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Q4 Motherboard and Graphics: Tour de Taiwan

 by Kristopher Kubicki on November 2, 2005 10:14 PM EST
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23 Comments
Biostar

A few weeks ago, we saw the first T-Series motherboard from Biostar, the C51G based TForce 6100-939. Biostar's entire T-Series lineup is gunning for DFI and Abit in the "extreme overclocker" category. High voltage jumpers and a full lineup of easy BIOS saving options certainly give Biostar a lot more bang for the buck than what we've been accustomed to. Biostar's first attempt at a DFI-killer looks like a pretty good one - the Biostar TForce4 SLI:


Click to enlarge.

Another new announcement for Biostar is its entrance into the NVIDIA VGA market. Biostar's Sigma-GATE series (eerily similar to Chaintech's Sigma series...) video cards are a big addition to the company's portfolio. At first, we expect to see low end video cards like the GeForce 6600 and 6600GT (many based on DDR2 configurations), but eventually we will see a full line of cards all the way down from the ultra high end. Biostar recently re-launched their website to reflect the new addition.


Click to enlarge.

Biostar will also feature high end 7800GT and GTX products, although their focus will primarily be the middle to low end video cards. When we talked with Biostar, a lot of emphasis was put on cool, heat-pipe VGA cards.

Not surprisingly, Biostar's near dominance of the C51G (nForce 6100 and 6150) market is mostly due to their ability to get their motherboards into the channel first. Signing large exclusivity deals with NVIDIA is a good way to get first in line for chipset allocation too.

ECS

Like the other Tier 1 manufacturers on our visit, ECS was also working on 945GT and 945GM based motherboards. Unlike the others, however, ECS also had the only working product and a full line of set top systems based around the chipset. Remember that mini-PC from IDF? Here is the actual model from the ECS showroom:


Click to enlarge.

There were also several other prototype mini-PCs based on Yonah as well, including this gem:


Click to enlarge.

Also featured in the show room was an ECS PMP - Portable Media Player. It's an interesting gadget, but it will probably remain a prototype forever.


Click to enlarge.

The surprise board at ECS was their 975X Yonah-compatible model. When NVIDIA was still on board with Intel, 975X Yonah would have meant an SLI Pentium M desktop, but now it looks like we'll just have to settle for a Crossfire MOD board instead. Of course, if ATI decides to release a Crossfire driver for 975X, we wouldn't be too surprised if the drivers could be tweaked for 945P or 955X chipsets as well - and there are a lot of 945GT motherboards for Yonah with dual PEG slots in development. In fact, there are several 945G boards like the one featured below that are already pin compatible with 945GM and GT.


Click to enlarge.

ECS also had their Crossfire boards on display. Unfortunately, we are all still waiting for availability in the US:


Click to enlarge.

For those of you who don't keep pace with the Taiwanese stock market, the big news this month for ECS is the company's acquisition of Tatung. Elitegroup has facilities for PCB, SMT, component and system building already, and their recent merger with Tatung will give the company complete system building capabilities from PCB to full desktop systems. In fact, once the merger is complete, ECS will become solely responsible for complete construction of 8 of the top 10 US system integrators - the other two being Apple and Dell. Expect to see a lot more of ECS in the near future.

MSI and Gigabyte EPoX and DFI
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  • unclebud - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link

    wondering what's the requirement to go on a tour or at least get an asus pin

  • Zoomer - Friday, November 4, 2005 - link

    quote:
    a $200 price tag, the DFI LanParty UT RDX200 is almost double the price of the original ATI Crossfire motherboard roadmap predictions. MSI and Gigabyte also have Crossfire boards slated for immediate release, so perhaps we will see more price adjustments here.

    Does that mean that we'll soon be seeing sub $100 ATi boards?

    Wow! I'm definately buying one if that's the case.

    Btw, dual x16 slots are overrated. Will it be possible to use a x1 or x4 card in a x16 slot?

  • KristopherKubicki - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link

    quote:
    Btw, dual x16 slots are overrated. Will it be possible to use a x1 or x4 card in a x16 slot?


    Yes and Yes.

    Kristopher

  • vailr - Friday, November 4, 2005 - link

    Just curious: has Apple made a determination yet, which company will be making their new Intel CPU based motherboards? Has the chipset been pre-determined as being "Intel only", or could NVIDIA, ULi, ATI or VIA chipsets still be a possibility for Apple's new x86 CPU based architecture?
    That is: the official Apple products, to be released in 2006.

  • BigLan - Thursday, November 3, 2005 - link

    Does this comment mean that nvidia have stopped working on intel boards? If so, when did this happen?

    "When NVIDIA was still on board with Intel, 975X Yonah would have meant an SLI Pentium M desktop, but now it looks like we’ll just have to settle for a Crossfire MOD board instead."

  • KristopherKubicki - Thursday, November 3, 2005 - link

    No. NVIDIA is actually going to get more agressive with Intel boards. It just means there won't be any Yonah based SLI motherboards except the one ECS is working on -- that we know of anyway....

    Kristopher

  • stmok - Thursday, November 3, 2005 - link

    ASRock had a few other unique products on display, including those wonderful ULi based boards. The yellow riser on this motherboard is actually for a Socket 754 expansion card. ASRock also had M2 socket kits available, but since M2 will require DDR2, we weren’t exactly sure how that riser would work.

    How it works is: the Northbridge, CPU and DDR2 memory slots will be on the CPU upgrade
    card. The jumpers will tell the mobo to use the stuff on the CPU upgrade card.
    Think of the jumpers as a junction thingie on train tracks, a flick on a switch will
    shift you to the next line over.

    So all you do is...

    (1) Buy an ASRock mobo now (on with the CPU upgrade slot...The yellow slot)
    (2) When Socket M2 arrives, buy the Socket M2 CPU upgrade card, your prefered
    Scoket M2 CPU...It doesn't matter what it is : Sempron, A64, A64 X2, Opteron 1xx
    series AND some DDR2 RAM.
    (3) Set the jumpers on the mobo according to manual, point it to use CPU upgrade
    card.
    (4) Install CPU, HSF and DDR2 RAM on upgrade card.
    (5) Install upgrade onto mobo.
    (6) Turn on and fingers crossed... It should work. :)

  • yacoub - Thursday, November 3, 2005 - link

    What's the ETA on that silently-cooled 7800GT?? That is EXACTLY what I want for my next build! I bet it doesn't come out until next year! :( :( :(

  • yacoub - Thursday, November 3, 2005 - link

    Actually while we're at it, what's the ETA to the A8N32-SLI Deluxe hitting store shelves as well?

    I'd love a passively cooled motherboard and GPU since those two items tend to have the smallest, noisiest fans. I can barely imagine the joy of cutting out those two noise sources and just having a CPU fan and the PSU fan. mmmmmm!

  • KristopherKubicki - Thursday, November 3, 2005 - link

    http://labs.anandtech.com/search.php?q=A8N32-SLI+D...">http://labs.anandtech.com/search.php?q=A8N32-SLI+D...

    Soon soon :(

    Kristopher
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