Factory tours

The next day we were treated to ABIT and Kingston factory tours located in Suzhou and Pudong respectively. Pudong, known as “Silicon Harbor” is a free trade zone which allows foreign companies to setup shop in China without paying any taxes for products shipped outside the country. Driving through Pudong is quite a unique experience with miles of manufacturing plants from the who’s who of industrial titans from around the globe.

Unlike the design stages, the actual manufacturing of motherboards is no longer rocket science. The key to building reliable components is good design, good parts and solid quality control. About a year ago, Abit learned the hard way that using cheap capacitors for their motherboards could quickly lead to financial ruin and from that day forward has only used the best components available for manufacturing. Abit was not the only company who had gone to the bargain bin for parts, but they were the only ones who admitted it and vowed never to do so again. Some of you may have recently read that a class action lawsuit was filed against another major motherboard manufacturer for not handling the situation in such a forthcoming manner.

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but just about everything you buy these days has a “Made in China” label affixed. Motherboards and memory chips are no exception. China has an abundance of low cost labor and manufacturers around the world have moved in to take advantage of the cost savings. The benefit to the consumer is obvious with items like DVD players now costing about $35 retail. Not everything is manufactured in China, but with the wave of industrialization taking place throughout the country it is obvious to me that China will be the next super power. Lets keep our fingers crossed that their political reforms start to outpace their industrial reforms.

Kudos to ABIT for such a well-organized event. A lot of the competitors have known each other online for a long time, and although many of them belong to the same clan, SK, this was their first time to hang out in person. From what we could see, all the gamers hung out and partied together like old friends and had a great time. Word has it that next year’s tournament finals could be held in Beijing, Seoul, or even Hawaii, so stay tuned for more updates as they become available.

We believe that everyone who attended ACON4 will be forever grateful to Abit, Kingston and the other sponsors for putting on such a great event and we all look forward to ACON5.