![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Monday , June 03, 2002
- Author:
- Kyle Bennett
- Editor:
- Steve Lynch
- Google +1
Computex Edition I
KT400, NV18, Hammer, Serial ATA, New VIA GPU & Chipset, and get a load of this; vacuum tubes make a debut back into the tech market.
MSI:
Microstar is better known as "MSI" now days and as their name has changed, so has the quality of their mainboards. While three years ago, they were not associated with quality enthusiast boards, that has certainly changed. By today's standards they build some of the most feature rich mainboards with quality that has proven to job one with them. A visit to their booth was certainly enlightening as they had all the "new stuff" displayed.
To start off with was some of the normal fare that was to be expected. i850E was being shown off as well as the new SiS 648 chipset. The SiS 648 is next Pentium 4 chipset from SiS that brings integrated USB 2.0 as well at 8X AGP to their Pentium 4 solution.
VIA KT400 was also present at the MSI booth and although it is a couple of months away, it is being said that the chipset is working smooth as silk. Also inside the booth was NVIDIA's Crush 18 chipset for current AMD CPUs. 8X AGP as well as integrated USB 2.0 are onboard as well as a new GPU portion of the northbridge and DDR 400 support. I am not quite sure of the future of this board as DDR 400 may not be aquired as JEDEC standard and it being short lived with Hammer being so very close after we see DDR 400 hit the market.
Speaking of Hammer, MSI was showing off their AMD 8151 chipset that supports the K8 CPU from AMD.
And also the VIA K8 solution was present on the floor as well. The VIA "K8HTA" is certainly a hot topic on the Computex show floor. Rumor has it that the chipset is working better than the CPU.
Sibak:
Sibak is not a widely known name in the HSF market in the States for a very good reason; they do not yet have distribution set up in North America. They have committed to soon be bringing their coolers to the US and so we wanted to pay them a visit to see if they were going to bring anything new when they did arrive.
The first picture shows off an interesting patented design engineered by Sibak, their "Triple Fan" cooler. Obviously from the picture you can see where the HSF gets it name from. This cooler is built for AMD CPUs and will utilize a copper core that contacts the CPU and then pulls the heat up through a triangular fin configuration. The clipping mechanism for this cooler was not yet complete and is why you do not see it attached.
The next two pictures above showcase their Tornado solution that is currently available in Europe. A healthy 70mm fan atop a robust looking heatsink with a copper cored base backed up with what appears to be plenty of fin surface area to dissipate heat.
A couple of items of interest to the DIYer that does not want to DIY too much! New case exhaust fans that can utilize an open PCI slot in one and two fan configurations. The two-fan unit was said to be able to exhaust in excess of 40 CFM. Possibly a nice addition for someone that did not want to cut a BlowHole to vent their hot case.
Lastly as Sibak they showed us a prototype water cooling unit that they intend to sell as a kit. They water block itself was and extremely heavy copper unit that looked to be very well built. A plethora of radiator options spanning different size units was available as well.