AMD @ Computex 2008
Though the Radeon HD 4000 series is still under wraps, AMD still had other new stuff at their booth to show like an array of AMD 790GX motherboards and Turion X2 Ultra based notebooks. So step right in to get acquainted with these new offerings.
First Sight of AMD 790GX
From our recent article with key AMD executives, we've gained valuable insight of what we can expect from them till next year. And drawing from those insights, we were really expecting a cool display of upcoming products like the Radeon HD 4000 series. Unfortunately, that's still under NDA until after mid-June, so we'll just have to wait a while for that to show up. However, we did find some new products and showcases, including the upcoming AMD 790GX + SB750 boards. These boards sport an updated integrated graphics engine (Radeon HD 3300), which will support ATI's Hybrid Graphics technology and an optional localized frame buffer. So here's what we saw at AMD's booth in Computex 2008:-
AMD at Computex was a mix of components displayed as well as showcases to illustrate some of the points we've covered in our AMD comeback article.
AMD's booth front was proudly showing off the many AMD chipset based boards and graphics cards out in the market, as well as the upcoming AMD 790GX + SB750 boards with an updated integrated graphics engine (Radeon HD 3300).
Gigabyte's GA-MA790GP-DS4H is one such unlabelled AMD 790GX motherboard that we spotted. Dual PCIe x16 slots with x8 electrical configuration each, and the enlarged chipset cooler actually overshadows the onboard dedicated frame buffer for the IGP. The AMD 790GX boards look to be really interesting mainstream performance class boards. Weird, but centralized positioning of the USB ports though.
Here's Foxconn's A7DA, another AMD 790GX motherboard.
ASRock's ODE790GX-WiFi is also an AMD 790GX mobo.
Yet another AMD 790GX mobo, the Biostar TA790GX A2+.
More AMD Chipset Motherboards
Here's an interesting entry, the ECS A740GM-M board; it uses the AMD 740G chipset. Though it sounds new, it's actually the AMD 690G Northbridge that's rehashed (with Radeon 2100 graphics), but uses an AMD SB700 Southbridge instead. So it's just an updated AMD 690G board.
Jetway's HA03-Ultra is an AMD 770 board for mainstream needs.
ECS has incorporated an AMD 780G chipset on its special Black series of boards with this A780GM-A motherboard; it certainly doesn�t look or feel like the usual ECS board.
ASUS went all out with the AMD 780G chipset and designed a normal sized ATX board with the M3A78 PRO.
The AMD 790FX chipset isn't new anymore, but the A79A-S is a new board for Foxconn. Fierce-looking indeed.
Graphics Card Showcase
As we mentioned earlier, we were hoping to glimpse the new Radeon 4000 series, but that's not going to happen at AMD with them being quite reserved about it until the official release a couple of weeks away. But we did catch sight of some new versions with the existing GPU SKUs:-
Triplex took a stock Radeon HD 3870 X2 and slapped on some custom coolers.
Sapphire's well-branded Toxic edition of the Radeon HD 3870 was on display.
HIS and its IceQ 3 cooler are expectedly found again on the Radeon HD 3870.
MSI's Radeon 3850 card bares its latest cooler - Hybrid Freezer.
Puma Notebooks Spotted (Turion X2 Ultra)
Just as we mentioned in our of the upcoming Puma notebook platform, it was launched here at Computex we spotted some showcased at the AMD booth:-
Here's HP's Puma platform based notebook. No model numbers are confirmed and it isn't printed on the notebook.
Toshiba has one model too, but no model numbers or specs yet.
Here's how you identify a Puma platform based notebook. It consists of a Turion X2 Ultra processor, AMD M780G chipset and 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi.
We were able to put a model name to this Acer Puma notebook though, a TravelMate 5530.
However we didn't get a clue of this other Acer notebook that's based on Puma.
And here's ASUS' take of the Puma platform in their classic notebook design.
Other Sightings Around the Booth
Just a month ago, AMD launched their AMD Business Systems initiative, but this is the first time that AMD is putting such systems for display.
AMD Live! was once again showcased for entertainment - a standard that ensures connectivity among other HT equipment/system with this certification. Although it seems a little jaded in both relevancy and the need for this standard when there are no tangible gains/setbacks when not using stuff outside this ring.
Here's a really kick-ass looking gaming rig put together with a Thermaltake casing and an AMD CrossFireX system with dual Radeon HD 3870 X2 graphics cards.
AMD showcases some living room fun.
To prove that their IGP platform is really gaming worthy for the casual folks, AMD had these three systems with various AMD 780G boards and a handful of games.
"Look ma, no discrete graphics card!" - Most of the latest games run decently, but not as smooth as we would like it. Slightly older games would have no issues though.
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