Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/2031



We are wrapping up our Computex 2006 coverage and although there are still hundreds of various products to discuss, we need to get back to the business of reviewing some of the products that are actually available. We will close our coverage with a look at a few external storage products, cooling items, and some miscellaneous items we found in our travels.



As we mentioned in our previous coverage, Intel really was everywhere at this show. Generally speaking, the majority of the products we viewed were evolutionary in nature. While there were some unique products such as the Thermaltake Mozart TX that took a completely different spin on a decades-old idea or the various USB 2.0 Flash Drive designs from A-Data, there really were no revolutionary products that we could find in our travels. We kept looking for a product that would just reach out and grab our attention - you know, the type that would cause lust in our hearts and put our brains into action trying to figure out how to come home with it at any cost. However, in the end we ended up viewing a lot of interesting products but ones that kept our Visa cards safely secured. That is not to say there were not a few products that we lusted after, like our Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 loaner that stayed with us for the briefest of moments, but overall the show was about maturity in the personal computer market and evolutionary strides in product designs.

External Storage Products:

SansDigital

We stopped by the SansDigital booth to view their new Mobile Silver line of products. While they have been marketing their AccuRAID (2U Rackmount), EliteStor (1U Rackmount), and EliteRAID (3U Rackmount) products into the business sector for some time, it is their MobileStor and MobileRAID products they are featuring for the home and small office user that we found to be interesting.



This is a small sampling of the Mobile Silver lineup of products that feature everything from a 2.5 inch Portable Hard drive enclosure to the five-drive external RAID enclosure featuring a SCSI Ultra 320 or SATA 3Gb/s interface.



The MS1U enclosure features support for 2.5 inch IDE hard drives up to 160GB in size, USB 2.0 interface, and 9-in-1 multi-format memory card reader/writer along with single button backup capability from the memory card to the hard drive.



The MR5S1 is a five bay external RAID enclosure that can be configured with either a SCSI Ultra 320 or SATA 3Gb/s interface. The enclosure supports RAID 0, 1, 10, 3, 5, 6, JBOD, and Hot Spare Disk. It also offers Online Array roaming, online RAID level/stripe size migration, online RAID capacity expansion and RAID level migration. If you're still following us, the feature list concludes with automatic insertion/removal detection and rebuild; Hard Disk, Fan and Temperature failure detectors; and a common drive carrier that can be used with all MobileStor enclosures.



QNAP

The QNAP viewing area was full of products ranging from Network Attached Storage devices to Network Surveillance systems.



The TS-101 Turbo Station NAS Server features support for a single SATA 1.5Gb/s or 3Gb/s drive, three USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, and a 1.5Gb/s e-SATA port. The unit also features real-time or scheduled backup ability along with Block Level remote replication capability.



The TS-201 Turbo Station NAS Server has the same features and capabilities of the TS-101 except it supports dual drives along with RAID 0, 1, or JBOD.



Similarly, the TS-401T Turbo Server is a four bay unit targeting the growing SMB enterprise market. The unit supports SATA hard drives; dual Gigabit Ethernet ports with fail-over, load balancing, and standalone settings; dual USB 2.0 ports; remote IP settings and optional hot redundant power supply, to name just a few options.



QNAP has leveraged their storage expertise into a full line of network surveillance products. Once of the more interesting ones we viewed was the VioStor-220 four channel network video recorder. The unit has a built-in 8-port 10/100 Mbps switch, can monitor 4 network cameras at once via IE browser, and is a 5-in-1 solution with Network Video Recorder, Firewall, Router, Print Server and NAS capabilities.



Areca

Areca was prominently displaying several new controller cards this year. They are also one of the market leaders for storage products with full support for DAS, NAS, and SAN. All of their PCI, SCSI, and Fibre Disk Array Controllers now support RAID levels 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, and 10 as well as JBOD.



The ARC-6080 external RAID controller features a dual 4Gb/s Fibre host and SATA ll device attachments. The controller has a base module with 16x SATA 3Gb/s channel support for disk drives and is designed around a PowerPC 533MHz 440SP 64-bit storage processor. The board supports up to 4GB of DDR2 667 on one DIMM socket with ECC protection, an Agilent dual channel 4Gb Fibre channel controller and a Marvell eight channel PCI-X SATA 3Gb/s controller.



Here's are the upgraded ARC-8000 series of SAS compatible controllers.



The new ARC-1300 4G Fibre Channel Host adapter should be available now.



And here's the recently released ARC-1380 PCI Express based 8 port SAS RAID adaptor card.

EZDupe

EZDupe specializes in CD and DVD duplicator products. One of the more unique products they advertise is the DiscZilla, an auto loading DVD/CD duplicator system that can hold up to 600 discs for processing along with a built-in printer for label generation.



The seven and eleven target duplicators were on display. The eleven unit DVD unit can duplicate up to 110 4.7GB DVDs per hour or 330 650MB CDs per hour. This is just what the aspiring home video/audio user needs on their desktop. Seriously though, there is certainly a market for devices like this, and we could see some indie bands/directors making good use of the capabilities.



Cooler Master

Cooler Master introduced several new or revised products at this year's show.



The iTower 930 is designed for the enthusiast with swappable 5.25 inch drive bays behind the front panel, localized cooling for the CPU and video card areas, and it features a tool-less design.



The CM Media BTX 260 is a new version of the CM 260 HTPC case with BTX support. It has an aluminum front panel with a steel chassis.



This is not your Dad's CM Stacker 830. This revised version brings the bling with everything from a custom fan and liquid cooling setup, a see through hard drive window (perfect for that windowed Raptor 150), and to top it off (literally) there's an iPod dock.



The AquaGate DuoViva is a new liquid video card cooling system designed for SLI or CrossFire based systems.



The AquaGate Viva system is actually a video card cooling system that has been converted to liquid cool your CPU with a universal retention system designed for K8 or LGA775 sockets.



The NotePal W1 series is designed to cool the larger DTR notebooks with a choice of either two or three 70mm fans powered by a USB 2.0 port on the notebook. The unit also functions as a USB hub and offers two on-board USB 2.0 ports. We lugged our 17" Widescreen notebook onto a test unit and it actually kept the bottom of the unit unusually cool compared to normal desktop usage.



Cooler Master



The Hyper L3 is a quick replacement for the stock Intel Core 2 Duo heatsink/fan. The unit features an all copper base with nickel plating, aluminum fin construction, and three heat pipes along with a 92mmfan to cool your Conroe. The fan moves about 49CFM at around an 18dBA level. We plan on testing this unit shortly.



One of the more unusual coolers we noticed was this Hyper Sphere unit that features an asymmetric heatsink and gliding fan duct design for cooling the VRM area along with the processor. Airflow and dBA numbers have not yet been released, but we are told the unit will perform very well while offering competitive noise levels with the intelligent fan speed control unit.



A design from the 1950's is the Space Navi. It has a universal retention mechanism and is designed for silent operation while providing better than stock cooling performance.



The X-Dream 775 is another Core 2 Duo inspired cooler with a copper base and frameless aluminum fin construction designed for near silent operation.



The X-Dream K640 is a low profile K8 design designed for tight case enclosure areas that still require excellent heat dissipation.



Zalman

Zalman also had several new or revised products in their booth.



The CNPS8000 is designed for slim or low profile computer enclosures but still features very good heat dissipation along with very quiet operation. The unit supports sockets 775, 754, 939, and 940 with AM2 support coming.



Zalman had several Fatal1ty branded coolers with the most interesting one being the FS-C77 unit that features a 120mm fan with red LEDs. Of course, for those not interested in the unique color scheme you can order the CNPS7700-Cu.



Another Fatal1ty branded cooler is based on a new design for VGA cards. This cooler features a radial fin design with two wrap around heat pipes sitting atop a solid copper core. Again, those not interested in the unique color scheme and red LED features can order the VF900-Cu with blue LED output.



One of our favorite HTPC enclosures in the past has been the HD160 from Zalman.



This is the soon to be released HD 160 XT with a revised front panel that features a larger multimedia panel along with a slightly tweaked interior for better ventilation.



Like most of the cooling oriented companies, Zalman was showcasing an entire series of power supplies.



The Reserator 1V2 is an upgrade to the original Reserator system that features a smaller foot in print while providing additional cooling capabilities. This unit should be released in August.



The Reserator 2 is a complete liquid cooling system that includes blocks for your CPU, Northbridge, and VGA graphics card. The unit was very compact and appeared to have decent block designs for each component. We expect to see this unit in July.



The TNN 300 is a micro-ATX case that is designed to be totally silent. The case design forgoes fans and instead relies upon passive cooling in the form of heatpipes and heat source contact technology to cool the internal components. We found the unit to be extremely well built along with offering a fair amount of room for components. The case also ships with a noiseless 350W power supply that should be sufficient for most m-ATX designed systems. This case would make an interesting choice for a stylish HTPC enclosure.



Realtek

Realtek is now the leader in audio codec shipments with a 65% market share in 2005. We dropped by their booth to see their two new products in the High Definition audio codec market.


On display was a manufacturer's reference board containing the new ALC-885 that is meant as an upgrade or replacement for the ALC-880, 882, and 883 codecs and is Vista Premium approved. The ALC885 is a high-performance 7.1+2 channel High Definition Audio codec with advanced lossless content protection technology that protects (and is required to protect) pre-recorded content while still allowing full-rate audio enjoyment from DVD audio, Blu-Ray or HD-DVD discs. The ALC885 also performs lossless audio streaming at 96kHz/24 bit or higher.
The ALC-885 features a 106dB DAC SNR and 101dB ADC SNR specifications along with 10 DAC channels supporting 16/20/24-bit PCM format for 7.1 audio solutions and concurrent 2 channel independent stereo output. In our limited comparison testing to the ALC-882D, the audio output was cleaner and provided warmth in the mid-ranges not present on the ALC-882.


Also on display was a reference card for the ALC-888 Telecom codec. This unique codec features a 7.1+2 channel High Definition Audio codec for VoIP/Skype applications. The ALC888 Telecom allows Skype connections through a traditional phone, offering the convenience of an on-board device for VoIP. The ALC888 Telecom is able to auto-switch from a Skype connection to a traditional PSTN service in the event of power failure, and continues to provide functions and services, e.g., emergency call (911) access. The ALC-888 features a 98dB DAC SNR and 95dB ADC SNR specifications along with 10 DAC channels supporting 16/20/24-bit PCM format for 7.1 audio solutions and concurrent 2 channel independent stereo output.

Random Shots

One trend that we noticed was the continued efforts of the motherboard manufacturers in producing their own case designs. However, like most of the "limited edition or unique" case designs over the past few years they tend to focus on the alien head theme.





The top case is from Asus and features a UV paint job along with very good internal design and thermals. The second case is the premium offering from Foxconn. This case sported an automotive quality paint job while also providing a clean internal layout.



Proview displayed several new widescreen monitors but the one that caught our eye was the new LC2209W that features a 22 inch wide screen (1680x1050) with a 5ms response time, 300 nits brightness, 700:1 contrast ratio, and a viewing angle of 170 degrees. The color was very rich and detailed and we could not find any backlighting or bleeding issues during our view time with the various video demonstrations.





One of our favorite product designs at this year's show was the Acer F5000 notebook series featuring their continued design collaboration with Ferrari. The 5000 series features a carbon fiber casing, Turion 64 X2 processor, 15.4 inch display, 160GB hard drive, a slot-loading DVD-Super Multi double-layer drive or HD-DVD drive, Acer Bluetooth VoIP phone, a 1.3MP web camera mounted at the top of the LCD panel, Acer InviLink 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi, WPAN with built-in Bluetooth 2.0 module, and integrated 56K ITU V.92 modem.

Closing Thoughts

Hopefully you have enjoyed our coverage of Computex 2006 this year. As a show this year, over 130,000 people visited the Computex halls and viewing suites making it the second largest computer show in the world. We certainly enjoyed our time in Taiwan and look forward to reviewing several of the products we displayed in our series of articles in the near future. We also met individually with companies such as Thecus and SIS; we will have more information on their product plans or actual reviews of their products shortly along with some interesting information from Acer on their Digital Display Centric strategy.

However, with the launch of Core 2 Duo in July, we are already trying to figure out how to work 24/7 in order to bring you the most comprehensive coverage available of Intel's new processor series and its related product requirements from motherboards to cases. Now, we just need to remember which suitcase contains those Core 2 Duo processors we were lusting after.

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