Comdex 2002: Wrap Up December 02, 2002 Brandon Bell

Introduction

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We were unable to show you much in our first Comdex report, which is why we wanted to go back and give you more details. The RADEON 9500 PRO launch and the Thanksgiving holiday all fell within a week of our return from Vegas so we were unable to sit down and look over our notes in more detail until now. The following is a wrap of everything else that took place that week; we hope you enjoy it!

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AMD

First things first, it was readily apparent that AMD’s “Hammer” line of CPUs is delayed, not due to infrastructure problems, but AMD is responsible for the holdup themselves. Practically every motherboard manufacturer that was present in Las Vegas had their Hammer motherboards on display, the only exception being ABIT. In fact, some manufacturers had multiple lines of Hammer boards available, some with VIA chipsets, others using AMD’s Hammer chipset. FIC was even demonstrating small form factor systems based on AMD’s Hammer platform!

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AMD/Intel future bus speeds

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400MHz Athlon bus?

Besides Hammer, there was quite a buzz surrounding NVIDIA’s demonstration of 400MHz nForce2 platforms. These systems were powered by CPUs utilizing AMD’s “Barton” core. Barton differs from today’s Athlon XP chips in that it contains 512K of L2 cache, twice the amount of cache present in today’s Athlon XP processors. By doubling the cache size, Barton will offer improved performance although the downside is that it will be more expensive for AMD to produce.

The fact that Barton was demonstrated running on a 400MHz bus led many to speculate that it will also launch with a 400MHz bus speed. Up to this point, the only confirmation we’ve received from AMD is that it will support a 333MHz bus, although obviously a 400MHz bus would synch perfectly with DDR400 memory. In a mild bit of irony, we first learned of 400MHz nForce2’s just the week before from NVIDIA spokesman Bryan Del Rizzo. Little did we know that just a week later they would be demonstrated at Comdex!

As far as we can tell, AMD plans to stick with a 333MHz bus for now, but we wouldn’t be surprised if a 400MHz variant of Barton popped up, especially if Athlon 64 slips any further or its availability is limited.

Intel

The big news from Intel was the release of its latest roadmap just a few days prior to Comdex. The most notable update was in its Springdale chipset, which is poised to bring dual channel DDR memory support down to the desktop level when it launches in the second quarter of next year. Intel’s current dual channel DDR chipset, E7205 or “Granite Bay” (which was launched last Monday) has always been intended for use in servers and workstations.

Previously Intel had committed to a 667MHz bus, but now their plans have changed to support a whopping 800MHz system bus! This will bring official DDR333/DDR400 support as well, something that E7205 lacks.

The real beauty of Intel’s 800MHz chipsets for next year though lies in their price. We’ve been told that the E7205 chipset alone sells for over $30 more than today’s 845PE chipset. In addition, motherboards based on the E7205 chipset require expensive 6-layer motherboard designs. As a result, these motherboards sell for a considerable premium over motherboards based on the 845PE chipset. While pricing hasn’t been determined for Springdale and Canterwood (another dual channel chipset featuring Intel’s 800MHz bus) we’ve been told that they support 4-layer motherboard designs and motherboards based on these chipsets should sell for considerably less than the E7205 motherboards that are on the market today. Besides the 800MHz system bus and AGP 8X, Springdale will also offer native Serial ATA support among its list of features.



SIDEBAR: After ClawHammer deubts next year, AMD plans to introduce “San Diego”. San Diego will be based on a 0.09 micron manufacturing process and will be introduced in the first half of 2004.

Sapphire Technology

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The “Ultimate” 9700 PRO?

If you recall back to our earlier RADEON 9700 PRO articles, we reported on the fact that third party manufacturers were utilizing ATI’s reference design for their 9700 PRO products. In fact, quite a few of them were simply buying their boards directly from ATI and selling them under their own brand name.

Since the 9700 PRO launch however, the engineers at these third-party manufacturers have had a little more time to refine their 9700 PRO products and will be releasing a second wave of products based on this core utilizing their own unique designs. One such design that really caught our eye was the Atlantis 9700 PRO Ultimate Edition from Sapphire Technology.

If you’re not familiar with Sapphire Technology, that is because up until now they’ve mainly been focused on fulfilling their OEM contract with ATI. Just as VisionTek produced all of NVIDIA’s reference cards before they went under, Sapphire Technology produces all of ATI’s cards. Just recently they’ve decided to focus more of their efforts on getting into the retail sector directly.

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MSI	Page:: ( 4 / 8 )

GeForce4 Ti 4800

MSI was the only manufacturer with GeForce4 Ti 4800-SE cards on display at Comdex. Are you unfamiliar with the Ti 4800-SE designation? This is because NVIDIA is devoting most of its marketing efforts to GeForce FX now that it has been announced. As its name suggests, the GeForce4 Ti 4800-SE is nothing more than a GeForce4 with AGP 8X.

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MSI’s motherboards

MSI also had a number of Pentium 4, Athlon XP, and Hammer motherboards on display at their meeting room in the Venetian. The board you’re probably interested in the most is their K7N2, which is based on the nForce2 chipset. Right now MSI is still trying to determine the proper way to market their nForce2 products, since they feel that KT400 is so similar. As you can see the board MSI had on display wasn’t as feature-packed as their KT400 offering, the KT4 Ultra. Features such as Serial ATA/RAID weren’t present on the board. In any case, MSI is putting the finishing touches on the K7N2, we’re fairly certain that they will be offering multiple variants, the boards should hit US shores in the next few weeks.

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FIC	Page:: ( 5 / 8 )

It’s raining Hammer products!

Of all the motherboard manufacturers, FIC’s Comdex suite arguably contained the most gems. Thanks to its booming OEM business, FIC had quite a few products from ATI and NVIDIA, the only manufacturer we’ve seen with products from the archrivals.

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nForce2

In the more immediate future, FIC will be producing motherboards based on NVIDIA’s nForce2 chipset. The AU11 will be the company’s value product and will utilize NVIDIA’s SPP-128 with the MCP serving as the South Bridge. If you want an nForce2 board with a little more oomph, FIC offers the AU13 Chameleon. The AU13 Chameleon will utilize NVIDIA’s IGP variant of nForce2, along with the MCP-T South Bridge. This means that the board will offer built-in graphics as well as Dolby Digital audio and NVIDIA’s DualNet connectivity. FIC will also be throwing on Serial ATA and Firewire support, so this could be one very nice motherboard once FIC is finished with it. They’re currently shooting for a late December launch for this product.

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KT400A

FIC was indirectly responsible for the KT400A leak during Comdex. While AMD also had KT400A motherboards on display in their Comdex booth, FIC was the only manufacturer that listed KT400A as a dual-channel (DDR400) solution. This KT400A product, the AN19P, should hit retail channels sometime in January, but according to FIC it’s currently under performing in comparison to nForce2. FIC will also be including Serial ATA, Gigabit LAN, and 5.1-channel audio on AN19P.

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SOYO/SiS

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P4X600

SOYO was the only motherboard manufacturer demonstrating VIA’s dual-channel DDR platform for the Pentium 4, P4X600. This isn’t too surprising considering SOYO’s history with VIA, they were also the only major manufacturer to really promote their P4X400 product here in the US.

The P4X600 DRAGON Ultra sports SOYO’s silver PCB and is outfitted with Serial ATA, 5.1 audio, and Gigabit LAN. In case you were wondering, all of VIA’s recent Pentium 4 platforms support Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology, even though VIA does not possess a Pentium 4 license. While P4X600 was initially scheduled for December, it has recently been delayed until January of next year. SOYO is hoping to have early samples by the end of December with widespread availability at the end of January.

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SiS

Over at the SiS booth, we were able to get a live demonstration of AMD’s Hammer platform in action. The processor was running at 1.4GHz on the SiS 755 chipset. SiS was running a loop of DroneZ on their Xabre 600 GPU, which was also launched during Comdex.

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ABIT	Page:: ( 7 / 8 )

Gigabyte and ABIT were also displaying their wares at Comdex, although their suites weren’t quite as stocked as the ones we’ve mentioned previously.

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NF7-S

The gem with the most potential at the ABIT booth was their nForce2 product, the NF7-S. The “S” designation denotes that the board features NVIDIA’s SoundStorm technology. ABIT will also be releasing a version without Dolby Digital sound support. The NF7-S utilizes NVIDIA’s SPP North Bridge meaning it doesn’t offer integrated graphics. As ABIT’s target audience for the NF7-S is hardware enthusiasts and gamers there’s obviously no need for the integrated GeForce4 MX graphics. And while the South Bridge used on the NF7-S is the MCP-T, the NF7-S doesn’t offer NVIDIA’s DualNet networking. In fact, we can’t recall seeing a single motherboard with DualNet support, suggesting that NVIDIA is having a tough time getting motherboard manufacturers to adopt this feature.

Granite Bay

ABIT also had its Granite Bay board, the GB7 on display at Comdex, but ABIT officials were quite frank with us when they stated that it may be a limited release. With Intel’s Springdale chipset right around the corner offering more performance at a lower price, ABIT isn’t certain how they’re going to market the product.

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Gigabyte

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Gigabyte was demonstrating their Granite Bay motherboard, the “6-dual miracle” GA-8INXP. Unlike conventional motherboards, the GA-8INXP features a dual three-phase power system. This provides a backup if one of the power system’s goes down, while during normal operation it acts as a six-phase power solution. Gigabyte claims that their six-phase implementation will result in better stability at higher clock speeds, especially when overclocked. They also believe their dual power solution extends the life of the motherboard. Depending on how well it’s received, Gigabyte may implement dual power systems on future motherboards.

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That’s a wrap

Obviously from a gamers' perspective, the highlight of this year’s Comdex was GeForce FX. Unfortunately, hard independent numbers weren’t available in time for launch, but GeForce FX will still be an interesting product to watch. Will it have enough to compete with the latest and greatest from ATI? Right now, it’s hard to say. What we can tell you is that the product is roughly three months late today, so by the time it ships it will be nearly six months late to the party.

NVIDIA has enjoyed a technology lead over ATI for quite some time, but spotting them six months is never a good idea. Now that ATI has two fulltime design teams, you could say that this was the worst time for NVIDIA to slip. ATI’s update to RADEON 9700, codenamed R350 is rumored to be just around the corner. Lets face it; it’s ATI’s game to lose now that they clearly have the initiative with their family of DirectX 9 products. All the gamers want them for their blistering performance, excellent image quality, and competitive price, while OEMs will likely be scrambling into position for many of the same reasons.

NVIDIA’s best hope is GeForce4 Ti 4200, especially now that second-generation AGP 8X products are hitting the market. Many of these cards are shipping with over-the-top features and attractive prices, resulting in price drops for older Ti 4200 parts. NVIDIA has been riding their Ti 4200 horse nearly all year long, now they’ll need it to last them through the final stretch if they’re going to hold market share against ATI. If they can just hold the 58% (according to Mercury Research) of the market they currently own, that would probably qualify as a victory for the company.

As far as Comdex is concerned, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for next year’s convention. Comdex 2002 was slower than Comdex 2001, which was mainly held up by the attacks on 9/11. Many avoided the show because of security concerns or didn’t feel comfortable traveling. If the economy doesn’t turn around soon, Comdex could go away entirely.



SIDEBAR: What was the highlight of Comdex this year, GeForce FX or Microsoft’s Tablet PC? Perhaps the AMD and Intel updates caught your attention the most? Talk with others in the news comments!