Introduction

Even if we can't publish pictures and descriptions of all the countless booths and companies here at Computex, our endless desire to provide a high quality of vicarious trade show experience forces us to try anyway. This installment of our continued Computex coverage comprises all the information that we could find on what graphics card vendors are up to these days. As such, the following pages contain a look into the not-so-distant future for graphics products, including parts that we haven't been able to test from NVIDIA and everything we've seen announced this week from ATI.

But, just because it's on the show floor, it doesn't mean it will be showing up at your local 7-11 anytime soon. We've had quite a few interesting discussions about the availability of new parts, especially with respect to NVIDIA.

The underground buzz we heard is that the 6800 GT parts wouldn't be that scarce in the near future, but that channel allocation of the 6800 Ultra parts was somewhere between 50 on the low end to 100 on the high end. Not that such small numbers really need perspective, but when we heard that allocation was low, we expected to hear that it was only a couple thousand. This begs the following question: NVIDIA launched the 6800 Ultra in May, and if less than a hundred cards are in the channel today with mass production coming in July, are we talking about a paper launch? To be fair to NVIDIA, although ATI's supply of X800 XT Platinum Edition parts isn't that low, it's still nothing to write home about.

As we have previously touched on, the sheer size and complexity of these chips will no doubt have an adverse impact on yield. We don't have any reliable numbers to report on yield rates, but these tiny shipments seem to confirm our early assumptions that getting the 6800 Ultra (and even the 16 pipe X800) out the door in volume would be an arduous task.

Aside from availability, we've seen everything from the standard reference-card-with-custom-sticker to massive uberheatsinks and flashing lights strapped on to the latest and greatest graphics silicon. In the following pages, we bring you the most up-to-date information that we can on as many of the graphics vendors who we could track down on the floor.

Albatron and Chaintech

We were able to stop by Albatron's suite in Hall 4 for a while this year and go over everything from graphics and displays to motherboards and Small Form Factors. Of course, this is the graphics coverage, so we'll limit ourselves this round.

Albatron has a nice looking line of NVIDIA based cards coming out covering the gambit. Unfortunately, the press CD with pictures ended up getting lost in transit somewhere, and we can't bring you shots of their near term product.

The good news is that we were able to take home one of our first GeForce 6800 Ultra retail boxes from Albatron. After a bit of rest this weekend, we hope to begin work on this review (among others). Even though the first bits of product to trickle out the door will be reference, we are more than happy to have final shipping revisions of these cards in our hands.

As for Chaintech, we were able to get some pics of their upcoming NVIDIA based PCI Express graphics cards.

Chaintech is also one of the very few vendors who we noticed with graphics products from either S3 or XGI.

We were able to meet briefly with XGI, and while nothing new is coming up in the short term, they are at work on future graphics products. For now, they are focusing on their current line of products. They will (like NVIDIA) be using a bridge to run their current chips on a PCI Express system.

ASUS and Gainward

ASUS had a very clean layout for their upcoming line of products, showing off their high end and mid-range products from both ATI and NVIDIA in both AGP and PCI Express flavors.

Seeing all these cards next to each other stirred a renewed sense of excitement over the ongoing battle in us. This will be a very exciting couple of quarters with the gap between ATI and NVIDIA much closer than in previous years, and even more questions of who does what the right way.

As for Gainward, their new copper cooler 6800 was on display...

...along with their previous generation SilentFX and CoolFX products. There were plenty of massive red heatsinks to go around at this booth.

GeCube and Leadtek

We haven't reviewed any GeCube products previously on AnandTech, but we hope to in the near future. GeCube is offering ATI Radeon based products with a little bit of factory overclocking under the hood of their Xtreme line of products. This particular one is an X600.

We also saw their 9550 based product on the lower end of the spectrum.

As for Leadtek, we will again be seeing their WinFast series that proved to be a very overclockable card in our previous generation roundup. Hopefully, we will be seeing similar numbers posted from their newest cards.

Leadtek was also showing off some PCI Express based cards, as well as some of the only Quadro cards that we saw on the show floor.

Gigabyte and Sparkle

We were privileged to be able to attend Gigabyte's Nan Ping factory tour while in Taiwan. It's always interesting to see what goes into mass producing motherboards and graphics cards, and some of the gadgets used in the process are very cool. Probably the most interesting thing that we saw was a device that affixed all the components to the motherboard at once by running it over a sea of molten solder. Having spent countless times in labs hand-soldering components on PCBs, we can absolutely say that this is a life-saving invention.

It is also important to have a deep appreciation for the amount of labor that goes into the boards, with many people on an assembly line building up the briskly paced line of boards like an endless lego project for hours a day. Of course, the end results are seen in desktops everywhere.

As for graphics products on the floor, Gigabyte is also one of the houses that produces both NVIDIA and ATI cards.

Their 6800 has a customized-looking 5950 style heatsink with a clear plastic sheild...

...while the X800 XT and 6800 Ultra (not pictured) products looks a little more stock.

We've taken a look at Sparkle's cards, and they will again be bringing us some NVIDIA based goodness.

Hopefully, we'll get our hands on a card to test in the not-too-distant future.

HIS and Sapphire

HIS came out with some very compelling ATI based products last year, and they don't want to disappoint this time around either. They will be bringing back the ICE-Q product with the ICE-Q II for the X800 line. As with the previous generation, this new product will be based on a modified version of the graphics cooling solution offered by Arctic Cooling.

Unfortunately, when we showed up with our camera, HIS had just moved most of their cards out of their suite for a PCI Express event. Not wanting to disappoint, we bring you the above box shots and a shot of the ICE-Q II placard.

In a very interesting turn of events, Sapphire (one of the largest ATI houses) is also adopting a solution developed by Arctic Cooling for their upcoming Toxic line of cards. The fan supposedly only produces 7 dB of noise.

The toxic line is to replace Sapphire's current Ultimate series of cards.

Of course, the Toxic line will be backed by standard reference cards for those who don't need the extra pizzazz.

UPDATE: Both HIS and Sapphire are reportedly working on dual DVI solutions. At this time, these are the only two vendors we know of who have plans to fill this niche with ATI GPUs. We did, in fact, see sample boards on previous visits to HIS and Sapphire without our camera. We appologize for not having included this in our initial report.

PowerColor and Pro-Link

Among the more edgy items that we saw at the show is PowerColor's X600 line of cards. They feature both the very obvious orange rubber "flames" as well as lights.

For the less brave, there are more subtle cards, such as this PCI Express X300.

Pro-Link produces the PixelView series of cards, including the PDF and PDF-II. These cards feature a shroud around the entire graphics card and an LCD panel read-out with useful statistics like temperature and fan speed.

The PDF-II is a much more useful revision, as the display panel can be mounted in a drive bay. We were also informed that the PDF would move to the NV4x line at a later date, so look for a new revision in the future if this is your thing.

ProLink had a couple of other products on display; like everyone else, their GeForce 6800 Ultra solution was based around NVIDIA's reference platform. It is going to be another couple of months before we start seeing more differentiating products hitting the market, most likely in the form of more unique cooling solutions. Until then, price and availability will dominate the success of any solution.

ProLink also had their PlayTV@P7000 on display, which is basically a TV tuner + remote offering from ProLink. Unlike most solutions, ProLink's software solution appears to be a bit more polished than your average run-of-the-mill TV tuner software. Granted ProLink doesn't offer a 10-foot-UI, but no company does (yet) in this market segment.

XFX, MSI, ABIT, Innovision, Soltek, and Others

It is so unfortunate that we weren't able to get pictures of the cards at every booth we visited; XFX and Innovision happen to be among these booths. The thing to note about these two vendors is that they were the only ones who we saw showing off NVIDIA 5900 FX Personal Cinema cards. The cards have a two slot design with two PCBs. Of course, NVIDIA's Personal Cinema line hasn't received quite the acclaim of ATI's All-In-Wonder line, but it is still good to see vendors offering choices in the market place. Soltek was also showing off its NVIDIA line, and MSI has both ATI and NVIDIA cards to offer the masses, but our pictures didn't turn out.

Slightly straying once again from our Graphics Card topic, we find InnoVISION - a maker of graphics cards but here we're not talking about their reference GeForce 6800 Ultra, rather their InnoDV line of products. InnoDV showcased two interesting products, the first was a USB 2.0 TV/Video capture box called the innoDV TV-USB2. The box features a built in TV tuner, one coax input, one S-Video input, one audio input and one audio-out jack. The box offers assisted MPEG1/2 encoding, and runs off of powered USB ports thus requiring no external AC adapter.

Next, InnoVISION showed off their NVIDIA Personal Cinema solution - the DV-3300. Unlike most Personal Cinema solutions, the InnoVISION offering works alongside your graphics card - offering only a PCI TV Tuner in the bundle.

There were also a couple of graphics vendors whom are unknown to us (such as A-Win and Ennyah). Their pictures also didn't quite make it out of the camera alive. This is the most salvageable of the shots we took featuring some of the A-Win product boxes:

ABIT had the usual array of ATI graphics solutions at the show, including a reference design X800 Pro as well as a VIVO Radeon 9550. One of the more interesting solutions from ABIT actually wasn't even a graphics card, it was their "Wireless Media Bank" under ABIT's Thecus brand. The unit (pictured below), has a built in DVD drive and room for up to two internal hard drives. The idea is that you can store all of your photos, music and videos on the Wireless Media Bank and share them either wirelessly over your home network, or play them through a connected TV or stereo.

It's nice to see more diversification like this from the motherboard manufacturers. We'll try and get a closer look at the Wireless Media Bank as soon as possible.

We do enjoy learning about vendors that haven't made it onto our radar through previous reviews, roundups and trade shows. It was quite refreshing to see HIS make its way into the US market over the last year with their ATI based line of products targeted at the enthusiast and overclockers market, and we don't want to miss the next up-and-coming graphics vendor in the industry. And there isn't a better place to meet new vendors than at Computex.

But all is not lost with the missing pictures. We hope to bring out coverage of new products as fast as vendors can get cards to us, so stay tuned!

Final Words

Hopefully, our graphics coverage has been enough to whet everyone's appetite for the inevitable onslaught of reviews to come. There are plenty of companies producing graphic cards these days, and with the sheer number of GPU SKUs available from both NVIDIA and ATI, we expect to be very busy.

Of course, this year, PCI Express was a recurring theme, but AGP has definitely not left the table. Most vendors had a little bit of both to show off, and no one quite seems to have a firm grasp on just how the battle will play out. Surely, the switch to PCI Express is inevitable, but will most people be early adopters, or will it be another GPU revision or two before we see a majority of the market shift its focus? Only time will tell, but NV45 is a very interesting indication that NVIDIA might think that the switch will occur faster than previously expected.

We did happen to notice that some of the vendors were touting the fact their graphics boards were only 8 layers. This is impressive as there had been rumors of previous generation high end graphics products possibly requiring 12 or 16 layers. We haven't had a chance to speak with our contacts on the manufacturing side about just how these boards have come together, but we will be exploring the situation further.

With Computex offering an early view of the "look" of the graphics card market for the next few months, performance still remains to be seen. Many vendors are already handing out reports that their high end parts will receive a bit of a performance face lift via overclocked speeds. Most vendors weren't quite sure of their final shipping clock speeds (especially for ATI parts), but it seems that we are consistently hearing 460MHz for 6800 Ultra "Extreme" cores. As always, noise and heat levels will be very important, and we just can't know what shape the playing field will take until we get our hands on cards.

The rest of the summer is stacking up to be just as exciting and interesting as our Computex coverage, so get ready for a wild ride!