By the time you read this, COMPUTEX Taipei 2000 should be in full swing. Here we have more in-depth coverage of the products being announced this year at the show. Today we will take a look at the news from Gigabyte, MSI, ECS, Chaintech, and Transcend.
Oops, Gigabyte did it again. They impressed us once more, and we are not all that innocent. In addition to hearing about their new board plans, we visited their Ping Jen Facility 1 factory, the construction site of their Ping Jen Facility 2 factory, and their new headquarters in Taipei. As for photos of their assembly lines, you're going to have to wait for another article. For now, we are going to talk about Gigabyte's new products for COMPUTEX 2000.
On the i815 and i815E front, Gigabyte has four boards coming. The i815 FC-PGA socketed microATX GA-6OMM7 will sport three PCI, three DIMM, one AGP and one AMR slot as well as the usual i815 integrated video. It is a pretty straightforward board otherwise. Beyond Gigabyte's normal sturdiness, the board has a Smart Card reader port. The GA-6OXM7 is an ATX version of the same board with an additional three PCI slots.
There will be ICH2, or i815E, versions of each board, named the GA-6OMM7 and GA-6OXM7E. The E versions use CNR instead of AMR, have ATA/100 support, and have all the other features of ICH2. Also, the GA-6OXM7E comes with an extra DIMM socket, DualBIOS, Suspend to RAM (STR), and carries a Creative CT5880 PCI sound chip. There will be another board, called the GA-6OXM7E-1, which is a GA-6OXM7E without the extra DIMM socket, STR, PCI sound, or Dual BIOS. We think the GA-6OXM7E has a bright future.
On the Athlon front, Gigabyte has three boards coming. The KT133-based Socket A-toting microATX GA-7ZM will sport three PCI, three DIMM, one AGP and one AMR slot. It is a very straightforward board. The GA-7ZX uses the ATX form factor and adds two more PCI slots, a shared AMR/ISA slot, an onboard Creative CT5880 PCI sound chip (four-channel), and DualBIOS.
Gigabyte will also have a new board based on AMD's 750 chipset. The ATX Socket A GA-71XE4 carries three DIMM, one AGP, five PCI and two ISA slots (one shared). It should be Gigabyte's value priced socketed Athlon board.
On the VIA P6 front, Gigabyte will have two very interesting boards to show off. The GA-6VXD7 is a dual-FC-PGA Apollo Pro ATX motherboard. One AMR, one AGP, five PCI, one shared ISA, and four DIMM slots provide plenty of expandability. The board also comes with an integrated Creative CT5880 PCI sound chip, DualBIOS and STR. With Windows 2000 finally on the streets, dual-CPU systems are looking interesting.