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

 by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 5, 2006 10:24 PM EST
61 Comments | Add A Comment
61 Comments

BenQ: Status of Blu-ray and SATA Optical Drives

We talked at great length with BenQ about the current lack of Serial ATA optical drives.  While SATA optical drives don’t offer any real performance advantage over PATA drives, there are other factors that are driving our demand for and interest in the units.  Intel’s new I/O Controller Hub used in the 965 (Broadwater) chipsets, ICH8, doesn’t natively support any PATA ports; motherboard manufacturers have to resort to a 3rd party controller to offer one PATA port.  It’s clear that Intel wants to be rid of PATA, and with 6 - 8 SATA ports on new motherboards these days the time to transition entirely to SATA is now. 

Unfortunately, as BenQ tells us, the same desire to transition to SATA doesn’t exist with the Tier 1 OEMs that are building systems using these optical drives.  Apparently there are still a number of compatibility issues with the default Windows driver and many SATA optical drives, which has made the big OEMs wary of moving away from tried and true PATA drives.  With very little OEM pressure to transition to SATA optical drives, manufacturers like BenQ have no reason to push for a quicker move to SATA. 

BenQ said to expect less than 5% of its drive shipments by the end of this year to be SATA; by the middle of next year that number will thankfully grow to 25%.

With DVD readers and recorders quickly dropping to commodity price levels, the new focus of optical drive makers is on Blu-ray and HD-DVD.  BenQ is exclusively producing Blu-ray drives and its representatives showed us the first two Blu-ray drives that will debut later this year.  The BW1000 is offered in both an internal and an external variety, both featuring a 2X read/write speed for Blu-ray media.  Dual layer Blu-ray media will be written to at 1X. 

The drives also feature a LED indicator telling you what sort of media you’ve got in the drive (e.g. Blu-ray or DVD).  The internal drive will carry a price tag of around $700 when it debuts in July.  The Optical Pickup Unit in a Blu-ray drive can cost around 20x that of the OPU in a DVD drive, which contributes to the incredibly high cost. 

BenQ stated that you may be able to upgrade these 2X drives to 4X drives with a firmware update later on, but it’s too early to tell for sure.  The first native 4X Blu-ray drives from BenQ will arrive in Q1 of next year. 

The Switch to DDR2 Gigabyte: 94% of GB Graphics Cards are Passively Cooled
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  • Missing Ghost - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link

    wow, all I can say is wow. I am quite impressed with Gigabyte desktop motherboards. From the pictures it looks like a better design than even what DFI would do. Also the ASUS socket F board looks excellent. Quite impressive since I am used to think that ASUS' server boards are inferior to like supermicro/iwill/tyan.

  • krwilsonn - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link

    Page 18 of the article seems to be mixed up since the Albatron boards are showing up instead of the Asrock.

  • Regs - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link

    Actually consider what AMD is doing at all. Boy times have changed! ;)

    I'm a life long AMD fan too. Short life, but life long.

  • bob661 - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link

    quote:
    Actually consider what AMD is doing at all. Boy times have changed! ;)
    Where have you been? It's been like that for quite a few years now. Remember when DDR2 was actually on the market? Who wasn't using DDR2 then?

  • bob661 - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link

    quote:
    Unfortunately due to changes in the VRM requirements for Conroe, no current LGA-775 motherboards will work with the new processor.
    Figures.

  • bob661 - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link

    quote:
    There is a lot of concern about the availability of Conroe, as Intel has only committed to around 25% of its mainstream and high end desktop processor shipments being Conroe by the end of this year. After Dell and HP buy up all the Conroes they will want for their systems, there simply may not be any left for the end user to buy in the channel market. Alternatively, there may end up being some supply in the channel market but at significant markups due to a shortage.
    Interesting. Looks like Conroe's may come at a premium until Intel can increase production.

  • shabby - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link

    quote:
    Remember that the HDMI connector can carry both audio and video data, and by outfitting cards with a header for internal audio passthrough (from your soundcard/motherboard to the graphics card) you take advantage of that feature of the HDMI specification


    I dont get it, what is the point of sending audio to the monitor?

  • Furen - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link

    It's meant to be sent to an HD TV. Monitors can just use DVI for digital signaling.

  • shabby - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link

    And whats the point of that too? Its supposed to go to the reciever not the tv.

  • OrSin - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link

    Do you even know why hdmi exist. Most HDTV that have HDMI connects also has audio out.
    YOu connect everything to your tv and send out only singles you need. My guess is you don't have a HDTV.
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