Four new chipsets shown off at Computex

THE DAY BEFORE the day before opening day at Computex is always a mess, but this year they seemed to be much more under control than last year, which in turn was better than the year before. There was all of nothing out, but that didn't mean there wasn't news.

The new stuff amid the sawdust and trash is all centered around chipsets from ATI and Intel. There seemed to be little else new to talk about on the show floor, but there will undoubtedly be surprises.

ATI is the first up with not one, but two new chipsets. There are places for most manufacturers to put boards based on the 780 and 790 chipsets up, most people were only expecting the 790. That board features up to 36 PCIe lanes in 2x 16 + 1x 4 configuration, or 4x 8 and 1x 4. The thought of Quad Crossfire is really tempting.

The 790 has support for DDR1066, PCIe2, and is socket AM2+. This brings higher speed HT to the table, but for a single socket you have to wonder why. In any case, I am not going to complain too loudly.

On the Intel side, there is the X38 and G35. The X38 is going to be the chipset to watch for the coming few months, all the high end Intel products will use it as a base. It is limited in PCIe lanes, but it should be a winner when matched with a quadish core Core Number Numeral core. There are a lot of form factors scattered around, from enthusiast boards to Shuttle boxes.

The less said about G35 the better, it is a tarted up G965 but the drivers are still broken. G965 never had working drivers for its entire life, and now G35 starts out on the wrong foot. F for effort guys, get it working or put it to bed.

More as we get it. µ