X-bit labs

X-bit labs CeBIT 2006 Coverage: Day 4

Category: Editorial

by Anton Shilov

[ 03/14/2006 | 12:14 PM ]

This time we have massive amount of information and also massive amount of hot shoots with models standing at the booths. We expose the world’s fastest graphics card from XFX as well as reveal the company’s first HDMI graphics card , check out DDR3 chipset from SiS along with its market prospects, we take a look at HIS’ new cooling system as well as reveal plans of Foxconn to target enthusiasts. In addition, we offer you to take a look at Club3D’s liquid-cooled Radeon X1900 XTX as well as FIC’s Mac mini competitor that will be sold under Intel Viiv brand.

Table of contents:

• XFX Plays Hard… and Hot
  
• SiS Preps DDR3 Chipset in 2006
  
• HIS Improves ICE Cooling
  
• Foxconn Leaps Forward
  
• FIC Offers Viiv Mac Mini Rival
  
• Club3D Cools It with Water
  

XFX Plays Hard… and Hot

XFX is a part of Pine Technologies, a manufacturer and developer of hardware for personal computers. XFX is not only a maker of graphics cards, but a company that concentrates its efforts on gamers and computer enthusiasts demanding the highest performance possible as well as accessories needed by them. The motto of XFX for the CeBIT 2006 is “Play Hard”, which should attract attention of professional gamers, who do play hard.

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At CeBIT 2006 XFX is showcasing its graphics cards, some of which are pretty unique. Given that Pine can produce up to 500 thousand of graphics cards a month, XFX has a lot of chances to sort out the fastest units, mark them appropriately, and address performance-demanding users. Historically Gainward was the company who sold the pre-overclocked NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards, recently EVGA started to offer similar kinds of products, but, in fact, when it comes to the highest performing NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX with 512MB of memory, XFX is the company that sells the fastest one.

    

XFX GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB XXX Edition comes with 700MHz core clock-speed, up 50MHz compared to reference design, and 1800MHz memory frequency, up 200MHz versus typical boards based on the same chip. Such a graphics card should be faster compared to any other GeForce 7900 GTX on the market, something that makes XFX distinctive.

Additionally, XFX supplies NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT-based graphics cards with clock-speeds increased to 590MHz/1600MHz as compared to reference clocks of 560MHz/1400MHz for core/memory, respectively.

Nevertheless, high-end graphics boards is not the only advantage that XFX has. The company also displays the world’s first branded NVIDIA GeForce board with HDMI output and HDCP support. In fact, Sony used to be the first one to manufacture GeForce 6200-series graphics card with HDMI several months ago, but the company only supplied its products as a part of its multimedia center PCs. XFX is going to sell its GeForce 7300-series GPU-based graphics card with HDMI output into retail market within the following weeks, which may attract video enthusiasts to the company’s product line.