Computex Taipei 2006 - Part 8

For the final part of our Computex Taipei 2006 coverage, we bring you news from Albatron, Compro, ECS, Intel, PowerColor and a whole section dedicated to the beauties of Computex. Have fun.

By Zachary Chan - 8 Jun 2006

Albatron's Booth

Featuring up to four independent LCDs, HD content playback, multi-channel audio, gaming, GPS and mapping, the whole Albatron car infotainment system makes use of a mini ITX PC embedded design to keep things small and low powered.

Infotainment car this may be, but that doesn't mean it needs to be geeky. Take a look behind the MOMO wheel and check out the two LCDs that can display route/GPS information and of course entertainment.

The KI51PV-754 is the mini ITX motherboard used in Albatron's car infotainment setup. This board is based on NVIDIA's GeForce 6150 chipset, thus it will have a powerful GPU that has HD decoding capabilities as well as decent features. However, this board is only designed for old Socket 754.

The Albatron PX965 is one of the new Intel Broadwater motherboards that have been emerging this Computex. It has a clean layout optimizes for dual graphics setups.

The Albatron Nano Abox is a small form factor mobile Core Duo/Solo board featuring the Intel 945PM/ICH7 chipset.

For a change, Albatron had on display a 7900 GX2 duo board card. However, this is the precursor to the recently launched 7950 GX2. Even specification-wise, they are identical to each other (500MHz core with 1GB DDR3 memory). Looks like they haven't got their 7950 GX2 ready, so lets hope they have something more elaborate planned for it (if it all possible).

The 7900 GT Super High as its name implies is a pre-overclocked board for the enthusiast market. Albatron has the GeForce 7900 GT clocked at 550MHz. This is the 256MB version and it kind of looks similar to another vendor's overclocked version, doesn't it?

Albatron's GeForce 7300 GT clocked at 400MHz and has 256MB of DDR2 memory. The graphics card also sports Albatron's new heat-pipe passive cooling design. Again the design principle rings a familiar bell.

Compro's Booth

Making use of the high bandwidth PCI-Express interface to bring digital terrestrial TV broadcasts and digital video recording to your computer is the Compro VideoMate E700 dual DVB-T PCI-E TV tuner card. Up to four digital TV shows can be shown on your monitor or TV screen concurrently and with the ComproDTV 2 software, the card can even automatically power up your system for scheduled video recording.

Further up the scale is the E800 dual DVB-T and analog hardware MPEG2 card. This has all the functions of the E7000 but with added FM radio and full SAP/NICAM/Stereo/Mono audio of analog TV.

Finally, with the new Compro VideoMate V550, your high-resolution monitor can now function as a full-fledged television. Included is a remote control, PIP (Picture-In-Picture), an external box stand with S-Video, Composite Video, Stereo Audio, and Component video inputs, which means your monitor can now be used to play console games.

Compro hooked up an Xbox 360 to demonstrate the video capabilities of the V550.

Simply plug in the U2700 hybrid USB 2.0 analog & DVB-T TV tuner box and instantly add analog or digital TV reception capability to your laptop or desktop PC. Advanced PIP/POP and video desktop playback, MPEG2 streaming/recording, and Teletext are some of the major functions it serves out as well.

TUL PowerColor

We saw the new Theater 650 Pro demo at ATI's showroom, but PowerColor was the one with a product sample at hand. The Theater 650 Pro has 3D Comb filtering, motion compensated hardware noise reduction and will work with both analog and digital TV.

New cards from PowerColor includes an X1600 with HDMI output with a secondary DVI output.

PowerColor also had an entry level X1300 that also comes with HDMI, though this board's secondary output is VGA.

ECS' Booth

ECS had their showroom at the New York New York conference hall on the 7th floor.

ECS' KN3 SLI2 enthusiast Socket AM2 motherboard based on the NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI on display with a GeForce 7950 GX2. One other thing you'd notice is that the 'Extreme' boards no longer carry the brand plaque.

The PX1 is what ECS is most proud of at the moment, being their high-end Core 2 Duo motherboard that is also Viiv ready. The PX1 sports the new P965 chipset with the ICH8DH Southbridge. At the moment, CrossFire isn't supported on the P965, but ECS has mentioned that they've drivers to enable CrossFire.

Static shot of the PX1 shows even ECS going into the heat-pipe cooling bandwagon, though the rear radiator spills out into the I/O panel. The PX1 has dual PCIe x16 slots, Dual Gb LAN, and seven SATA 3.0Gbps ports plus one eSATA.

The P965T-A is actually the sister board of the PX1 in terms of features, except that it uses the ICH8R RAID Southbridge, sports a single Gb LAN and lacks the funky heat-pipe.

The integrated graphics version of the new Broadwater platform. ECS' G965T-M may be a micro ATX motherboard, but it still packs in the high end ICH8R Southbridge.

The mainstream 946PLT-A is based on the revised Intel 946PL Express chipset with a standard ICH7 Southbridge. It has Core 2 Duo support though memory is limited to DDR2-667. The board does have dual PICe x16 slots though.

ECS - Part 2

ECS range of mini ITX motherboards with chipsets from Intel and VIA to support both the socket 479M and VIA C7 processors.

ECS seemed to like Thermaltake's new Mozart TX cube tower casing very much as they've even got a demo running with a two-board setup. On one side, we have a full 'gaming' system running on an energy efficient 65W TDP AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ and on the other side, a mini ITX setup for home entertainment.

ECS had a full range of NVIDIA based graphics cards on display, which will initially be available only in Asia. At the highest end of course is the GeForce 7950 GX2.

At the mainstream spectrum, ECS also had a GeForce 7300 GT with a 500Mhz core clock and 512MBs worth of 800MHz DDR2 memory.

ECS IX2-5000VRSA is a Blackford motherboard and comes in either SAS or SATA RAID variants and supports 1333MHz FSB Woodcrest.

The IP-7230T based on the E7230 chipset is a workstation board for LGA775 Pentium D processors and requires ECC DDR2 memory.

ECS 1U and 5U rackmount barebone designs on display, both featuring Blackford platforms for the latest Woodcrest Xeons.

ECS - Part 3

EDH-04 Viiv home entertainment system is an Intel commissioned design that is currently in prototype, so don't be expecting it to be on sale anytime soon. This player uses the G965 chipset with VFD support, HDMI, HD Audio, SPDIF and a TV Tuner.

The EKT is more impressive in design and feature-wise. It can be placed horizontally or vertically wall mounted. Comes with RCA, composite, S-Video input and component, SCART, VGA, CVBS, and HDMI output. The system also allows antenna input from ATSC, FM, WLAN, NTSC, PAL and DVB-T. Features Intel G965, Clear Video Technology and SATA 3.0Gbps HDD support.

The G610 is a Centrino Duo notebook with a 15.4-inch WXGA screen and can be configured for either ATI's Mobility Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA's GeForce Go 7600.

The G322 on the other hand is a mainstream low-power notebook using a VIA C7-M processor on a VN800 IGP chipset. Its 14.1-inch XGA display is powered by VIA's UniChrome Pro IGP.

The EM-3535W is a pretty cool mobile player with a 4-inch WQVGA screen, 12GB HDD, SD card slot and has a built in DVB-T receiver. The cradle adds additional S-Video, composite, stereo out and acts as a battery charger. Runs on AMD Alchemy Au1200 media processor.

Powered by the Alchemy Au1200 media processor, the EM-3560 digital photo frame can do more than just display pictures. It is actually a PMP running Windows CE 5.0 and features GPS navigation through SIRF III, plus it also sports a DVB-T receiver.

Another photo frame-like player, the V70 is a chic portable player with onboard 32MB RAM and optional NAND storage up to 1GB in size. This player has an 8-inch WXGA wide screen display and can support JPEG, MPEG-1/4, 3gp, MP3, WMA and AAC_LC. It also has a 6-in-1 card reader.

Intel's Showroom

Intel's biggest launch at Computex would have been their Broadwater platform comprising of the new Core 2 Duo processors and the already widely available P965 and G965 based motherboards from every motherboard manufacturer worth their salt.

With the launch of the G965 chipset with the GMA X3000, Intel will join the ranks of integrated graphics with hardware HD decoding capabilities. Intel's Clear Video Technology also has advanced de-interlacing features.

WiMAX has been thrown about the past 2 years and we get to have some hands on exposure at Computex.

WiMAX demos up and running with a free romp of World of Warcraft and this localized high bandwidth streaming video playback, plus wireless live camera feed with more than enough bandwidth to spare.

Intel - Part 2

Proof of concept PC-based car entertainment system using a mini ITX motherboard setup. A similar fully functional system has been demoed by Albatron earlier.

Close up of Intel's prototype motherboard using a Pentium M and 915GM chipset.

Another interesting showcase at Intel was this dual integrated chipset demo, showing their capability of integrating two chips into one package.

Intel is big on Viiv with many players this Computex showcasing Viiv standards ready entertainment systems and components.

The SMCWAA-G EZ Stream WiFi audio adapter compatible with the wireless Viiv ecosystem.

Samsung MT50 CE entertainment system powered by a Pentium D processor on an Intel 945P chipset. Viiv ready of course.

Intel - Part 3

Intel was still showing a work-in-progress variation of their Advanced Liquid Cooling Technology, which is supposed to be a cost effective liquid cooling solution and not something that's for the ultimate enthusiast.

Spotted at Intel's showroom, NVIDIA's upcoming nForce 590 SLI MCP reference implementation for the Intel platform.

Showing off a crazy cooled enthusiast setup featuring the nForce 590 SLI Intel Edition and Quad SLI.

Not something you'd expect from Intel, but this is an Intel powered slot machine featuring traditional mechanical reels and LCD screens and is capable of supporting live video and audio feeds with programmability on a QNX* platform.

Computex Beauties Exposed

Well that about completes our Computex Taipei 2006 coverage this year. We've been slogging away around all the halls, but there is the usual bevy of beauties to keep us company. So before we sign off, we've kept the best of Computex for last. Till next year and another successful Computex!