CeBIT 2008 Round Up - Motherboards and Video Cards

Next on display from ASUS is something more traditional, a performance motherboard. It's probably going to become the top of the line motherboard when released. It sports Intel's new X48 chipset, DDR3, FSB of 1600 MHz, 3 PCI-Express 2.0 slots, and water cooling pipes for the chipset. It looks like a great motherboard, but be prepared to drop some serious cash for this. No price has yet been announced, but I wouldn't guess it will be under $300 for a board.

This board leaves me with a few questions. First, the water cooling loop is pushed to the outside of the case; what happens if you have an internal loop? And the name of this motherboard is "Pinot Noir."  Pinot Noir is a name of a wine; I don't see the connection between a computer and alcohol. Overall, ASUS' interesting booth leaves me puzzled and worried about what else is in the works that we haven't seen yet.

Video Cards

CeBIT was huge for the video card manufacturers this year. I'll start with AMD/ATI. AMD's announcements for the week had to do with the 780G chipset and the Crossfire Hybrid it brought with it. I really love the chipsets that AMD has been producing recently and this is the successor to those. I'm going to be looking for great things from it when it hits the shelves.

The GPU inside should be around an HD 2400 core. It will be a big bump up in performance in graphics, and Hybrid Crossfire will help even more. With the 780G chipset, you can get the integrated GPU and a PCI-Express card to work together in Crossfire. This is a great benefit for people that like to game and don't have a lot of money for a new card. A $70 card paired with the onboard graphics should allow many games to be playable now. It will also help with power consumption. No longer will you need the HD 2900 XTX at full power to run your monitor; you can have the onboard GPU handle that and when games come along, switch and have the HD 2900 XTX do the gaming for you. 

Next: Video Cards continued >>
 

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