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Computex 2003 : Video
Interview of Scott Thirwell
Introduction *Notice : No part of this review is to be reproduced in any form, reposted, edited, translated into any languages without the prior permission of OCworkbench.com* Also check out our online coverage of Computex 2003 at http://www.ocworkbench.com/computex2003
The Transcript
Q : Is ABIT going to develop new graphics
card based on the XGI chipset ?
A: We met XGI a couple of weeks ago. They just
launched their company and their first products. We probably need a few weeks
to evaluate how well their products are performing and after we do the
evaluation we will consider whether to use their chipsets on our VGA cards.
Q : So, what other graphics chipsets would
you consider (for ABIT VGA cards) ?
A: For VGA cards, we are nVIDIA partner, thus
nVIDIA based VGA cards will always be our first consideration. nVIDIA still
leads the market from high end to mainstream which is our current market. The
gamers will generally request for nVIDIA based graphics cards and we are going
to continue to focus on the nVIDIA platform.
Q: We heard some rumours saying that ABIT is
not making any Socket 939 and/or Socket 940 boards. So, what are your comments
about that ?
A: Right now we are going to focus on the Socket
754 chipset products. Our users are generally higher end and demands better
performance and better and better overclocking options. When we look at Socket
939/940, a number of options came out. Our users don't like to buy ECC memory
which the 940 series requires. The second consideration that came out is that
during testing the Socket 754 when overclocked, have performance results that
is very comparable to the Socket 940, Therefore that make sense that we
recommend to our ABIT users the Socket
754.
Q: Do you think that it will sell more than
Socket 940 ?
A: Definitely because the biggest obstacle for Socket 940 is the Registered memory. Typically corporations will be willing to buy registered memory but gamers , performance users that AMD is going for Athlon 64, they won't consider buying registered memory.
Q: Will ABIT be considering using the ALi
M1687 chipset for your Althon 64 mainboards ? What are the considerations in
choosing the chipset?
A : For ABIT, whenever we design any motherboards, we will get every chipset available. We will do testing on those chipsets and decide on which chipset to use. For K8, we are down with NForce3 and VIA Performance on these two chipsets were stronger than then SIS and ALi and they decide to launch it together with AMD. So for ABIT, the first product is the KV8-MAX3 which uses the VIA K8T800 chipset. The other consideration is our users and in general our users like to see for AMD side, VIA or NVIDIA for chipsets. SiS is less acceptable by our market and ALi is simply not accepted by ABIT users and that is a great consideration to choose which chipsets to go with.
Q: We saw pictures of DigitDice, are there any plans to adopt watercooling
into the boxes? What are their target markets ?
A: For DigitDice in general, the target market, we took 2 ideas. DigitDice
came later than the Small Form Factor boxes in the market. Shuttle has it for
more than a yr, MSI has the megapc that is in the market for 6 mths to a year.
We were considering which market we want to target. Right now the SFF are more
for home PCs. The traditional SFF people will call it your mum's PC. We see
alot of LAN parties, in US there is QuakeCon, but you don't see a lot of SFF
at LAN parties. Why ? It is because, SFF relies on integrated graphics, gamers
do not want to be restricted with integrated graphics. So what we want is to
have small form factor DigitDice, enters today's market the home pc, and as a
SFF for the enthusiasts; abit's gamers. So for home user, we made it easy with
one touch multimedia. If you want to copy a CD, just press one button, there
is no need to use your mouse. It is the same for managing your photos and
music. For enthusiasts, we want to give them what they want. What they want is
full size for AGP cards. They want to use FX5900 or Radeon 9800pro cards. Some
of the existing SFF can't accept these cards, on the ABIT, you can. They also
demanded two HDD bays for 2 HDD. They have lots of music and videos on their
PC. So we can accomodate two HDDs, no other SFF offers that. Finally, one or
two buttons for copying CD, DVDs so we can do that. So this is really our
target market. We launched with Intel 865G which is integrated graphics with a
full size AGP slot. The second part, K8, we are considering that. Our concern
is still the availability of the CPUs. If our users can easily buy it, then
you will see a DigitDice with K8.
Q : With the launch of AMD 64bits processor, what would you per take the
market share.AMD versus Intel would be ?
A: For Intel and AMD, this year Intel did well for the gaming market, that
they lost to AMD last year. For ABIT, we game 100% to our users. Last yr it
was 70% AMD, 30% Intel. Now it is 50% AMD, 50% Intel. Next month, it could
probably be 60% Intel 40% AMD. Will the K8 launch change that mix, this year
probably not. It still come down to the amount of CPUs available in the
market. We don't expect a lot of K8 CPUs available in the market and it would
not influence the 10 of millions of CPUs sold worldwide.
Q: Lets talk abt. something different. will ABIT be considering making
Smartphones , PDAs ? What are your opinion ?
A: A lot of people have asked this question, from distributor to end users to
stores. In terms of what we are considering to make right now beyond our
tradition of making motherboards and VGA, we are still not sure. Now
considering Smartphones PDAs, something out of our traditional line of product
YES. People are saying we like ABIT products, we like to see more from ABIT.I
think over the next few months, we will come out with a plan of having
additional product line. Next year you would see ABIT brand in a different
industry.
Q: I see, so any new ideas that you would introduce ?
A: Right now. we are pretty early in the discussions stage, so I don't think I
will let out some of the things we have been talking about. Certainly, as you
have mentioned, smartphones and PDAs, we have started discussion on them
Thank you for accepting our interview.. Thank you. |
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