T1400 1.83 GHz 2MB L2 at present). The added processing power should help out quite a bit with video encoding/ transcoding, and it doesn't change the thermal characteristics much. A new chipset and processor aren't the only changes, though: they have added a hybrid HDTV/Analog tuner along with a second analog-only tuner. These changes address most of the concerns that we had with the M1000; all that really remains is proper CableCARD, which of course won't come until Windows Vista ships.
As expected, Shuttle is also working on various SFF updates. They have everything from a socket 754 update through socket 775 with Pentium D support and a socket 939 unit with SLI, the SN26P. If SFF designs interest you, Shuttle remains one of the top picks for any platform, and all of their designs are aesthetically pleasing.
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Powermoloch - Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - link
Very nice guys, great job on the report and such. Especially showing what OCZ is up to with their phase change coolant thing (first time I seen it). Pretty neat to be honest.Son of a N00b - Saturday, January 14, 2006 - link
man that OCZ phase change unit was looking sexy as hell, especially with that oh so tempting price...If only they were able to incorporate northbridge and GPU cooling into it also (even if it was more expensive) to truly earn the name of the revolution...Also it is aimed for the enthusiast market, so space as someone ws complaining about does not matter...
JarredWalton - Saturday, January 14, 2006 - link
They talked about the possibility of a dual GPU cooler block. Part of the problem with that is phase-change requires a lot more complexity than something like water cooling. You're not just cycling liquid through a tube; you have to worry about evaporator/condenser stuff as well. NB and RAM are down on the list in terms of importance, especially with chips like the FX series that have unlocked multipliers.R3MF - Thursday, January 12, 2006 - link
What was the Shuttle s754 'update'?was it a G5 Chassis with a 6100/430 chipset, silent power-brick PSU and support for AMD Turion/A64 processors?
that would be interesting.
JarredWalton - Thursday, January 12, 2006 - link
Actually, I think it was a G2 chassis. I believe http://global.shuttle.com/Product/Barebone/SK21G.a...">this is the unit we saw. K8M800CE chipset doesn't seem like anything really impressive, and there isn't a DVI port. The newer stuff at Shuttle was another Viiv unit, with Core Duo support (as opposed to Pentium D). I don't think I saw anything really new on the AMD side.MrSmurf - Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - link
I was intrigued by the phase change cooling unit as well but it's too big. I like my system to be powerful but tidy and neat at the same time.