Computex 2008 Wrap-Up

Computex 2008 Wrap up, Mobos and More

Computex is literally the "E3" of the east. Well, what E3 use to be anyway. However, Computex is an entirely different beast of its own, and host to a ton of interesting hardware and then some. This year at Computex 2008, we saw several major things. The first of these were lots and lots of motherboards. Computex is usually the show where all the major and smaller motherboard players go to show off their product lines.

An Intel P45 reference board

The usual suspects where there : MSI, Gigabyte, ECS, Asus, Albatron, ASRock, Foxconn, Jetway, and J&W. The biggest show for motherboards and chipsets this time around were Intel G45 and P45 chipset based motherboards from all of the above companies. While P45 is a current hot topic, it lacks a few things that were introduced with Intel’s X48 chipset. For example, P45 only supports up to 1333MHz FSB speeds and not 1600MHz like X48. In terms of add-on board bandwidth performance, P45 only supports half the bandwidth of X48, supporting only up to 16-line PCIe 2.0 interconnects.

Gigabyte's P45 with quad Gig-E LAN Teaming

In early stages of tests however, P45 seems to be able to hold quite competitively with X48, and costing significantly cheaper. The excitement here is that users will be able to afford top-notch performance without having to pay X48’s premium pricing.

Intel’s G45 chipset really took the majority of the show this year however, as it is the first Intel chipset with integrated graphics that’s able to accelerate .H264 and VC1 in hardware. The chipset also natively supports DisplayPort, which while offering some advantages over traditional DVI, doesn’t currently support ultra-high resolutions above 2560x1600. There aren’t many DisplayPort displays on the market right now either. DVI-based panels still take the cake.

  • sidereus
    more babes ?
    Reply
  • MJBatson
    A review with half of the review just pictures of booth babes is just stupid. This just shows what immature people are being allowed to write articles for Tom's. I thought this was an electronic review site, and not an adult site. Tom's has been slipping for years. This is the highlights they came back with from the show? I think they need to fire the people that where sent, and get mature people who look more at the new electronics and less at the booth babes. If you want to take pictures of the booth babes for your own, keep them to yourself and friends. They do not need to show up in a review.
    Reply
  • evilshuriken
    You wanna know what I think MJBatson?
    I think you're just butthurt because you haven't gotten your AMD 48xx series benchmark fix.

    However, I think hexus got way better coverage then toms this time around... toms is getting lame lately.
    Still you're overreacting.
    Reply
  • mothballd2
    First; just because a word passes a spellcheck does not mean its the correct word. Edit your frickin articles! Second, if I want a bunch of softcore picts of Asian chicks, I'll Google it. Stick to technology and leave the softcore bs to car shows and search engines.

    And yes, I realize my grammar probably sucks. But I'm not trying to run a website or write news articles.
    Reply
  • Preytor
    Tom's has yellow fever?
    Reply
  • ^ this is crap the nehalem is running past 4 ghz? that doesn't mean sh*t to me... I wish it had a lower clock speed and that performance... I heard it was at 2.66 ghz... but if its past 4 ghz... that seems like crap... even though it is still much faster... it would have had a much larger impact if the ghz was less
    Reply
  • Lozil
    Ya This time Surely Tom's has missed the Coverage... They were busy clicking Booth Babe Photos Under Proper Lighting than the Actual Hardware around there...

    Http://free-and-useful.blogspot.com
    Reply
  • nukemaster
    I have to say, for a hardware site the coverage did suck this time around. I fully agree with those above.
    Reply
  • OK, maybe they exaggerated a bit with the boothbabes in this article, but if you don't like it, you can skip the pages. For the future it will be best if TH will make a special article with the boothbabes and update it as they make more pictures. That way everybody will be happy. I'm sure the boothbabes article will be read as much as the rest.
    Reply
  • TauAs
    I don't want more ugly babes.
    Reply