Computex Taipei 2005 Coverage

Next stop, the Albatron suite. They’ve released quite a few new motherboards this year along with some pretty innovative graphics cards. In particular, they had some NVIDIA 6800’s on display. They featured a 2+1 Backup Wisefan III cooling solution. On these coolers only two fans run at a time. If one stops (or if you use your finger to stop one of the fans), the spare fan instantly starts to spin. There is no delay. The cooling fans also sit on the back of the PCB rather than on top of the core. Heatpipes allow for the heat to be transferred to the back of the card where it is then dissipated.

Another thing that caught our eye was the Albatron ATOP Bridge. It allows users to convert an AGP card into a PCI Express card. Performance-wise the converter causes a ~5% decrease, but it does allow users to continue using their old AGP cards in their new PCI Express systems. This will be very useful for many budget users.

Also on display at Albatron was the Widio. This device is actually a wireless audio receiver/transmitter. Basically the receiver can be removed and taken anywhere within 100m of the base. It actually has enough bandwidth to transfer the full signal with no compression.

Another item displayed at the Albatron booth was a strange card sticking out of the motherboard. This is called the mPOWER. That is actually a card that adds a fourth power phase to the existing three power phases. This will allow the CPU to run more stably and also helps cooling. This will definitely be a very nice feature to have for enthusiasts and hardcore overclockers.