X-bit labs

X-bit Labs CeBIT Hannover 2004 Coverage: Part 2

Category: Editorial

by Anton Shilov

[ 03/22/2004 | 11:01 PM ]

We continue our CeBIT reports. This time you can read a lot of exciting stuff from the XGI, EPoX, ATI, ASUS and GeCube booths!

Table of contents:

• ATI Technologies: New Chipset in Two Months
  
• ASUS: Introducing the DigiMatrix II
  
• XGI Technology: New Graphics Architecture in Late 2004
  
• EPoX: PCI Express Ready, nForce3 Ultra Steady
  
• GeCube: ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 9600XT, Dual-DVI Cards
  
• Final Words
  

CeBIT 2004 show is rapidly gaining momentum here in Hannover, Germany, and the second day brought a lot more interesting than the previous one. There are crowds of people and a lot of exhibitors, but it is still pretty easy to get from one place to another – the only issue is that you get tired from traveling numerous kilometers by foot.

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What is indisputably good about the show itself is that there are a lot of interesting things all around – you just have to ask managers at booth to tell you more information about the hardware and be sure – you will learn a lot of new things. The drawback is that due to time constraints you have to pass some booths without getting into details, but that is it – at a big show you have to choose something that has chances to be absolutely the best.

ATI Technologies: New Chipset in Two Months

The day took off from the meeting with ATI Technologies in a special booth located on the roof of the Hall 1. Since it is too noisy in the typical booths, some companies place special rooms on the roof of CeBIT’s buildings so to have meetings in relative quietness. This works – the meeting happens in a pleasant atmosphere and without any disturbance.

Even though RV380-based graphics cards are all around CeBIT stages, ATI keeps all the information about this part as well as about the R420 under wraps. What we can tell you beyond official comment “in the first half of the year” is that the announcement of the new R420 graphics chip is going to happen pretty shortly, according to current vibe, the time range is weeks, not months.

ATI believes that 50% or more computers shipped in late 2004 will have PCI Express x16 slot for graphics cards. As a result, ATI’s main concentration is to address those PCs with robust and fast graphics controllers, surely with native PCI Express interconnection and no bridges.

Since graphics cards are not the only business of ATI, chipsets are also worth taking a look at. In fact, the world’s largest mainboard maker – ASUSTeK Computer – believes that ATI’s RADEON 9100 IGP is the most sophisticated chipset for multimedia barebones that use integrated graphics at this time. The firm is going to broaden the range of its products featuring ATI’s RADEON 9100 IGP core-logic which obviously means a big push for the chipset.

Nevertheless, despite of being pretty happy with sales of the RADEON 9100 IGP, ATI plans a more powerful core-logic product to emerge in two months time. The revamped RADEON 9100 IGP will bring new memory controller as well as tweaked performance in addition to LGA775 microprocessors support. It also makes sense to expect this one to have more I/O options, but this is something ATI did not comment on. The new chipset’s code-name is RS350 and this is based on general architecture of the RADEON 9100 IGP (RS300). ATI’s totally new core-logic product, the RS400 with integrated DirectX 9 graphics, is likely to come at a very different date, sometimes within 12 months from now.

Given that the RS350 will be more or less compatible with the current infrastructure for ATI’s chipsets, the company plans to start its volume shipments once the product is formally released.