Live from Taiwan: Cebit 2006 Preview
by Wesley Fink on March 7, 2006 12:03 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Abit KN9 SLI
Abit claims to have returned to their enthusiast roots with their upcoming KN9-SLI.
Biostar GeForce 6100-AM2
To survive and flourish in a tough motherboard market, Biostar has decided to specialize in integrated graphics/HTPC motherboards. Not surprisingly, that means that their AM2 offering is based on the NVIDIA GeForce 6100 chipset.
DFI AM2 LANParty
DFI has had some of the top-selling NVIDIA nForce4 motherboards with their SLI, Ultra, and Expert versions. They decided to skip the NVIDIA dual SLI on Socket 939, and concentrated instead on the ATI RD580, which will launch in about a week.
This time around, though, DFI is showing a dual x16 SLI design for AMD, based on dual NVIDIA chipsets.
Epox MNF55P SLI2, MNF55P SLI & MU1697
Epox is showing a very wide range of motherboards for AM2 - boards that cover price points from entry to top-end.
Next in the Epox AM2 lineup will be the EP-MNF55P-SLI.
Entry level AM2 is filled by ULi M1697 chipset. The ULi offers dual x8 or single x16 - and there is even a patch recently introduced by ULi that supports NVIDIA SLI drivers.
SiS
SiS has struggled in recent months, but they are still producing new and interesting chipsets for the motherboard market. Their new AM2 design is certainly not high end, with just one x16 PCIe slot.
Abit claims to have returned to their enthusiast roots with their upcoming KN9-SLI.
Click to enlarge.
Biostar GeForce 6100-AM2
To survive and flourish in a tough motherboard market, Biostar has decided to specialize in integrated graphics/HTPC motherboards. Not surprisingly, that means that their AM2 offering is based on the NVIDIA GeForce 6100 chipset.
DFI AM2 LANParty
DFI has had some of the top-selling NVIDIA nForce4 motherboards with their SLI, Ultra, and Expert versions. They decided to skip the NVIDIA dual SLI on Socket 939, and concentrated instead on the ATI RD580, which will launch in about a week.
This time around, though, DFI is showing a dual x16 SLI design for AMD, based on dual NVIDIA chipsets.
Click to enlarge.
Epox MNF55P SLI2, MNF55P SLI & MU1697
Epox is showing a very wide range of motherboards for AM2 - boards that cover price points from entry to top-end.
Click to enlarge.
Next in the Epox AM2 lineup will be the EP-MNF55P-SLI.
Click to enlarge.
Entry level AM2 is filled by ULi M1697 chipset. The ULi offers dual x8 or single x16 - and there is even a patch recently introduced by ULi that supports NVIDIA SLI drivers.
Click to enlarge.
SiS
SiS has struggled in recent months, but they are still producing new and interesting chipsets for the motherboard market. Their new AM2 design is certainly not high end, with just one x16 PCIe slot.
Click to enlarge.
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kilkennycat - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
With the novel location of a PCI socket in a position between the CPU and the first PCIe X16 slot, the passively-cooled Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe will safely accommodate at least 2 PCI boards, even with 2 high-end single or double-width PCIe video cards present. I believe that none of the other PASSIVELY-COOLED 939-pin nVidia 'X16 chip- set' boards currently available nor the other pasively-cooled AM2-based nVidia 'X16' boards pictured in this article will do this. (Note that single-width high-end video cards, such as 7800GT/GTX need a full DOUBLE-space for adequate ventilation.) The current passive-cooling Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe (nF4 X16 chip-set) is restricted to one usable PCI slot under the same circumstances. Also, the M2N32-SLI Deluxe, like the current A8N32-SLI Deluxe, has 8-phase CPU power (runs very cool indeed) -- see the dual mosfet heat-sinks. Put that board at the top of the potential shopping list if you are contemplating building a nVidia chipset AM2 system. I have a A8N32-SLI and am very pleased indeed, after having been an exclusive purchaser of Abit boards for many years. Asus' support of enthusiast-level systems has grown very strong indeed during the past year.KorruptioN - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
More and more boards are coming with the EPS12V connection standard. It's not the 4-pin ATX12V connection anymore, but 8-pins. DFI used to do this on their high-end boards, and I remember seeing Asus put the EPS12V connectors on their high-end LGA775 boards, to accomodate for a more power-hungry CPU. Seeing how the "lowly" MSI AM2 board is coming with EPS12V, we can expect more boards to follow suit in the future. More +12V for the CPU is nice.I am liking the passive cooling for the chipsets. The nightmares we saw with the first-generation A8N-SLI is something Asus probably doesn't want to deal with again...
Von Matrices - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Did anyone else notice that there is no 4-pin ATX 12V or 8-pin EPS 12V connector on the DFI SLI X16 motherboard? I wonder why.Von Matrices - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Never mind, it's in black and is hard to see.Omega215D - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Anyone else notice the Asus board with the PCI slot on top of the PCIe 16x? This would be good for me to put my X-Fi in... just can't get a videocard that has a heatsink on the back of the card.latino666 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
It's a good thing there is not real need to have a PCIe slot. Most of those slots would of been blocked by video card fans.DigitalFreak - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Yeah, what is with the morons who design the motherboards at Asus? They put a single PCI-E 1x or 4x slot on the board, and then place it so that it's useless when a dual slot video card is installed. DFI and other makers don't seem to have this issue. They did the same thing on the A8R32-MVP.Ecmaster76 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Okay, I like your articles.But I like em better when they are published in finished form and stay published (of course minor corrections and updates are fine).
It wasn't too bad until recently, but the RD580 articles went up and down like yo-yos and the RD580 chipset overview piece is still gone.
This one gets posted and the 7600 info was linked but gone, and by the time I finish the 7900gtx stuff has dissappeared. I know that things have to go through revisions, but its a little aggravating to try to read a work in progress. It shouldn't be too hard to keep the incomplete stuff of the public page.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
We are under NDA for the nVidia information. This means more than just publishing benchmarks this time. I was told we also could not mention names of the cards or specifications until the NDA lifts. I apologize for the quick deletes.DigitalFreak - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I think they purposefully post it so that Google's cache will grab it, then pull it real quick. Then they can say "oops", but still have the article out there. :-)