CeBIT 2003 Coverage
Mar 21st, 2003 | By Archive
CeBIT 2003 Coverage
Date
: 03/21/03 – 06:03:07 PM
Author
:
Category
: Misc
Page 1 : Introduction
Event :
CeBIT 2003
When? : 12th – 19th March 2003
Where? : Deutsche Messe AG @ Hannover, Germany
Reporters at the scene : Tim and Steven
Introduction
Well here we are again. One year has passed since our CeBIT 2002 article, and now we're back with our 2003 edition coverage. A couple of days ago, Tim and I attended this giant trade fair in Germany which manufacturers use to show their latest (and even future) hardware to the press and the fair visitors. This is the third time the O² staff pays a visit to CeBIT and the first two times we always had something to look forward to seeing at the fair. But this year was different. We already knew what most manufacturers would be showing in their boot.
Let's be honest, what exciting hot new hardware could we expect to lay our hands on this year? We had already seen the GeForce FX from nVidia, last week we learned all about the Centrino mobile solution with Pentium M CPU from Intel at their press conference here in Belgium (you will get a full report on that one from Tim in a couple of days), the AMD "Hammer" CPU got postponed again even before CeBIT was started, and we can go on like this for hours! I'm sure you know what I mean ;)
This editorial will cover just about everything we've seen during our 3-day visit at the fair. Put on some music, take a cold drink, sit back and enjoy the show …
Page 2 : Motherboards Part 1
Motherboards Part 1
With the AMD "Hammer" CPUs being delayed till Q3 2003, motherboard chipset manufacturers like VIA, SiS, ALI and nVidia didn't officially show their K8 solutions yet. Although we did see quite a few motherboard manufactures showing their K8 solutions based on either the VIA K8T400, SiS 755, ALI M1687 or nVidia Crush K8 chipsets. But because of the fact that these chipsets and CPUs aren't officially launched yet, none of the motherboard manufacturers we visited had a working Athlon 64 motherboard on display for the public!
VIA did use CEBIT to launch the Apollo KT400A chipset, their brandnew platform for the AMD Athlon XP CPUs. With DDR400 (PC3200) support for 3.2GB/s of memory bandwidth through VIA's low latency, FastStream64 memory controller, AGP 8X to deliver 2.1GB/s of bandwidth to the graphics engine and native support for two Serial ATA channels in the VIA VT8237 South Bridge supplying 150MB/s of bandwidth, this chipset has just about everything to become the new standard for VIA-based high end Athlon XP systems and a serious competitor for the dual-channel DDR nForce2 chipset from nVidia.
Now what about motherboards/chipsets for Intel CPUs? Well, we can be quite clear on that one. The i845PE chipset still is the current Intel flagship for Pentium4 CPUs supporting the Hyper-Threading technology (or HT for P4 3.06GHz CPUs and faster). But everyone who paid a visit the CeBIT fair knows that nearly every motherboard manufacturer already displayed their boards based on the upcoming Intel Canterwood and Springdale chipsets. The Canterwood chipset will support the Pentium4 HT, a 800MHz FSB, dual channel DDR400 ECC memory for 6.4GB/s of memory bandwith, AGP8X, two SATA-150 connections and Gigabit ethernet. The Springdale chipset has the exact same specs apart from the lack of ECC memory support and the addition of the new Intel Extreme Graphics II onboard graphics solution. Nearly all manufacturers expect their board based on these new (future) chipsets to go retail around May. Some say it could be a little bit sooner, others say it'll almost certainly be a couple of weeks later … No matter how you twist it around, they all have to wait until the peeps from Intel think it's time to launch the Canterwood and Springdale chipsets …
ABIT
URL : http:/www.abit-usa.com
The nice people from Abit were eager to show us the BH7, their brandnew i845PE based mainboard made by overclockers for overclockers. With support for USB 2.0, AGP4X, 6-channel Audio and S/PDIF Out interface, and onboard 10/100 LAN, the BH7 gives users an easy way to connect to today's hottest peripherals. Abit also decided to offer Serial ATA150 onboard. But here comes the best part for us, overclockers, the BH7 is capable of supporting future Intel 800MHz FSB processors (UNOFFICIAL support only).
They also showed us their IS7 mainboard featuring the Intel Springdale chipset. This opens up the road for 800 MHz FSB CPUs support, AGP8X, dual channel DDR400 and SATA-150. Will have reviews on these boards for you pretty soon ;)
AOpen
URL : http:/english.aopen.com.tw/
AOpen displayed a large number of Intel and AMD motherboards this year. Let's start with the Intel ones … and guess what? Right, AOpen also showed their Canterwood & Sprindale motherboards. But next to these unreleased boards, AOpen caught my attention with another P4 board called the AX45-4D Max and is based on the SiS 655 chipset. Although the SiS 655 doesn't officially support DDR400, AOpen still managed to work out a solution to have this board working on an unofficial limited dual channel DDR400 mode together with AGP8X support, IEEE1394 onboard and a couple of nice overclocking options in the BIOS.
Of course, AOpen also presented the AX4PE Tube, their i845PE top model. Next to the usual i845PE features, this board has the special AOpen TubeSound Vacuum Tube Technology. The tubes are basically electronic valves that control the flow of electrons. So basically it results in a major improvement of your sound quality. And believe me, you can actually hear this improvement quite good!
Now that we know everything about AOpen's Intel boards, let's have a look at their AMD boards. No real surprises here either, except maybe for the AOpen Via KT400A board which is basically the same as the AK77-8X Max KT400 board but then using the new KT400A chipset. AOpen displayed their AK79G Max and the AK79D Max nForce2 boards for Athlon XP CPUs and a future K8 Athlon 64 motherboard. (no pics here because I seem to have deleted them by accident. Sorry for that!)
Page 3 : Motherboards Part 2
Motherboards Part 2
Gigabyte
URL : http:/tw.giga-byte.com/
As for as motherboards are concerned, there is not much to tell you about Gigabyte this year. Just like other manufacturers, they wanted to show off with their implementation of the Canterwood & Springdale chipset, but that's were the story ends.
After seeing already more than a dozen of Canterwood & Springdale motherboard, we actually got less and less interested in these boards. Can you say overkill? :) Nevertheless, Gigabyte managed to draw our attention by showing us their Canterwood board with no less than 6DIMM slots!
EPoX
URL : http:/www.epox.nl/
No real suprises here either. We all know EPoX as an overclockers friendly mainboard manufacturer and that will certainly remain in the near future. As you can see on the pictures, EPoX is about to release some sweet Canterwood and Springdale motherboard …
… and a little later on this year they'll also throw their Athlon 64 boards at us. All the boards will follow the good old EPoX tradition : a fine PCB layout, superb overclocking options and all the stability you need …
DFI
URL : http:/www.dfi.com.tw/
DFI had something sweet for casemodders they wanted to show us at their booth, the DFI LANPARTY series of motherboards. There are three models in the LANPARTY series. The LANPARTY KT400A & LANPARTY NFII (nForce2) for AMD Athlon XP CPUs and the LANPARTY PRO875 for Intel P4 CPUs. Each of them comes with UV-Sensitive Illuminated parts (like the PCI & memory slots, IDE connectors, IDE rounded cables, etc.) that light up in the dark. This will result in some stunning fluorescent effects :) Aside from that, these boards also feature Dual onboard LAN, 2 custom-designed onboard power & reset switches, a PC system transport gear and DFI case badges. I'll say it again … All you casemodders reading this will looooove this board :D
Oops I almost forgot to mention that DFI will also release their Springdale (PS82-B and PS83-B) and Canterwood (PS88) based boards in the near future!
MSI
URL : http:/www.msicomputer.com/
Next to the future Intel 865 (Springdale) and 875 (Canterwood) chipset-based motherboards and AMD Athlon 64 boards, MSI also showed a great deal of nice Dual P4 Xeon server boards with the Intel E7501 and E7505 chipsets.
Page 4 : Motherboards Part 3
Soyo
URL : http:/www.soyo.com/
Soyo's booth was complete as well. They displayed motherboards with the Canterwood and Springdale chipset and a couple of AMD boards for the Athlon 64 or K8 CPUs and the VIA KT400A chipset for Athlon XP CPUs.
Albatron
URL : http:/www.albatron.com.tw/index_en.html
And Albatron showed us their Canterwood and Springdale boards as well …
nVidia
URL : http:/www.nvidia.com
Andrew Humber, our PR contact @ nVidia, showed us the INCOMPLETE reference design from the CK8 (Crush K8) chipset-based Athlon 64 motherboards. I cleary state that this is not a working sample, but just a basic reference design for other manufacturers …
Page 5 : Video Cards
Video Cards
During our first visit at CeBIT in the year 2001, we had the GeForce3 to look forward to. Last year we had the GeForce4 to admire and this year … well … I guess it'll had to be the GeForceFX graphics cards from nVidia. A full DirectX 9 compatible GeForceFX (GFX) card can come in many different flavors. We have the low budget model which is called GFX 5200 (NV34) and runs a 275/550 core/memory clock, the 5200 Ultra (NV34) which runs a slightly faster 325/650 core/memory clock and the 5600 Ultra (codenamed NV31) (350/700 core/memory). Then we have the first high end GeForce FX 5800 (NV30) version which operates at a 400/800 core/memory clock and finally the 5800 Ultra (the top model, also codenamed NV30) which can cranck out a stunning 500MHz core clock and a 1GHz memory speed!
And as expected, the GeForceFX cards showed up everywhere. Every self-respecting video card manufacturer had them on display and even running in their booth :
- AOpen
- ASUS
- MSI
- Gigabyte
- Terratec
- ABIT
Abit will release a normal and a special limited edition of their GeForceFX 5800 Ultra which will come in a nice wooden box and a limited edition certificate!
- Gainward
- Albatron
My apologies if I might have forgotten a few …
Basically, all GeForce FX boards we've seen are pretty much the same. Some manufacturers are trying to do something special with card like using their own cooling design instead of the nVidia reference or they put it in cool looking package with lots of extra goodies.
Not only nVidia used the CeBIT trade fair to announce their new graphics products to the public. ATI did pretty much the same thing by presenting their brandnew Radeon 9800 video card, the successor for the well known and extremely fast Radeon 9700. ATI didn't show this card to the crowd themselves. The only had a tiny booth where they showed a few FireGL products, but that was just about it! Later on, our PR contact from ATI told us that they just wanted to let their new partners become more popular by allowing THEM to show the new ATI products ;) We've captured some Radeon 9800 action over at Gigabyte and PowerColor for you …
The Gigabyte Radeon 9800 :
The PowerColor Radeon 9800 :
Page 6 : Other Stuff Part 1
Other Stuff Part 1
We're going to bundle all other hot and interesting items we've seen during our 3-day trip at the CeBIT in a nice pictorial. Believe me when I say the pictures are actually self-explaining ;)
AOpen launched their Desktop Replacement mobile systems @ CeBIT. These are basically just parts from a regular PC put together on a small AOpen motherboard with a new form factor which fits in a slightly oversized notebook case. Very sleek stuff :
As well as their Centrino Pentium M notebooks (we'll have a complete editorial on these babies here @ O² in a short while) :
The Phase cooled Prometia AOpen case :
Page 7 : Other Stuff Part 2
Other Stuff Part 2
Page 8 : Other Stuff Part 3
Other Stuff Part 3
Up to 8 CPUs people!!! Who wouldn't want that? :-P
The trailer is actually for sale (I'm not kidding you!) :
Page 9 : Conclusion
Conclusion
It sure were a few hectic days we got there in Hannover. Getting up early, not getting enough sleep, walking around whole day, and so on … But now that we're back, everything can become normal again and we can go on with our lives. We're still tired from the trip, but we do have a good feeling about it. It certainly wasn't our best CeBIT trip, but we've seen a lot of new things, we've learned a lot of new things and last but not least, we've met some interesting new people to work with in the near future. So you, the O² readers, can enjoy even more reviews and articles from your beloved staff :)
Cheers,
The O² Crew