Irene Hwang explains the importance of PCI Express.

ATI had a lot of action going on in its demo suite, including demos by Asus and Gigabyte. We also bumped into Karl Moreland from Intel there, who explained a bit of what piqued the curiosity of so many, including other vendors, at the conference. "I'm here today because Intel is interested in what ATI is doing with PCI Express," he said. "PCI Express will make an impact in Q2 of 2004. That's when you'll probably start seeing it on the desktop."ATI won three THG Readers Choice Awards later in the day for being the Best Graphics Card Manufacturer, for Best Innovation in Graphics (All In Wonder Radeon 9800 Pro) and Best Innovation in Mobile Technology (ATI Mobility Radeon 9600).

Andy Thompson of ATI displays a brace of Readers' Choice awards.

David Day of Asus shows off flashy new products based on ATI technology.

ATI's Irene Hwang says PCI Express is not entirely dependent on ATI, but a lot of vendors are moving in that direction. "The vendors here are building products based on ATI's performance graphics technology as well as PCI Express," she says.

Gigabyte's Teresa Pan displays more Radeon-based products.

Gigabyte, also in the same suite as ATI, is a maker of motherboards as well as graphics cards and was displaying both in abundance. The graphics cards, of course, were based on ATI's Radeon technology, but Gigabtye's Thomas Lee also had some thoughts about motherboards. "Basically, I think in 2004 we'll see more features on board," he says. "Those will be the market drivers for system builders."