Computex 2006: Abit is back, Biostar expands, and Thermaltake dazzles
by Gary Key on June 10, 2006 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
The amount of new products we witnessed in Thermaltake's display suites left us dizzy. Of course when we realized they employ close to 50 engineers in the Research and Design center the amount of new product introductions or revisions to existing product lines became understandable to us. We were welcomed with open arms by Annie Wu, Marketing Director; Weller Chen, OEM Product Marketing; and Jerry Lee, Marketing Assistant Manager. While we could spend the next ten pages or more describing all of the new products being launched by Thermaltake, we will spend time on a few products we thought were very interesting or out of the ordinary.
Thermaltake: Multimedia Products
Thermaltake is releasing the first cube tower designed to handle two separate PCs in a single chassis. The case is specifically designed to meet the growing Media PC market with an emphasis on providing a solution that allows you to install a high performance gaming or workstation system while still having the necessary room to install a system designed to work as a HTPC or media playback machine.
The case features the ability to handle a 7 inch Drive Bay with full support for a manual or retractable 7 inch LCD monitor (1280x768) that operates as a stand alone analog monitor. The case is fairly compact with measurements of 720mm x 330mm x 360mm (H/W/D). The depth measurement of 360mm is about 35% less than the typical 550mm depth of the average tower case.
The doors are easily removed and the right side of the case is sectioned off for the mini-ITX board. The case is designed to handle an ATX/micro-ATX, or Standard/Micro/Pico/Nano BTX motherboard on the left side with the right side being reserved for the mini-ITX boards. While we would have preferred micro-ATX capability for the secondary board, the good news is that several of the mini-ITX board designs we saw were sporting recent chipsets and processors that would not have an issue powering a basic HTPC configuration.
The left side of the case is sectioned off for a full size ATX or BTX capable motherboard. In this example, Thermaltake installed a BTX board and its unique cooling system. The case is actually sectioned off into four separate thermal areas with each section being totally independent of the others in the generation of airflow and removal of heat.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
27 Comments
View All Comments
Gary Key - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
The on-board sound on this board will be the Realtek ALC-882M that is placed on a riser card. The sound was significantly better audio quality wise than some of the 882m solutions we have heard placed on the motherboard. We also spoke with Abit about utilizing the new Realtek ALC-888 which sounded a generation better to us and that was on a $85 ASRock board the same day. We are hoping the transition to the ALC-888 will be a quick one for most manufacturers as it would suffice for about 90% of the users. The balance will want a X-FI or something else discreet.
My issue with Abit, the Product Managers agreed, is that the buyer for these boards will typically not only want a discreet sound solution but also a slot for a TV tuner card or a professional audio interface card. PCI is not dead until the multimedia companies move over to PCI-E, it is that simple and until such time, the board should have two if not three PCI slots that are not blocked, take one of the PCI-E x1 slots, combine the lanes, and give us a universal x4 slot if need be to make room but do not block this slot also. We were able to play with the 975x board before the show opened and although it was pre-production, it ran like a banshee. ;-)
xsilver - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
any indication of what the prices are going to be?hopefully prices will stay the same and just replace a 600w one with a 1200w one?
or if the price is going to be 2x the 600w one, who could afford it??
Gary Key - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
Pricing was not set yet but we would estimate in the $250~$325 range at this time. Yikes.....
emilyek - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
You'd think 50 engineers could rub their heads together and come up with something decent.Have the Thermaltake boys been watching 'Pimp My Ride' or something? The only decent thing in their lineup as shown is the HTPC.
Xenoid - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
The Thermaltake cases were all very nice (and I'm sure very expensive), but is it just me or do the LAN-style carry cases still look ridiculous? Same with that big box for 2 systems in one..I'd rather just have 2 full-towers..they'd take up a lot less room and cost less too.toyota - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
what a waste of ram. i guess this means we will start seeing 1 gig on next gen cards that might actually utilise it.JarredWalton - Saturday, June 10, 2006 - link
We've already got the GX2 with 1GB, though granted that's really 2x512MB. Vista may actually be able to use the GPU RAM for lots of other things, though - that's the theory anyway. Imagine, no longer getting the slow background refresh when Windows decides to swap some of that information out of RAM and into the page file....