Computex 2011 Show Coverage - Part 1
In the first part of our Computex 2011 show coverage, we check out the booths of Corsair, Gigabyte, Freescale Semiconductors, OCZ and Zalman.
Gigabyte's Notebooks
Just yesterday we covered quite a variety of , so do check them out if you missed that update. In this show floor coverage, we'll share some of the other new products that Gigabyte has in store - namely graphics cards, notebooks, casings and others.
Gigabyte's recently introduced top of the line notebook is this P2532N Sandy Bridge equipped 15.6-inch full HD model. Specs include an Intel Core i7-2630QM processor, Intel HM65 chipset, Intel HD Graphics 3000 with NVIDIA GeForce GT 550M dual graphics working seamlessly with NVIDIA Optimus technology and quad speaker with a subwoofer. Estimated to be about US$1,500+, this is a fairly beefed up multimedia notebook.
Gigabyte says that this dual rear vents based cooling is unlike any other notebook, but we beg to differ since the ASUS stealth series of notebooks were the first to embrace this concept. Nonetheless, it's a neat addition.
Various other color options are available for the Gigabyte P2532N notebook besides black.
One notch down the line, is this M2432 model that's designed for portability in mind. Sporting a 14-inch screen, 1366 x 768 pixels resolution, Intel Core i3/i5 processor configurations, Intel HM65 chipset, Intel HD Graphics 3000, this notebook weights 1.8kg with an ODD and just 1.65kg without. Its main advantage is the accompanying dock which discrete graphics to boost desktop processing capabilities.
As expected, the dock contains even more ports, but more important is the ability to use the GeForce GT 440 GPU that's built within. So now you can indulge in more multimedia and gaming heavy content at home while bring around a notebook that's just enough to tackle office chores.
Meet the Gigabyte T1125, a 11.6-inch multi-touch capacitive screen equipped notebook that doubles up as a tablet and a desktop. Powered by low voltage first generation Intel Core processors, it also comes with dual graphics from Intel and NVIDIA, supplemented by NVIDIA's Optimus technology. While the screen swivels to give you a tablet-like usage model, the notebook comes with a rotatable docking station that converts it into a desktop too. Gigabyte calls it the world's first 3-in-1 computer.
Here we have the T1125 machine docked with all the accessories needed to run it as a desktop - a monitor, keyboard and mouse. An additional function the T1125 in this mode is that its screen can double up as a huge touch pad for an auxiliary input option.
The S1080 is a Windows 7 based tablet running the Intel Atom platform. It has a capacitive multi-touch screen, optical finger navigation and mouse buttons, extended battery life option and will retail around the S$800 to S$900 depending on the configuration. Competition will certainly be stiff.
Gigabyte's Graphics Cards
While there's nothing really new about the GeForce GTX 580 GPU in general, Gigabyte has launched a new edition of this fast GPU in its GV-N580SO-1GI. As it's name suggests, it's super overclocked out of the box at 855MHz at the core and 4100MHz for its GDDR5 memory, which compares well against the stock speeds of 772MHz and 4008MHz respectively. More importantly, it features dual BIOS and uses a new WindForce 3X cooling scheme with its outward inclined triple-fan design that minimizes the airflow turbulence between the fans. Gigabyte claims 16% better performance and 33% better cooling than a reference GTX 580 card.
This is probably one of the more powerful fully silent graphics cards in the market. Based on the Radeon HD 6770 GPU, the GV-R677SL-1GD features a massive heatsink array tuned for cooling without an active fan which Gigabyte calls Silent-Cell Cooling Technology. Despite the efforts put into this card, from our experience, we know this will generate quite a bit of heat and is likely only applicable to hardcore HTPC users demanding high GPU performance at the most quiet operation possible.
Gigabyte's Casings and PSUs
Of these new mid-tower Gigabyte casings, the first is the more personalized than the rest and is christened the Sumo Alpha. It's made from SECC steel, has a large ventilated mesh at the side, blue LEDs, front USB 3.0 ports and cable management behind the motherboards tray. The second is named Setto II 142 and is an even more compact mid-tower casing at only 480mm in depth. The last casing is just a different variant of the second case and is named Setto II 140.
The original enthusiast oriented Sumo casing has now been updated with this Sumo 5112 model. Most notable addition is a built-in dock for 2.5-inch hard drives and comes with a hot-swap capable plug'n play enclosure. The enclosure also doubles up as an external drive too with a mini-USB cable.
As for power supplies, we're all familiar with the mainstream Odin series, but more recently, Gigabyte is reaching out to the extreme audience - besides their motherboard. These PSUs pictured here are part of the Sumo series and are an extension of the higher end Sumo casings. All feature modular cabling. From left to right:- Sumo Power Fanless 650W (80 Plus Gold certified), Sumo Power Silver 1200W and Sumo Power Silver 900.
Corsair's Booth
Over at Corsair's suite, we found them demoing a yet to be released tech enthusiast gadget called Corsair Link. No larger than the size of a 2.5-inch drive bay unit, it links up various Corsair cooling equipment that have monitoring capabilities and is able to control them in a much more advanced fashion. Shown here is the advanced Corsair H100 hydro CPU cooler that has support for such configuration and is able to work with Corsair Link and several LED strips to visually reflect real-time temperatures.
Here's the software layer of Corsair Link that has several fine tuning options, but yet is easy to use and configure. This is going to be quite the toy for the tweakers and posers. Corsair tech personnel have mentioned that their solution is much more accurate in control and execution than relying on the default monitoring on the motherboard coupled with a software layer.
Hard-core stuff aside, this is Corsair's new Carbide 400 gaming chassis for those in the market of an upper-tier mid-range and spacious medium tower. Some of its features include eight expansion slots, native SSD and USB 3.0 support, and up to 10 fan mounting locations.
The all new Vengeance is Corsair's choice for maximum performance, maximum value. It operates no greater than 1.5V, has XMP support out of the box and thus works well with the new Intel Core processors. Comes in several color options, low-profile or lower voltage editions if required.
Over on the flash memory side of things, Corsair has a renewed Padlock model, which just has a "2" appended to its name. It's still on USB 2.0, but it has 256-bit AES encryption, is PIN protected via the keypad and works with most OS systems.
Since Corsair has been catering to the enthusiasts and the gamer crowd, looks like they've gone all out to expand their offerings to accessories that appeal to this group. Here's the SP2500 2.1-speaker system that can output 230 watts RMS of power.
Last but not least, gaming audio headsets like the HS1A and HS1. Both feature 50mm drivers and oversized earcups, but the HS1 operates via USB. The HS1A works with any analog audio output though.
Freescale Semiconductor's Booth
If thought there were enough chip designs in the market to satisfy the growing tablet thirst, you thought wrong. Freescale Semiconductors is another play that's licensing from ARM for their chips designs. Here are a few prototypes that the company was showcasing:-
Here's a tablet prototype that's more attuned for managing and controlling devices at home - a home infotainment unit. It's powered by their i.MX multimedia applications processor based on the ARM Cortex A8 core.
Here's another larger tablet prototype geared for multimedia and gaming and uses the company's i.MX53 application processor, also based on the ARM Cortex A8 core.
If you're wondering has Freescale Semiconductor deployed any tablets to-date using their i.MX multimedia application processor, their executives gladly showed us this e-book slate that's sold in mainland China. It wasn't very impressive, but it's likely due to the low price point that the vendor had to work with to get this product out. It looks like we'll have to see a few more implementations from more developed markets before we can give our comments.
OCZ's Booth
OCZ has certainly come a long way and it's nice to see how the company has been expanding its enthusiast portfolio all the way into new markets into business and enterprise offerings thanks to their many high performance specialized storage controllers and storage options. Here's more of the crazy stuff we saw at their booth:-
As if the RevoDrive PCIe based storage solution wasn't fast enough, they came up with RevoDrive X2 using four SandForce SF-1200 controllers. Coming soon is this new RevoDrive 3 - using just two SandForce SF-2200 controllers, it's able to deliver faster read/write speeds than the old X2 model and go toe-to-toe with the number of IOPS.
If that doesn't rock your boat yet, OCZ offers the RevoDrive 3 X2. The specs speak for themselves and are eye-popping indeed.
Now here's something that OCZ is still working on but they call it the RevoDrive Hybrid. The concept is pretty much the same as Intel's SRT on the Z68 chipset, except that that the RevoDrive Hybrid uses either 60GB or 120GB of SSD as cache with at least two SandForce controllers while they bolting on a regular hard drive for the main storage which comes in either 500GB or 1TB options. From their own benchmarks, this solution is about 25% faster in PCMark Vantage HDD results than compared to an Intel Larson Creek SSD with Intel SRT on the Intel Z68 chipset.
OCZ also showed us this truly enterprise class storage drive, the Z-Drive R4 88. Using up to eight SandForce SF-2000 series controllers, it comes in various configurations of flash memory types to the amount of storage that can run into the terabytes range. Here are some of its stats for your information:- read speeds up to 2,900MB/s, write up to t 2,700MB/s and up to 350,000 IOPS for 4K.
Last but not least, they've a new member in their PSU family, a 1KW Fatal1ty series model with 80 Plus Gold rating.
Zalman's Booth
The Zalman CNPS12X is the world's first tri-fan CPU cooler solution. Weighing at 1kg, this is quite a massive cooler with six direct contact heatpipes. It's compatible with various CPUs and sockets via its all in one clip structure.
Meet the V-shape cooler series from Zalman. Seen here is the CNPS11X Extreme. It has a pair of V-shaped heatsink design for optimal airflow.
Here's a prototype casing on display called the L-shaped chassis. It has a fairly think aluminum exterior that makes up its sturdy build. It's not going to come cheap, that's for sure.
Here's a view of its storage area from within the chassis.
Not exactly new but still fairly recent is this hard drive enclosure that has hardware switches to get the drive to double up as an ODD or HDD to load a drive image or ISO file respectively.
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.