Fall Comdex 2002 — Day 1 — Nvidia Launches GeforceFX
Day one of Comdex was like no other than we have experienced. Attendance looks to be down since last year. Most companies have opted to move from the comfort and expense of the LVCC show floor to suites and meeting rooms in local hotels. This has made the number of vendors on the show floor even fewer that we thought was possible. Key3Media has announced that it might be fighting some financial problems and might be forced to sell the Comdex name and rights. Yes, it is Comdex, but not like the Comdex that we remember.
Amid the cavernous and desolate halls of the Las Vegas Hilton, where the overflow of Comdexes past came to settle, we searched for refreshment or even a surly employee of Key3Media, the show organizers. Alas, in space no one can hear you scream.
Still your THG staff is out here in the trenches once again to bring you the goings on of this year’s Comdex event. We are planning four reports, three this week and a wrap up report on Saturday. This is provided that we can find enough to write about. If the first day of Comdex is any indication, companies have also been impacted by the financial times and they don’t seem to be as aggressive with new product announcements as in years past. Still, we are planning on avoiding the temptation of sitting in font of one of the one-armed-bandits in the casino, and getting out there and finding a story.
It Will Be Called GeForceFX
Well, it comes as no surprise that the story of the day was Nvidia’s launch of the GeForceFX. In a posh affair at the Bellagio this morning, Nvidia announced that the next-generation card that had been known by the code name «NV30» for so long was going to be christened the GeForceFX.
Jen Hsun Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, steps into action and finally tells everyone that the next generation card that everyone is waiting for will be called GeForceFX.
In case you missed it, Lars wrote an outstanding article titled GeForceFX: NVIDIA покоряет Голливуд?, that we posted yesterday. Like this editor, Lars was left with more questions than answers about the GeForceFX. In my opinion, the two key take-away points where that we will not see sample boards to test for awhile, and that no one is going to be able to buy the GeForceFX for awhile, either. So, really, the waiting isn’t over yet, and perhaps this might be the most difficult thing for many to cope with.
Western Digital — High Performance Hard Drive Externals
Western Digital shows a system sporting over 1TB in disk storage using all of the interfaces: Firewire 1394, USB 2.0, Serial ATA, and Standard ATA, all on one system.
We had a chance to sit down and talk with the folks at Western Digital and they indicated to us that they are continuing to see growth in the external hard drive market. We have previously look at both of the Western Digital External hard drive offerings in the following articles: Mobile Data Storage: Comparison of Three External Storage Systems Between 120 GB and 160 GB, and The Mobile Storage Giant: A FireWire Hard Drive From Western Digital.
A look at the Western Digital external storage solutions.
The external storage solutions provide a quick way to add a significant amount of storage to your system VERY quickly, and via what is a very painless process. The new Western Digital «Drivezilla» 200GB solution is now available in an external package. Speaking of the external packaging, Western Digital showed us a new prototype of a clear external hard drive case with lighting which looked pretty cool. No word on if they are going to produce it or not, but we wanted to give you a look at it in the picture below.
The Western Digital External prototype lighted external drive housing.
ATI — No Reason To Panic, Yet…
Many of us wondered what ATI’s response to the launch of the GeForceFX would be. We will have to keep on wondering because, at least for the moment, ATI had little to say about the launch of their arch rival. Instead of making excuses or trying to come up with reasons why their card continues to be king, they shifted into high gear and talked about the accomplishments that they have made this year.
A selection of mobile products featuring ATI technology.
In a year that has seen ATI do more right than wrong, the company launched a new PDA platform, mobile GPU, intergraded solution, All In Wonder Solution, workstation solution and, of course, desktop solution. They seem to be firing on all cylinders and that is good, because we believe that NVidia is going to attempt the «full court press,» so ATI will need to be playing their best game.
A selection of the integrated products all together at once. As you can see, there are more than a few solutions.
ATI had every reason to celebrate today as they were selected as the Winner Of the PC Magazine Award Of Technical Excellence, beating out the NVidia GeForce 4 Family and Intel’s Hyper Threading technology.
An impressive selection of third party solutions from a variety of partners of ATI.
AMD — Everything Is Still On Track…
Part one of the AMD motherboard wall of fame.
In our brief visit with AMD today, they assured us that everything is on track. Given the possibly turbulent times over at AMD, this was not as much of a «given» as perhaps it should have been. At any rate, the bottom line is that work progresses and road maps and time lines will be met. There are not many changes at AMD at the moment, but, like everyone, they are finding it difficult to have to deal with this tough economy.
AMD will continue its push into the corporate market and hope that this new Compact Evo D315 will continue to be the ticket, once IT spending starts moving again.
Part two of the AMD motherboard wall of fame, I can remember the time when the only chipset for an AMD processor was the 761. Now, solutions come from everyone, which is a good thing, because it will give the consumer a lot of choices once the hammer falls in the future.
CPU Mate — Heat Pipe Cooling Solution
Everything comes in colors these days, including the cooling solutions from SPU Mate.
CPU Mate showed their thermal solutions, which feature some excellent heat pipe technology. These solutions offer an innovative design that should be able to remove the heat to give users the «freedom to overclock,» or at least that is what they tell us. It appears to be an impressive and well thought-out design. We look forward to taking a look at the CPU Mate in our next Heat Sink review.
An up-close look at the CPU Mate cooling solution.
Palm — I Wish I Could Try One Of Those!
A look at the Palm Solutions line-up.
Althought people have been very active talking about the new devices from Palm, perhaps the big story beyond the sexy Tungsten PDAs has to be the introduction of the new Zire. With an introductory price of $99, people can finally try a Palm platform device without fear of jumping into the PDA abyss at great loss of moolah. Many users are afraid to try PDAs because of the expensive cost, and Palm has addressed this issue by offering a full-featured PDA for a measly $99. If you try it and don’t like it, give it to your kids, and know that you didn’t spend a lot for it. While it is grayscale and only has 2MB of RAM, it could very well be the stocking stuffer of the holiday season.
Tungsten|W wireless solution appears to be hitting the mark, but it only comes with Palm OS 4.11, which means no upgrade to 5.
We were impressed with both the new Tungsten|T and the Tungsten|W — excellent products, well constructed and designed. We also liked the new package for the Tungsten|T, which appears to have barrowed a page from the Apple iPod in the packaging department. We can’t wait to get them in the lab and have a look at them.
Enermax — A Case For New Designs
Enermax never seems to rest. These guys are always busying designing new cases. We got a first hand look at some of these hot new designs. In a variety of looks and configurations, there were some really cool-looking cases, but I am not sure about the crazy, design-painted ones. Enermax tells us that these latest designs should be available in the coming weeks, but the jury is still out on the painted cases.
The newer, lighted-window case, flanked by the new, full tower offerings.
Talk about creative, these cases were some of the best that we had seen so far, but Enermax has not yet made a commitment to move forward with them.
These cases were really cool. The cases were all screwless, but the unique thing is that they are all the same case except front bezel. Cool idea! These are coming to market soon; look for them at your favorite Enermax dealer or tell you dealer to order them.
The Enermax Power Supply line continues to grow with new colored power supplies and new silver braided cabling.
Dell — Axim X5 Launched
The Dell Axim X5 PDA.
We got our first look at the new Dell X5 Axim. The Axim was very intresting and we really like the removable battery concept. Dell spent a lot of time listening to the customers in the Design of the X5. This is obvious just by looking at it. While very stylish, it offers a unique twist on the PDA theme. Look for Dell to sell a ton of these and look for us to put it to the test shortly.
The Dell Axim X5 in the docking station. The docking staiton includes the ability to charge a second battery, which is unique. The Axim X5 had been handled a lot before we took the picture, if you should buy one it will not look as bad.
Conclusion
The very first passive-cooled 9700 Pro board from Sapphire brings heavy metal glamour to the graphics industry. The board also doubles as a very dangerous bludgeon.
Well, to end on a high note, we have a not-so-new, but seemingly refreshed, entrant into the graphics board business. Sapphire, who has taken Hercules’ exclusive crown as supplier of ATI boards in Europe, is making headway into the US market through Tier Two retail outlets, as well as e-tailers such as NewEgg. Sapphire used Comdex to launch a 9700 Atlantis Pro board, the first, the company claimed, with a passive cooling solution. It’s a heavy baby, but very cool in more ways than one. Cool, as in heat dissipation, and that little pipe used to conduct heat between heatsinks on either side of the board makes the board look like a custom Harley low-rider, at least in graphics board terms.
In a day dominated by Nvidia’s launch, and not much else of great note, it seems fitting to end on a graphics note. We will keep trawling the Comdex highways for more interesting products and news as we find it. For now, off to the Blackjack tables at Circus Circus where there is, apparently, a one dollar minimum. Oh, yeah, baby!
