Computex 2008: full of chiptastic promise

NEXT WEEK'S Computex will be the first to be spread across two very distant hall clusters: one is the old TWTC/TICC/Hyatt group, there for over 20 years now, while new kid on the block is the Nangang hall a couple of miles (of jammed Taipei traffic) away. Yeah, there are free shuttles, just try to get into them alongside a hundred thousand other visitors.

Of course, stuff based on both Intel and AMD processor platforms will be strewn across both hall groups - from TICC where Intel always makes its comfy nest, to various vendors in TWTC Halls 1 - 3, the Hyatt and even nearby department store halls in Xinyi district. Many large Taiwan vendors have taken up new, large booth positions in the Nangang hall instead.

Talking about Intel and AMD, we all know that, in four to five months, you should see the first batch of Nehalems - Bloomfield high-end PC and Gainestown dual-socket workstation-cum-server-cum-Skulltrail 2 - both running on variants of Tylersburg chipsets.

Now, our deep throats say that there will be more than one working Nehalem on the show this year, in near-final production condition. You might want to look beyond the Intel booth for some, a couple of Chipzilla's large board partners look favourite.

On the other hand, Montevina - the next dream notebook platform with 3-D integrated graphics, real WiMax and 802.11n WiFi to transmit and receive HD, is more likely to appear in July now. But there will be a few shown around some booths, most probably behind closed doors.

The Hector and Co also have something upcoming - do look for some demos of 45nm quad-core Phenoms and Opterons, well disguised and or hidden, of course. How well? Depends on how close the chippery is to the usable production stage. But in any case, you should be able to spot some.

In summary, this should be the first Computex in a while to see early intros of both Intel and AMD next generation CPUs at one go - not to mention behind-closed-doors NV and ATI upcoming GPU show offs.

Now, dear readers visiting old Taipei, do let us know how many of each you find. We will surely be keeping count. µ