THG At Comdex 2001 — Day 2 — THG.RU

First of all, we just want to say that in addition to our show coverage here, we have been getting some great support from George Walsh, our news editor. He has been covering the stuff we miss, and ably so in the Hard News section. So, check George’s stuff out as well. It’s a team effort, and he is one of the team. It doesn’t always show up in the layout of the site and you may be missing that part of our Comdex coverage so, we wanted to give George his credit for Comdex coverage, too, and point out some additional goodies there.

ATI’s On The Offensive

ATI has launched new drivers today and taken an aggressive stand on some benchmarks for other products that it didn’t, shall we say, agree with. Well, we can certainly say that ATI is making a concerted effort to remove some of the ambiguous feelings that people have about their drivers, and the company feels that the perceptions don’t gel with reality.

In other words, we should expect ATI to be more aggressive on the driver front in its battles with Nvidia. Certainly, with the 8500, ATI is in the same ballpark, and in some cases ahead, of Nvidia on hardware. Drivers have been an issue, but we have been told, and convinced, that ATI has plans to really force the issue, and get back some of its reputation in this area.

We’re testing the new drivers, and it looks like you’ll have a field day with the performance boosts ATI has managed for the 8500 and 7500. It’s going to be an all out driver war, and we’re kind of happy about that. That’s the way the graphics business should be, right?

Test Setup

The new driver enables the SmootVision feature of ATIґs RADEON 8500 for the first time. See more details on the technology behind that in our previous R8500 coverage.

The new driver letґs you choose between a quality and performance setting for 2x,3x, 4x and 6x FSAA. The following image demonstrates the differences in quality in the usual 2x and 4x settings.

NVIDIAґs AntiAliasing shows very blury textures compared to the RADEON results. It seems that ATI is using Anisotropic filtering in SmoothVision by default. We enabled 64tab Anisotropic filtering on the Ti500 to rise its image quality and demonstrate a «quality setting» for this card. But, this options canґt be set in the standard NVIDIA driver yet! You need a freeware tweaktool like NVmax or edit the Registry by hand. Anisotropic is supported in NVIDIA drivers since 12.xx but actual drivers still donґt offer any options for those settings. Just some new leaked versions showed settings for OpenGL.

The NVIDIAґs Ti500 FSAA results are a lot higher than those of the R8500. But the ATI card shows a lot better image quality compared to those settings. Even with 64tab FSAA enbled the Ti500 is still faster. But itґs not the Anisotropic filtering which slows down the R8500ґs FSAA results.

Anisotropic Filtering

The ATI driver specs speak of 8tap and 16tap Anisotropic filtering for the R8500 only. NVIDIAґs Ti500 can do 8tap, 16tap, 32tap and 64tap — higher is better (and slower of course).

ATIґs 16tap looks a lot better than the Ti500ґs 16tap results. Itґs almost on the same level than the Ti500ґs 64tap image.

The performance is pretty surprising. The Ti500 is loosing 30FPs with 16tap and almost 80FPS in 64tap. The ATI does only loose 7FPS — at Ti500ґs 64tab quality!!!

Giants

The new RADEON v7206 drivers perform a lot better in Giants than the old one but the GeForce 3 cards are still out of range for the R8500 in this benchmark.

Max Payne (Shooting Alex Demo)

The old v7191 drivers showed a bad performance in Max Payne compared to the Ti500. The new driver does a way better job. The R8500 still canґt reach the Ti500 at 1024×768-32 but itґs almost on the same level at higher resolutions.

Quake 3

The gray bar indicates that the results of the old v7191 driver are not comparable. ATI manipulated the texture handling in this driver to achive better performance — on cost of image quality. The new driver does no longer contain those «optimizations». R8500 and Ti500 are on the same level now.

3D Mark 2000

The 3D Mark 2001 benchmark scores are very important for PR departments of graphics card companies. The RADEON now is 500 points in front of the Ti500!

Day 2 Of Comdex

You wanted us to expand our netowrking coverage and in an effort to do so we spent a good part of the day talking to a few of the leaders in networking to find out what was new. We saw some things that we thought that we would see as well as a few unexpected surprises. Wireless, Home Plug 1.0, Gigabit Over Copper, and new broadband routers were a few of the products that we got a first hand look at.

Netgear — Easy Does It

First up was our visit with the folks from Netgear. Netgear is on a mission to provide easy-to-use quality netowrking solutions for both the home and small business user in the value segment of the market. Although they don’t normally target their products for use in higher levels of enterprise computing, because of the smart and innovative design of the Netgear products, many are finding a home in some IT shops. This trend is bound to continue with the some of the new products that Netgear has to offer.

Look Out! It is Netgear Man towering over the Netgear booth at Comdex. (It’s his dog missing?)

First off Netgear wanted to show us their new Powerline product line. Netgear’s Powerline technology uses the HomePlug 1.0 standard to deliver 14Mbits over standard UL outlets already in your home which eliminates the need for expensive Ethernet cabling. Powerline provides a very cost effective solution for the home user who wants to network a few computer systems. The Powerline router can provide a bridge from your cable modem or DSL boardband access to other devices that are connected to your Powerline network. Although it is not yet known if people are ready to embrace this technology it looked very easy to use for the novice and provides a little more bandwidth than the 802.11b wireless.

Here is Netgear’s Powerline display, notice the Philips Internet Broadband enabled boom box sitting on the end of the display as well as the network enabled version of the Sonic Blue ReplayTV box in the middle.

Netgear — Easy Does It, Continued

Next Netgear talked to us about their new Gigabit over copper 1000Mbit products. Netgear has two new NICs in this product space the GA622 which is their 1000Mbit Gigabit over copper 64bit PCI card and the new GA302T which is their new 32bit Gigabit over copper 32bit PCI card. Both of the new Netgear Gigabit over copper cards feature the Broadcom chipset. Netgear has optimized the performance of these cards to deliver outstanding performance in the Gigabit over copper product space for just a little more than the 10/100Mbit cards that you are buying now. We look forward to testing the GA302T in our upcoming Gigabit over copper NIC round up slated for sometime in the weeks ahead.

Here is a close up look at the new Netgear GA302T.

What good are the Gigabit over copper NICs if you have no Gigabit over copper switch to plug them into? Well, Netgear addresses this issue with a new complete line of Gigabit over copper switches avaible in both the stand alone and rack mount design. Starting to ship shortly the new FS309T, FS509T, GS516T, and GS524T provide an array of Gigabit switching solutions at a variety of price points. Netgear also announced two new 10/100 48 and 24 port unmanaged switches that offer the flexibility of adding the new FS700 series uplink modules.

With the announcement of Netgear’s new Gigabit over copper switching product line it was hard to get close enough to get a good picture. Although we were waiting for some time it was almost impossible to get a clear shot of these new products. Netgear had staff on hand that was more than happy to show off their new product, but getting close enough to see it was difficult.

In other Netgear news of note the company continues with outstanding growth in the numbers of 802.11b products being sold. Although they currently have a new 802.11a products in development, they expect that with the continued drops in pricing of the 802.11b product that this will be the product of choice for most users for the short term. When Netgear does ship it’s new 802.11a products they expect the access point to retail for about $400-$450 and the 802.11a access cards should be in the $169 to $189 range which might scare off early adopters of the 802.11a products. Netgear also told us that ME102 router users can expect a new feature firmware upgrade to be released soon which will add the following new features at no charge: 128bit encryption, Bridge To Bridge Support, MAC Authonnacation, and DHCP Client Support.

SMC — Turbo Wireless

The biggest news from SMC was the new EZ Connect 2755W 802.11a 72Mbit turbo mode wireless access point. When coupled with the new SMC Cardbus mobile adapter you can expect 72Mbit wireless transfers when in the turbo mode. Expected to ship very shortly, this provides the one thing that we think has been hurting wireless in the corporate enviorment, which is more speed. SMC is going to be sending in this product for us to review soon, until that time this picture below will have to do. From what we saw, the product looked impressive and we can’t wait to give it a full test drive!

Although we could not convince SMC to let us take the new EZ Connect 2755W 802.11a home with us for a test, at 72Mbits in the turbo mode it sure looks like they have a winner in the 802.11a category. Note the fact that the new SMC 802.11a mobile access card is in the 32bit CardBus format which is needed to open a date pipe that is wide enough to handle the increased data flow of the new 802.11a speeds.

SMC also had a few other products of note, but nothing could top the 802.11a product that we saw. SMC has more review product on the way to the labs and once it gets here rest assured that we will review it and give you the more complete low down on these new products.

Linksys — Wireless, wireless, wireless

Linksys was full of new product announcements as well as new product showcases for us to tell you about. Linksys has so many new things to show us in fact, we can’t even begin to cover them all here. So, we’ll just hit upon a few of the new things from Linksys that caught our eye.

First off from Linksys were the new StackPro III series Gigabit switches. The new StackPro III series Gigabit switch allow you to stack up to five StackPro III switches together and include the optional SX or LX fiber converter to protect your existing investment as well as management on this layer three switch.

Gigabit LAN Partying

They also showed us the new EG series Gigabit switches that are sure to be a hit with gamers. One model in the EG series will be sold as a bundle which will include a Gigabit over copper 1000Mbit card and an eight port switch with a Gigabit uplink. This allows you to install the Gigabit NIC into the computer acting as your LAN gaming server to provide 1000Mbit bandwith for the server as well as providing 10/100 switching on eight ports for your clients. With its affordable price it is sure to become a hit with LAN party gamers.

Here is the new Linksys StackPro III switches. If you look closely off to the left you can see the new EG series switches as well.

Linksys also showed us their new EG1032 32bit PCI 10/100/1000Mbit NIC. This Gigabit over copper looks to be a power house and is one of the first cards that we have seen that isn’t sporting the Broadcom chipset. Of course we tried to lift this card and get it back to our labs for a look up close and personal, but Linksys would have none of that. They promised to ship us one for testing in our Gigabit over copper NIC roundup which is coming soon. It sure will be intresting to find out how the performance of this card stacks up against the majority of Broadcom cards.

Here is a look at the EG1032 Gigabit Of Copper NIC up close and personal. Perhaps the most intresting thing about this new NIC was the fact that is was the first one that we had seen so far that wasn’t using the Boradcom chipset.

Wireless, Wireless, Wirless… yes Linksys is doing wireless in a big way. They have a vast and complete product line of wireless products that do just about everything. Linksys is even making a few wireless items that we have never seen before. One of the most intresting was the Linksys WPG11 Wireless Presentation Gateway which allows you to take any projector (or VGA device for that matter — of course some resolution limitations apply!) and send that data or video directly over your 802.11b network to other PCs on your network. In the ad-hoc mode the range is about 30 to 100 meters in the ad-hoc and infastructure modes. They also showed us their new 22Mbit 802.11G standard products. Linksys is doing so much wireless in a big way that it is way too much to cover here, but as you can see in the picture below they sure do have you covered on the wireless front.

So, you want wireless do you? Well, as you can see if you are looking for 802.11b wireless Linksys has you covered with a variety of products that can handle a variety of tasks. With the normal Linksys affordable pricing model we can honestly say that they had more of a selection of wireless products to offer than any of the other vendors that we talked to at Comdex.

Cable Modem/DSL Router With VPN Support

For all of you cable modem/DSL router fans that are looking to upgrade to a new router with VPN support Linksys like SMC and Netgear is also offering the new router offering secure VPN access. The new Linksys model is offering support for up to seventy simultanious secure sessions. It looks to be impressive. Although they had three of them on the table, I was unable to talk them out of one of these either. Oh well, we will have to wait for the review model to ship to us for testing at some point in the upcoming weeks.

A quick look at the new VPN router from Linksys. They just might have another winner on their hands with this new router.

So, What Else Did We See Today?

We had time for a few other stops today to look at some other cool stuff. We didn’t have much time to walk the floor yesterday due to all of the appointments that we had, so today we had a little more time and we able to get out and see a few folks we’d hoped to make time for.

IOgear

Although IOgear isn’t as well known as some of the other players in this market space, we found them to have some very intresting new products that were presented with a twist on new themes that made our discussion with them quite exciting. (You might remember IOgear from our KVM review where we looked at their KVM products.) We think that one thing that IOgear is doing well is that they are trying to find problems that users need solved and finding innovative ways to solve these problems.

Iogear had Bubble and Joseph out to greet the THG staff as we approched their booth for our breifing. So far it was one the most innovative ways that we have seen to greet the THG staff.

USB 2.0 Storage

First up from IOgear was the new Ion-Drives. These new USB 2.0 hard drive enclosures allow the user to add a 5 1/4 or 2 1/2 drive to their PC. While it can be used with existing USB systems the transfer rates don’t start to really take off till you add a USB 2.0. These cool looking drives allow you to move files or transport data between PCs very easily. Using USB 2.0 you can achieve transfer rates of about 480Mbit which is plenty fast to stream music or video which might be once use for this product. These were some of the first real and yes, we do mean real, USB 2.0 products that we have seen.

Here is the cool looking IOgear 5 1/4 USB 2.0 Drive enclosure. Just add a hard drive and a USB 2.0 connection and you have instant transportable storage at a very reasonable cost.

Although we thought that the Ion 5 1/4 was cool, we that that the Ion 2.5″ drive was even better. Just think, you can get one of the new 48GB 5400 RPM laptop hard drives and put it in the Ion 2.5″ enclosure and put your MP3 collection on the drive and drop it in your shirt pocket and take it with you can connect it to any PC. Yeah, we thought this was cool!

IOgear showed us their new USB 2.0 Impulse 12x10x40 external CDRW drive. This kit includes a the drive of course plus a USB 2.0 card and the burning software. We thought it looked good and of course it was USB 2.0 compatible.

The IOgear USB 2.0 Impulse 12x10x40 External CDRW drive.

Enermax

After hearing all of your comments on the Rant-O-Matic column that delt with power supplies we stopped by the Enermax booth and talked to the Enermax folks about power supplies and power supply technology. We were not surprise to learn that the Entermax folks had read our column on the subject and were excited to learn that we were developing a new THG testing process for power supplies.

Enermax had a variety of power supplies and cases to show us. We were surprised to learn that they are starting to supply more and more system builders with power supplies. We looked at some of the new case designs that they had and we can tell you that based on what we saw they have some really great stuff to offer in the way of cases. We look forward to reviewing the product that Enermax is going to ship us for review.

Good stuff to see at the Enermax booth. We saw some nice high quality cases and power supplies.

Leadtek — Burn Free Computing

We always like to save some of the best stuff for last and in this case one of the biggest highlights of the day was our short visit with Leadtek. We have reviewed Leadtek’s video cards in the past and we stopped by to get a quick look at the Leadtek GeForce 3 500ti. Leadtek showed us their new 500ti and as you can see they are proud of the quality and design of the new card.

Marx Li, Senior VP and General Manager of the Computer Product Business Unit, shows off the new LeadTek GeForce3 500ti, but the real story from Leadtek is right behind him.

Leadtek also wanted to take a minute to tell us about the new WinFact 7359KDA DDR266 socket A Motherboard solution that they have developed based on the SIS 735 chipset. The real story here is that it was one of the first board that we have seen that has a CPU over temperature shutdown function which Leadtek calls OTS. As you can see in the photo below the new Leadtek motherboards will be branded with a Leadtek developed logo as seen below.

Yes, you are seeing it here first! The first new motherboard that we have seen that has a CPU over temperature shutdown function that is intergrated into the motherboard.

Leadtek is new to the motheboard market, but they appear to be the first to see the need for adding this imporant function. Leadtek assured us that the 7350KDA is on the way to us for testing. We will look forward to trying out their new OTS technology once it reaches our labs.

Summary — One Must Have Product

In addition, we visit Imation, and are just going to say that Rip ‘n Go is a hot ticket item. It’s probably one of the coolest storage products around, and yes, we’re well on our way to give it a run through our labs. Our take on it is that it is a portable CD burner that functions as a portable music player. The reason we say that is that we’d hate to see this product pigeonholed in a category like portable music players. Sure it is cool enough, but it’s much more for the average road warrior.

You can take it with you on the road, burn CDs of files and distribute them, whatever you need it for, but it doesn’t then end up sitting in a laptop case or bag, or on a desk somwhere. You can actually use it on the go. Very cool product.

This isn’t really a Comdex of high drama or surprises. There’s every indication that there’s more going on in the marketing of Comdex to people who are not here then actual stuff on the show floor. What is clear is that the networking space looks like it has a lot to offer the visitor, and that off the show floor a lot of companies are positioning themselves for the new refresh in PC systems in January and February timeframes.

So, you should start checking in with your local dealer this Christmas time because, we expect to see the channel stocking up on new goodies from Intel, AMD, and all the Taiwanese board vendors, in anticipation of some major launches in the New Year.

In the meantime, we have our hands full with what might be a turning point in high performance networking, wireless networking and portable storage. The prices on this stuff is just going to be amazing. And that not only means that traditional buyers in the corporate world are going to be happy, but it is sure as heck going to make home networking ideas a lot more ambitious and a lot more cost effective.

Where’s Tom?

Because we’re kind of fed up of trying to answer this question everywhere we go, we’re going to answer it here — Tom is alive and well and doing stuff that even we are not allowed to know the full extent of and what we know we can’t tell you about.

We actually have to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), and we actually like to stick to our word, legal document or not. So, stay patient, some cool things are going on with our very own Pabster.

The good Doctor has had some things to do recently and one of them was the first real vacation he has had in six years. We kind of think he deserved it, but that didn’t stop him from getting on email and ICQ to us so, even on this, his first real vacation in years, he is still checking in on the benchmarks the guys are doing and giving us feedback on his perspectives. You know, you got to cut the guy some slack, and let him have a break too. Did we mention it was his first real vacation in six years?

As for what Tom is going to be up to now that he is back — well, all we can tell you is that it’s going to be heck of a busy December, January, and February for the guy, and then……. the world’s biggest computing show, and the whole cycle begins again.

Next week — we unlock the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle and ask, «Where’s Waldo by the way?»

Please follow-up by reading THG AT Comdex 2001 — Day 3.