We immediately noticed that Gigabyte was showing off some new processor heatsink fan designs. Most interesting of which is named the Gigabyte Volar.  As you can see from the pictures, the heatsink is tilted at a 45 degree angle, so that the exhaust air can more easily exit the system as well as cool the motherboard MOSFETs in the process.

We then moved on to Gigabyte’s two new power supplies, the Thor 1200W and the Odin GT 800W. The Odin GT was particularly innovative because it comes with a software suite called P-Tuner that lets you look at current and peak wattage use, voltages, fan speeds, and temperatures while in Windows.

Next up was Gigabyte’s new UMPC, the U60. The U60 runs a full version of Windows XP, is based on a 1GHz VIA C7-M CPU, has 768MB of DDR2-533 on board, a 30GB Hard Drive, has built in WIFI, and a 6.5” LCD with an 800x480 resolution. To top it off, it will only cost around $800, compared with the $1500-$2000 most other UMPC’s are currently going for that price is much more enticing.

The U60’s screen is a touch display but the notebook like mouse surface at the right corner of the screen makes browsing websites very easy. Although the keyboard looks small, it was not difficult to type with once we got the hang of it. Of course, there is a drawback, and that is the fact that the U60 won’t be available in the US this year. Gigabyte plans to release the U60, when they can make the device work with the wireless internet services of cell phone providers like Sprint and T-Mobile, but if you really want it, you could probably just import one from Taiwan.

And finally we were able to check out Gigabyte’s new HTPC, the GB-MEC. Based on Intel’s Core 2 Duo Mobile CPU (Socket M), the GB-MEC uses the ATI RS600ME chipset with the SB600 south bridge, has an integrated Radeon Xpress 1300 graphics chip, is WIFI enabled, supports HDMI, and has a built in Blu-Ray disc drive.

Foxconn:

Foxconn has long been involved in making motherboards, graphic cards, and other computer hardware for industry giants like Dell and HP, but just in the last few years, the company has decided to brand its own line of products for sale in retail and etail.

Foxconn was showing off some of their new heatsink fan designs, most of which however seemed pretty basic and mainstream. The company had a full line of their new NVIDIA based graphics cards also on display, ranging from the GeForce 8800GTX all the way down to 8500GT.

And Foxconn was also showing off their line of motherboards that supports Intel’s upcoming 45nm Penryn processor. Pictured is a P35 board, and their X38A model, a DDR3 based Intel X38 board that still has a parallel port for some odd reason.

FIC:

FIC’s CE260 UMPC looked very interesting, as it was the only UMPC I’ve seen thus far that has a full sized keyboard. The FIC CE260 has built in support for both Windows XP and Vista, and includes up to 1GB DDR2 memory, a 30GB or 60GB hard drive, a four in one card reader as well and support for 802.11g, and Bluetooth. It also has microphone and speaker ports, two USB ports and a expansion slot.

It weights only 850 grams and measures 230mm by 161mm by 29.4mm. TheCE260 runs on a VIA C7M ultra low voltage CPU with a clock speed of 1.2GHz. However, FIC’s design is somewhat questionable as a big portion of their screen real estate is taken up by a time / calendar output screen.

But probably most interesting item in their booth is FIC’s new cell phone product, the Neo 1973. The Neo 1973 is based on Linux, meaning that anyone in the world can write software for it. It will be interesting to see what kinds of new ideas programmers would be able to incorporate into cell phones with the Neo 1973, the only drawback is that the phone hasn’t been picked up by any major carriers in the USA so its presence on American shores is question at the moment.

Albatron:

Albatron was also at the show, but this year, was focusing on its small form factor barebone offerings and didn’t make much noise with their motherboard or graphics card products.

The company was showing off a new Windows Home Server product, the S2111W. Based on AMD’s 690G chipset, the server supports socket AM2 processors, up to 2GB of DDR2 memory, and can hold up to four hard drives. A reference P35 motherboard was also on display, but the board looked very plain.

One of the more interesting things on display at Albatron’s booth was their DTX motherboard, the KD690-AM2. DTX is AMD’s own (170x200mm) small form factor motherboard layout, and the KD690-AM2 is the first motherboard to use it. The KD690-AMD2 lists a series of impressive specs, including an integrated Radeon Xpress 1250 graphics core, HDMI, DVI, VGA outputs, Gigabit Ethernet, and it even has four SATA II ports.

Intel Keynote:

We took a break from the show floor to go to a keynote speech that Intel’s Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Sales and Marketing Group, Sean Maloney, was giving at the e21Forum, a hardware developer forum for Taiwanese technology companies.

Maloney’s keynote officially launched Intel’s Bearlake chipsets, which according to Maloney, are expected to be the fastest growing chipsets in Intel’s history, with over 100 motherboard designs planned. Many of those designs were on display directly below Maloney.

Maloney also announced a Core 2 Extreme processor for notebooks, that he said will be the fastest notebook processor on the market “by a wide margin”. Currently this new Core 2 Extreme processor will be used in two notebooks from ASUS and the “Dragon” notebook from HP. Pricing wasn’t revealed, but because of the chip’s “Extreme” branding, there will likely be a very high premium on these chips. Maloney also talked about Intel's upcoming 45nm processors, and in particular the new Silverthorne core, one that will likely be featured in upcoming UMPC's as it is an extremely low power part, likely around 1.5W.

But probably most interesting was when Maloney invited Jonney Shih, Chairman and CEO of ASUS, to unveil the Eee PC, a new and surprisingly inexpensive laptop that is designed to spread the internet and computing to less affluent regions of the world. Shih announced that the Eee PC will have two models, one priced at $199 and the other at $299. Shih revealed some specifications of the Eee PC as well, noting that it had 512MB of memory, was running Linux, and that it was designed to be an easy way for the rest of the world to get connected to the internet.

And on a side note, the Eee PC looked good. When Shih announced the price, a collective gasp was heard among the audience, followed by sensational clapping as no one thought that the Eee PC could be so cheap. There was no mention of the processor or chipset used in the Eee PC, perhaps it may use a very low end version of the previously talked about Silverthorne core, all that we can say at the moment is that the model seen here is Intel based.

Kingston:

Next to the Taipei 101 display were Kingston’s new 1375MHz DDR3 HyperX and 800MHz Ultra Low Latency HyperX modules. The DDR3 modules are named the KHX11000D3LL/1G and have a latency of 7-7-7-20. The Ultra Low Latency 800MHz DDR2 memory has a latency of 3-3-3-10.

Also on display was the value ram DDR3 variants, including a 1066MHz DDR3 notebook SODIMM, for use in select Santa Rosa notebooks.

And Kingston was also showing off new, larger capacity versions of the popular DataTraveler Mini and Data Traveler Mini Fun flash memory drives they announced at CES earlier this year. Both are available with capacities up to a 4GB.

Stay tuned to HotHardware over the next few days for even more hot products direct from the Computex show floor... 

Share Your Thoughts On This Article With Others!