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Saturday, June 8th, 2013
| Time | Event |
| 12:03a | Computex 2013: Galaxy Expanding into Motherboards, PSUs, SSDs
Galaxy is known more for their graphics cards, and in particular the HOF/SOC series of high end NVIDIA cards - some models of which have featured a white PCB. So you can imagine my surprise to see a motherboard sitting in the line of ‘new products’. The Galaxy Z87-HOF has one feature which sets it apart from all other Z87 motherboards – it claims to have full PCIe 3.0 x16/x16/x16/x16 support using only one PLX chip. Normally on motherboards we encounter the PLX 8747 which takes 16 CPU lanes and multiplexes/buffers them into 32. The Galaxy Z87-HOF uses an upgraded version of the PLX with the number 8780, providing 64 lanes of output for the 16 lanes input. The 8747 version costs around $40 to the manufacturers, whereas this other model is nearer $100, so we can imagine the Z87 HOF might be a little expensive, although we get full bandwidth and latency of only a single PLX chip, despite the x16 uplink limitation. The Z87-HOF uses the high-end IR3550 ICs from International Rectifier (the same ones we see on Gigabyte UP motherboards) – these are around $4 each and this motherboard has 16.
No word on release date, but apparently extreme overclocking team HKEPC have been providing feedback as to the design and capabilities. The white PCB of the Galaxy 780 SOC was also on display:
Also their line of Thunder SSDs (using Sandforce controllers) and new PSU:
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| 2:18a | Computex 2013: Huntkey showcases micro-ATX All-In-One Chassis
A lot of companies are dealing with the All-in-one concept. One side of the global business is dealing with the manufacturing, and then the other side is marketing, distributing and actually selling. Out of the all-in-one market, there is a push from various manufacturers for DIY all in ones – you buy the chassis with the panel and power supply, and then fit your own motherboard, CPU and memory (the CPU cooler is often part of the chassis or a small heatsink/fan). This is essentially what Thin Mini-ITX was designed for. Though now users wishing for more motherboard choices have Huntkey to turn to for a micro-ATX chassis solution. This possibly expands the market in terms of less restrictive motherboard requirements.
With a 1920x1080 21.5” CMO (Chi Mei Optoelectronics) A+ panel that has to be removed with a suction cup (should be included with the panel), the chassis will come with a 150W Bronze power supply and the CPU cooler:
No word on what markets Huntkey are going to focus on, or whether this is an OEM project, but I would imagine China would be the initial market, with others to follow. |
| 3:12a | Computex 2013: Silicon Power and Rugged Portable Storage
Silicon Power are currently a brand dealing with memory and flash storage, but on visiting their offices as part of our Computex 2013 activities they had a couple of external hard-drives up for show with eyes set on penetrating the US market. First up is the Armor A80 waterproof external drive, which was aptly showcased in a tank of water (above). The drive features an all-aluminum chassis, and is rated IPX7, meaning the device is rated for total immersion up to 1m for 30 minutes and users should assume a reasonable level of solid particle protection.
Silicon Power will be advertising the portable hard-drive as water, pressure, vibration and shock proof in compliance with US MIL-STD-810F standard (freefall from 122cm on all contact points). The drive connects via USB 3.0, and will be sold in capacities up to 1TB.
Next was the Armor A15, A more rugged version of the A80 designed for dusty regions. The standard USB 3.0 connector is actually not appropriate for such a purpose, and the A15 uses a proprietary connector to get around this issue.
No word on pricing or release date for the US as of yet.
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