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Computex Taipei 2005 Day 1: Desperately Seeking Excitement

06:00 - Tuesday 31 May 2005 by Patrick Schmid

1. Computex 2005
2. Abit Ready For ACON5
3. AData: DDR2-1066 Ready
4. Asus
5. Dual 6800 Ultra Graphics Board
6. ATI MVP Aka CrossFire
7. DFI: New O.C. Party Motherboard Series
8. ECS: PF88 Motherboard Supports P4, Pentium D, Pentium M, Athlon 64, X2 A...
9. FSP: Blue Storm Or Green Power?
10. GeIL: CAS 1.5 DDR400, DDR650 And Carbon Fiber DImms
11. Gigabyte Showing Dual 6800 Ultra

12. Intel: No Word Of The P4 Anymore
13. Kingmax Showing Highest Clock Speed Memory
14. Microsoft Is Here, Too
15. MSI 64, Now!
16. Turion 64 Notebook
17. RX800 Dual Features Both AGP & PCI Express
18. NVIDIA G70 Cards Spotted
19. Transcend Showing DDR2-800 DImms
20. ULi
21. XGI Shows Volari 8300 And 8600
22. Fanless HD Cooler

The Computex exhibition hall in Taipei, Taiwan is indeed a familiar, yet rapidly-changing venue. Since our annual Computex coverage began eight years ago, the Taipei World Trade Center and the nearby Taipei 101, the world's tallest skyscraper, have seen a lot of changes in one of the most dynamic regions of the world. However, real excitement about the IT hardware industry is not so apparent.

Sadly there are fewer people and even fewer really exciting products this time around. Maybe this phenomenon can be attributed to leading vendors' product release schedules. Intel, for example, released most of its information about its 945/955X chipsets and the Pentium D some time ago. ATI was expected to launch a product to compete with SLI, while both ATI and NVIDIA are only getting ready to launch their new chip generations called R520 and G70, respectively. AMD followed Intel's paradigm and provided review samples of its Athlon 64 X2 dual core processor to worldwide media weeks ahead of the actual product launch (which is today, by the way). The coast seems to be clear by now.

What a pity, considering that a buzz is something the Taiwanese computer industry urgently needs. There are many mid-sized motherboard makers struggling to survive in the mid-term, as the big guys such as Foxconn and Asus have been cutting margins by lowering prices. As a result, some of them try to retreat or to jump into a niche, while others hope to be more successful by partnering. Chaintech and BTC, supposedly, have teamed up; ECS is going to merge with a large supplier.

These company moves may be a good idea, but they still do not solve the dilemma. Only few companies will prevail, while others will inevitably be lost. The quest for establishing a globally-recognized brand obviously is something most of these guys underestimated.