NitroWare.net - Computex 2008 Event Coverage

All of the Computex event coverage, news and analysis you are looking for at the one source.

Ah, another year, another Computex in Taipei, Taiwan.

Depending on who you ask it is either the highlight of a technology journalist's year with many new products and innovations to see, contacts to be made or socialising with clients aided by a lot of alcohol; or the dread of their year with a lot of walking around to be done,language translation if necessary, the never ending barrage of business cards or photographs and late nights aided by a lot of alcohol.

It is something only our colleagues at the infamous tech-rag The Inquirer could sum up eloquently.

For those who do not know what Computex is, Computex (or the Taipei International Information Technology Show) is the second largest computer or Information/Communication Technology expo in the world after CeBIT and is held every year in Taipei, Taiwan. If you have not heard of it before this is likely because it was once the domain of locals to south-east Asia where most of computer manufacturing, O.E.M and O.D.M is located but as of recent years it has attracted much attention from foreign western computing journalists and head offices of multi national vendors.

Firms such as Intel and Corsair are now using Computex which is the biggest Information Technology show in ASIA to launch significantly new products rather than using their home events.

Every year, the worlds major independent ICT or computing hardware trade shows are the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA;MacWorld in San Francisco, California, USA; CeBIT mainly in Hannover Germany but now around the world with events in Sydney, Australia; Shanghai, China and Istanbul, Turkey; Computex in Taipei, Taiwan. While not strictly hardware related, we can also count in E3 Electronic Gaming Expo has some computing.

There are vendor specific trade shows/conferences such as the Intel Developer Forum, Apple World Wide Developers Conference and NVIDIA's NVISION which have had or will have more contribution by third parties but these are not strictly trade shows or computer exhibitions.

Some of these events are for industry members only while others are open to the public either wholly or partially.

Moving on, the corps of independent online media outlets around the world have made quite good use of the event this decade and every year readers are presented with a variety of informative, interesting, weird and wacky coverage, scoops, exclusives, controversy, Side-trips to factories in Regional Taiwan and China as well as the Taipei nightlife.

NitroWare.net did not cover Computex this year due to a clash of events and preparing other content but we present an overview of a selection of Computex 2008 coverage from of our esteemed online media colleagues at other online technology media sites.

Futurelooks

Canadian Stephen Fung's site Futurelooks published a number of themed editorials

MADBOXPC

This Chilean outlet had to go through one of the more tedious ways to get to Computex just due to the sheer travel distance from Santiago, enduring a 30 hour trip.

A foreword, text is in Spanish and translation is required. This can be done using such tools as http://translate.google.com

Day 0

Day 1

- One morning at Taipei - Day 1
- Computex08: NVIDIA anounces NVIDIA Tegra
- Computex08: Accesories for geek girls
- Computex08: Mini Proyector from Foxconn
- Computex08: Bad taste, just for bad taste
- Computex08: Canonical presents Ubuntu Netbook Remix
-Computex08: Aeneon and their Xtune DDR3 1800Mhz memory
- Computex08: A-Data presents memory for Eee PC
- Computex08: NVIDIA anounces GeForce 9M for laptops
- Computex08: NVIDIA and VIA together
- Computex08: Gecube has a ultra light laptop too
- Computex08: Supertalent presents their 1.8 inches super slim SSD

Day 2

- Booth Babes
- Inside Computex08: Hardware party
- My first afternoon at Computex
- Computex08: Intel anounces P45 and G45 Express Chipset
- Computex08: OCZ makes “Fatal1ty” at Taipei
- Computex08: Phantom Mouse, for porn addicts at the office
- Computex08: Speed Painting, succesful on Youtube
- Computex08: Power supply units ready for battle
- Computex08: “¡Captain, we are surrounded by the enemy!”
- Computex08: Sapphire builds a Quad HD 3840×2160 display
- Computex08: Nvidia pays Ageia debts
- Computex08: MSI use AMD's Puma
- Computex08: Albatron builds PCI videocards
- Computex08: Gskill memory
- Computex08: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800
- Computex08: Notebook gamer presented by MSI
- Computex08: Mio launches new GPS systems
- Computex08: Acer shows their new Predator systems
- Computex08: ECS back in black
- Computex08: ATI HD 4850 (RV770PRO) burns
- Computex08: Enermax presents the thinnest keyboard
- Computex08: News from Albatron
- Computex08: ASUS and their new 1000W PSU

Side Trip - ECS factory Tour: How to build a Motherboard

Few days ago we where at Shenzhen (China) for a factory tour at ECS facilities, they showed us how to build a motherboard from zero, it's not easy but it's cool to see it.

http://www.madboxpc.com/15-pasos-para-hacer-una-placa-madre-guia-en-imagenes/

As with the ECS 2006 media tour as reported on by Futurelooks, press were given unrestricted access to film the factory floor, which signifies ECS's confidence of its quality. For the 2008 media tour a few changes can be noticed such as the staff size of 15,000 which is up from 10,000 and they visited a line manufacturing O.E.M mainboard for the Lenovo group. Even if press are allowed to photograph typically the vendor will attempt to mask, hide and cover up any brand names on OEM products.

ECS are still using manual methods to assist in testing a sampling of products for quality assurance.

The TechZone

John Chow of the The TechZone has had a unique way of reporting on computing events over the past few years and 2008 is no exception. The aspiring online technology media mogul published an editorial with video describing the way vendors use promotional girls (aka 'booth babes') to push their messages and brand across focusing on the differences that their roles take on in Taiwan versus other countries.

An interesting subject with gives an insight to the different marketing strategies vendors use in the East and West - the article and video are highly recommended.

Booth babes and trade shows seem to go hand in hand. It's a know fact that one of the best ways to get traffic to your site is to post some photos of beautiful girls. After all, everyone likes beautiful girls. Beautiful girls are also a great way to attract traffic to your booth. The Computex show in Taipei uses booth babes for more than just eye candy. Some are expected to do a lot more than just stand around and get their picture taken by female deprived tech geeks. The booth babes used by Computex can be divided into four distinct working groups.

http://www.thetechzone.com/?m=show&id=739

The TechZone also published a video tour of the Computex 2008 show which lasts 9 minutes.

We start our Computex 2008 coverage with a tour of the new Nangang convention center. For 2008, Computex is spread across two convention centers, like the Consumer Electronics Show. However, the centers are pretty far apart from each other. The new center is very nice and much better looking and functional than the old one.

This is a good overview of the event with products featured not covered by other outlets.In particular the RFID security portable hard disk was an interesting product development.

As a bonus John Chow finally finds someone 'with a bigger head than he has' and uses a Lian-Li aluminium PC chassis as a surfboard [to demonstrate its strength]

http://www.thetechzone.com/?m=show&id=738

Both articles and videos are in John Chow's usual outrageous style and are highly recommended.

ThinkComputers

This American web site also did not attend Computex for 2008 but posted an overview of Thermal Take products which were exhibited ranging from cases, chassis, hard drive accessories and cooling.

http://www.thinkcomputers.org/index.php?x=articles&id=84&page=2

TweakTown

Popular Australian tech site Tweaktown is in a bit of a unique situation regarding Computex. While they are formally an Australian outlet their editor has relocated to Taipei, Taiwan which some would say may give the outlet an unfair advantage. Tweaktown (along with Bit-Tech) went on a side trip to GIGA-BYTEs factory at Nan Ping, Taipei.

Even before their editors relocation, Tweaktown have tended to have a close relationship to the event (natural if you would say, given Australia's proximity to Taiwan) and they have endeavoured to bring some unique content such as a ' sneak preview' of the expo a few years ago before the venue was officially open.

Day 0

In the lead up to the show, we heard nothing but people complaining that the show would be a disaster because of the travelling between halls. While we agree it is a bit of an inconvenience, but we don’t think it is that bad as everyone is making out. Here's why.
We met several companies out in the Nangang hall today and we can report that by taxi from the Grand Hyatt, it took us 12 minutes to get out there or $180 NTD around 2pm. We heard reports that it would take up to one hour in peak out but that’s just not true. We returned back to the Grand Hyatt at just after 5pm and it took a little over 15 mins or $220 NTD. Given the show hasn't started yet, it won't add that much time as the express way is rather good.

Day 1

Day 1 of Computex 2008 sees Intel announcing and demonstrating its latest additions to its processor and chipset families - Atom now takes its place in Intel's processor line-up with other names like Pentium and Core.
For my first meeting of 2008 I was invited to the GIGABYTE suite in Taipei 101, and what a view from the 36th floor! - But being the computer geek I am, the sight from within was even better.
With Atom launching today, GIGABYTE’s GA-GC230D Atom powered motherboard was on display. We are really looking forward to getting this one in for review.

Day 2

Intel has the largest booth here in Nangang hall at Computex Taipei 2008 and they were showing off all their latest goodies including the obvious Atom based netbooks and other related products. On it’s Great Wall of 4 Series Motherboards, we spotted two Intel X58 samples on display to the public.
Intel had many people gathered around the Atom area of its booth with obviously much interest in something very small. Our attention was focused on a small wall of Mini-ITX Atom based motherboards from Intel, Foxconn, Gigabyte and J&W. Before we show you the pictures of these boards, take a moment to get an understanding at just how small the Atom CPU chip is from the small picture we created.

Misc - Booth Babes

We are taking a break out from our live news coverage of Computex Taipei 2008 to touch on something that has become expected from us around this time every year. We had better not mention any names of the people that repeatedly ask us each year.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, we’re talking about the beautiful booth babes that occupy the Computex computer trade show halls here in Taipei, and now Nangang as of this year. We are already at Day 3 and as we walk around from meeting to meeting we snapped up plenty of photos of the girls working the show floor to help promote the many products and services on display.

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1450/computex_taipei_2008_booth_babes/index.html

Side Trip - GIGABYTE Video Factory Tour at Computex

It wouldn’t be a Computex without at least one factory tour, and GIGABYTE was kind enough to offer us a tour of their Nan Ping factory out in Taipei.
This is only one of the many factories that GIGABYTE has around Asia, but this is the heart of GIGABYTE – it is where all the new research and development happens, along with production of the new boards that come out (all the new P45 boards are coming from this factory). Motherboards based on the lower cost chipsets like 945G come from China to reduce costs even further.

On the day of their tour, TT witness the GIGABYTE P45-DQ6 main board being produced. This board is unique in that it has 4 onboard gigabit network ports and have provided some video clips of the high speed assembly machines GIGABYTE use. The firm still uses their automated storage system.

GIGABYTE have taken a more advanced approach to QA testing and use jigs to quickly efficiently test each board before it is shipped.

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1456/gigabyte_video_factory_tour_at_computex/index.html

Bit-Tech also went on the media our and their coverage can be viewed at http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2008/06/12/gigabyte-nan-ping-factory-tour/1

Both articles complement each other and reading both will give the best insight into GIGABYTES's Factory.

Virtual-Hideout

'Diceman' of Virtual-Hideout, an American tech site expressed disappointment at the organisers new choice of venue for an annexe to Computex located some distance from the main venue, a topic which is debated amongst press.

For Day 1, specific vendors the site covered were ECS Elitegroup, Intel, Acer, MSI, Shuttle, Abit, SilverStone, Giga-Byte, Foxconn, ASUS, Kingston.

Of specific note are new solid state disk and WiFi developments from Intel, Black edition enthusiast main boards from ECS, Shuttles new 'Green' KPC series of small form factor computing and LCD display, a 'smoking' PC from Silverstone, variety of ATX chassis from Giga-Byte, Probably the worlds largest consumer ATX chassis from Foxconn, a clone of the Nintendo 'Wii' knun-chuck from ASUS.

One of the biggest shows in the technology community each year is Computex. It's located in Taipei, Taiwan and gathers thousands of the world's biggest and best vendors to showcase their goods on the world stage. Computex shows of years past have been located in one main grouping of buildings located very close to each other and to the world famous Taipei 101 skyscraper. However this year Computex opened a brand new building to house a portion of the show. The good is that the new building is more spacious and modern. The bad part is that it's located miles away from the old venue area. That really shook things up and made it a bit more tedious to cover the entire event.

http://www.virtual-hideout.net/articles/Computex_2008_Day_1/index.shtml

For Day 2 points of interest include the statue outside the new Computex convention center, Lian-Li, Kingbox, In-Win, Patriot, Xclio, Geil, PQI, Thermaltake, CoolerMaster, Elixr, Noctua, Coolink, Tomato, PNY, ADATA, Titan, AMD, Zotac, Zalman, Thermalright, Zogis, DFI.

Of note is a unique Lian-Li chassis, 'Frag the girl gamer' competition at Patriot, Waterproof flash from PQI, Kingbox company whose company and product seem to resemble KINGMAX, water, RAM cooling,Rotational CPU cooler from Thermaltake, Pointing out that ELIXR is a Nanya Memory brand, AMD's 'uber rig' and army, closed circuit liquid cooled 9800GTX graphics card and small form factor chassis from ZOTAC, GS1000 chassis from ZALMAN, New Graphics A-I-B vendor Zogis.

http://www.virtual-hideout.net/articles/Computex_2008_Day_2/index.shtml

Virtual-Hideout's photographs tended to be blurry and out of focus however coverage overall was good with a a wide range of different products covered from each vendor.

As it turns out, Virtual-Hideout also went on the press tour of the ECS Shenzen facility but delayed presenting their coverage due to the large amount of content that they covered.

Their five page plant tour contains the most number of photos compared to the other ECS plant tours we have mentioned and all aspects of the facility are covered, from PCB fabrication or pre-assembly to component installation to packing and their Quality Assurance lab which ECS calls their test center. This part of the plant is equipped with heat soak, vibration and equipment such as microscopes to pinpoint any flaws with assembled products or components. While it is expected that a large manufacturer of computing products to have such QA equipment in the first place [otherwise it would not be possible to manufacture or sell such products], showing such facility to readers boosts product and brand confidence and sends a signal that ECS is taking strides in improving their products overall compared to many years ago when some members of the computing industry took a different view of the brand.

http://www.virtual-hideout.net/articles/ECS_Factory_Tour_2008/index.shtml

We congratulate Virtual-Hideout on being thorough with their coverage.